If you think the title The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) is strange, wait until I tell you about the rest of the movie. Then again, I cannot be too hard on any film starring Cary Grant. Still, one has to wonder about a story featuring a teenage girl falling in love with a man over forty. That much was apparent from the brief synopsis, which had my Catholic senses on full alert as I hit play. All I can say is that things were different in the 1940s. It is a tired cliché, and I do not like using it because it gives people in the past a pass for behaviors that are nearly universally denounced. The best I can do is explain what happens and let you be the judge.
The situation is strange from the beginning of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, although not quite in the way Susan Turner (Shirley Temple) would like. Richard Nugent (Cary Grant) is a successful artist and lecturer whose charm repeatedly gets him into trouble with women. After a nightclub disturbance involving an attractive woman and a jealous man, Richard finds himself before Judge Margaret Turner (Myrna Loy), who is unimpressed by his explanations and warns him to stay out of trouble. Margaret is unmarried and lives with her seventeen-year-old sister, Susan, a high school student firmly in the bobby-soxer generation. “Bobby-soxer,” by the way, is a reference to the teenager’s clothing. In said attire, Susan attends a lecture at her school where Richard speaks about art and creativity. She is immediately smitten, interpreting his polished manner and handsome appearance as evidence that she has encountered the great love of her young life. Richard, of course, has no idea that he has inspired anything more than adolescent admiration. Susan later sneaks into his apartment while he is away, intending to surprise him. She falls asleep there, and Richard returns home to discover a teenage girl in his room. Before he can sort out what has happened, Margaret and Assistant District Attorney Tommy Chamberlain (Rudy Vallee), Margaret’s persistent suitor, arrive. The circumstances look disastrous. Richard insists that he did not invite Susan and has no romantic interest in her, but Margaret is understandably furious. Susan, meanwhile, enthusiastically declares her love for Richard, making his predicament considerably worse. A psychiatrist and Margaret’s uncle, Dr. Matt Beemish (Ray Collins), advises her that directly forbidding the infatuation could intensify it. Instead, the adults should allow Susan to spend time with Richard until the fantasy collapses under the weight of Susan’s youthful flightiness. Richard is less enthusiastic about becoming the therapeutic treatment for a seventeen-year-old’s crush, but the alternative involves legal trouble and Margaret’s continued suspicion. He reluctantly agrees. Thus begins one of the stranger courtships in romantic comedy, although fortunately only Susan thinks it is a courtship. Richard accompanies her to a high school basketball game and other teenage activities, where he is surrounded by boys who view him as ancient. Susan’s actual teenage admirer, Jerry White (Johnny Sands), is particularly jealous. Richard attempts to make himself appear ridiculous and unsuitable, but nothing seems to work. The situation produces its most famous sequence when Richard tries to fit in with Susan’s friends by adopting their slang, clothes, and mannerisms. He even participates in an athletic competition at a picnic, but his main competition is Tommy. Richard’s competitive instincts take over, and he ends up proving himself far more capable than intended. His efforts to make Susan lose interest therefore have the opposite effect. Meanwhile, the forced arrangement brings Richard into increasing contact with Margaret. Their mutual irritation gradually becomes attraction, although Tommy continues hoping to marry her and views Richard as both a romantic rival and a man who should probably be kept far away from the Turner household. Susan eventually begins noticing the chemistry between Richard and her sister. Her adolescent fantasy turns into jealousy, and she becomes determined to prevent the relationship. Matters become even more complicated when Margaret starts questioning Richard’s intentions and whether his reputation with women makes him trustworthy, although she cannot deny her attraction. Richard, for his part, realizes that the woman he actually wants is Margaret, not the teenager everyone has forced him to escort. Susan’s attempts to preserve her imagined romance eventually become impossible to sustain. Richard makes clear that he cares about her but does not love her romantically, while the adults finally confront the absurdity of the situation they have created. Susan’s attention begins shifting back toward Jerry, who has patiently remained available despite having to compete with a man more than twice his age. The romantic obstacle between Richard and Margaret, however, remains Tommy. Richard finally decides that subtlety has accomplished very little and takes a more direct approach. He invites Margaret out for an evening of dancing, only to have all the interested parties show up and begin arguing. It nearly ruins everything until Dr. Beemish intervenes. He gets Susan to realize that she has been behaving poorly. Next, he arranges for Margaret to take a vacation, purchasing her a ticket for a flight he knows Richard is taking. The final scene sees the two of them boarding the plane together, finally able to admit what has been plain for some time.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer therefore spends much of its running time flirting with a premise that sounds alarming when reduced to a sentence, but the film never actually asks the audience to accept a romance between Richard and Susan. Her infatuation is treated as adolescent fantasy, while Richard’s increasingly exasperated participation is an attempt to help her outgrow it. Whether having a forty-something bachelor pretend to date a seventeen-year-old was the wisest possible method is another question entirely. Even 1947 probably had less complicated options. Evidently, audiences at the time found the story sufficiently droll for it to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the 20th Academy Awards in 1948. If you take away that one glaring aspect of the plot, then it is quite the clever script, and there were moments in which I was laughing out loud despite being alone during my viewing. What I am not trying to convey is a relativistic attitude toward morality. Being a Christian calls for moral clarity, but also for understanding. We can reject this premise out of hand, and few could blame you. However, Richard is placed in a less-than-ideal position, and he is doing the best he can to navigate it. In this regard, he can be praised for being honest, even if it does not always serve him in the present. The Christian life does not promise that good behavior will be rewarded immediately, or even visibly, in this life. Rather, we are called to do what is good out of love for God and neighbor, trusting ultimately in God and the promise of eternal life. That might not always be the biggest comfort in the here and now, but that is faith for you. We are called to be good for goodness’ sake, not because somebody is going to reward us immediately for some charitable act. Indeed, Richard is willing to leave the Turner family in peace instead of insisting on redress for the wrongs done to him. There is a lesson in such behavior, even if it did involve a strange test.
Indeed, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is a strange movie by past or present standards. But it is also charming and funny. It is a worthy inclusion in the pantheon of great Grant films.
