Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

JohnHowardReid Director: MITCHELL LEISEN. Screenplay: James Edward Grant, Albert McCleery. Story: James Edward Grant. Photography: Ted Tetzlaff. Film editor: Eda Warren. Song: "I Find Love" (Dietrich) by Jack King and Gordon Clifford. Dance director: Douglas Dean. Music composed by W. Franke Harling, directed by Morris Stoloff. Supervising art director: Lionel Banks. Art director: Rudolph Sternad. Gowns for Miss Dietrich: Irene. Hats for Miss Dietrich: John Frederics. Jewels: Paul Flato. Production assistant: Francisco Alonso. Sound recording: Lodge Cunningham. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Mitchell Leisen. A Mitchell Leisen Production. Executive producer: Charles K. Feldman.Copyright 26 January 1942 by Columbia Pictures Corp. A Charles K. Feldman Group Production. New York opening at the Capitol: 23 April 1942. U.S. release: 12 February 1942. Australian release: 11 February 1943 (sic). 9 reels. 8,235 feet. 91 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Elizabeth Madden (Marlene Dietrich), a celebrated musical comedy star, finds an abandoned baby and declares to her associates that she will raise the child. To show how much this lady knows about children, Elizabeth thinks the child is a girl, when it is actually a boy. The first time the baby cries, she thinks "she" is dying and begins calling doctors. She nearly drives her secretary Buddy (Aline MacMahon) and her business manager Kenneth Hanline (Stanley Ridges) crazy before they get in touch with Dr. Corey McBain (Fred MacMurray), a pediatrician with a yen to do research on pneumonia.COMMENT: Columbia is here attempting to imitate a Paramount picture — and succeeding mightily so far as sets, costumes and lighting go, but failing dismally as to script and direction. That last is really strange since Paramount alumnus Mitchell Leisen (together with his frequent Paramount photographer) is at the helm, but here in a strange studio, surrounded by unfamiliar craftsmen and technicians, his touch is heavy rather than light, emphatic instead of casual- seeming, pedestrian in place of imaginative. Of course the script is second-rate too, its witty lines grafted on to pasteboard and uninteresting (and often unsympathetic) characters, its one-line plot rapidly exhausted, thus forcing an unwelcome change of tone from heavy farce to tediously predictable romance to straight- out medical melodrama.Miss Dietrich looks the part but fails to convey the heart of gold the script so assiduously describes. She seems merely batty. In an even more impossible role, MacMurray, fine actor that he is, pulls out every stop to win audience support — and actually manages to wring a few good laughs out of the script through sheer charm and personality.A pity the momentum of the extremely witty opening credits is not maintained. Ten out of ten for the titles, boys, but alas the picture then goes steadily down the gurgler.OTHER VIEWS: A tedious domestic comedy that effectively wastes the talents of all concerned. It's sad to see Miss Dietrich being squandered in a piece of piffle like this, though she does have one musical number — fortunately repeated twice! But as for the rest of the film, it is almost unendurable to sit through it once. Whatever promise the script had, it soon takes a very predictable course with all the tediously familiar marital misunderstandings and melodramatic medical crises. The characters are as one-dimensional as the dialogue is witless and the direction has all the sparkle of a long-opened bottle of lemonade. The players do valiantly but the odds are stacked ever higher and higher against them. The film is well mounted too, with some very attractive sets and costumes, soft, flattering photography and a few of our favorite character players like Robert Emmett Keane (the hotel manager), Chas Halton (the hotel physician), Eddie Acuff (Patrolman Murphy) flitting around. But alas the film is a Humpty Dumpty which no amount of skillful dressing or deft editing could put together in an entertainingly acceptable form. — JHR writing as George Addison.Leisen is a set designer as much as a director. He probably spent so much time giving this picture the Paramount look, he skimped on pacing and performance. That's a pity, because in spacious sets, ritzy, sophisticated costumes and ensembles, and above all in that dazzlingly white, pin-point sharp yet glossily attractive cinematography, this is the best imitation Paramount picture I've ever seen. — JHR writing as Charles Freeman.

