Make Way for a Lady

Perhaps it's a tribute to Anne Shirley's acting ability that I constantly felt infuriated at her meddling into her father's private life. I think not, because she always seems to act as though she was acting, which fits right into her character in this film. Of course, these feelings are from an adult perspective, and the film was primarily made for the teenage trade, and they will probably enjoy her antics. Her father's actions did not ring true, either. He, Herbert Marshall, has proposed to Shirley's English teacher, Gertrude Michael, and Shirley has the audacity to tell her she would not be welcome as a stepmother. It's not that she's jealous or doesn't want her father to remarry -- she's been pushing to have him marry Margot Grahame, a woman her father dislikes, although Shirley doesn't know that. When Marshall finds out about what she has done, instead of quick dressing down, he comforts the tearful, sickened Shirley and tells her everything is alright. Perhaps it happened, since Elizabeth Jordan's 1935 novel, "Daddy and I: A Chronicle of Small-Town Life and Youth, as Seen Through the Eyes of an Ultra-Modern Young Lady of Fifteen" may have been autobiographical. But I found it unlikely that any father would let his child get off the hook so lightly for such a severe interference. It seemed simply a plot device for the not-so-surprising ending.