David Traversa Why does she blink all the time? The shy ingénue type? at forty? Preposterous. After a while it gets to be quite annoying. Is that the added touch to round up a dumb character? whatever, it's very difficult to accept Marlene Dietrich in such a disguise.She wears huge mink coats, shiny evening gowns (even in her kitchen and in the hospital scene) a la Cher (Yes, I know, Cher came later, but you know what I mean). Even in her more dramatic scenes she grabs that mink coat and doesn't let go, crying and all (It could have been a Carol Burnett sketch).I can only think that in those years people were extremely naive and took all these unreal props as part of movie life, so removed from their humble, dreary little lives and made it so enchanting to go home after the movie and dream while reading Photoplay or whatever movie magazine was issued back then.The movie is entertaining to a point but after a while you just want to give it up and go, do something else. All the situations are so outrageously phony that if you pretend to analyze them you'll stop watching this movie after the very first scene is completed.Froth to the nth degree.

bkoganbing Part of the premise of The Lady Is Willing is that the famous can get away with anything. Picture if you will yourself who while the police are investigating reports of a baby abandoned in a boardinghouse, just up and taking the infant. That would probably land you in jail for a stretch. But for Marlene Dietrich, famous musical comedy star, everyone is just forgiving as all heck and let's her keep the little tyke.Everyone except the IRS who is insistence that she be solvent. Unmarried or not doesn't seem to be the issue. She owes a lot in income tax. So she persuades pediatrician Fred MacMurray to marry her. That would certainly save on doctor bills.As for Fred who wouldn't want to marry Marlene? But when they enlarge their living quarters it's for cages for rabbits. MacMurray is doing research and needs them for experiments. He's also got an ex-wife sniffing around in the person of Arline Judge. She's more trouble than the rabbits.The Lady Is Willing just will never be ranked as one of the 10 best for either Fred or Marlene. It makes so little use of MacMurray's comic talents which I find very strange. As for Marlene, there are times in the film when she comes across more like Doris Day.Best in the film might possibly Marlene's girl Friday Aline McMahon. She has the film's best lines.But fans of Fred and Marlene should like it well enough.

sadie_thompson I watched this (after going through heck to get the video) because I wanted to see Marlene Dietrich do something different. I'd seen "The Blue Angel" and all the other big Dietrich movies, but I'd gotten the idea that this one stood out from the rest. Well, yes, in a way.Lili Marlene plays Elizabeth Madden, a popular musical comedy star and a complete moron. (That's where this differs from her other movies, I think--I don't recall her being so blasted ignorant in anything else.) SPOILERS AHEAD!!! We are talking about a woman who steals a baby because she's so cute, decides to keep it, and somehow fails to realize the baby is actually a boy. She names him Joanna. Her reasoning behind the mistake is this--everybody knows that girls wear pink and boys wear blue. The baby was in pink, therefore the baby was a girl. I had a hard time believing Marlene as such a NAIVE person, especially when it came to children and reproduction. Elizabeth is a darling person (I know that sounds silly, but she is), but she isn't Marlene and Marlene doesn't seem to be able to manage the deception. If you can get past that, then this can actually be a delightful little movie. Elizabeth is very earnest, caring, and generous, as evidenced by her list of "friends" that she gives all her money to. Because of that, she can't legally adopt. Her job isn't very stable, apparently, and she doesn't have much money in the bank. In walks pediatrician Corey McBain (lovable Fred MacMurray), who inadvertently provides an answer. Then comes the whole marriage of convenience (she gets her baby, he gets part of her apartment and money to study some disease in rabbits), and whoops! They fall in love. Gee, who didn't see that one coming? All in all, this movie's okay. Not great, but it's a nice viewing. If you're expecting belly laughs, you won't get them from this. (There were many other funnier movies that came out around this time: "The Lady Eve," "The Palm Beach Story," "Sullivan's Travels," etc.) Of course, what can you say about a movie whose claim to fame is the star being clumsy and breaking her ankle?