Wise Girl

In some ways, "Wise Girl" is much like "You Can't Take it With You"- -the film that won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director just one year after "Wise Girl" debuted. However, despite its similarities (as both are about goofy rooming houses filled with weirdos), the film is inferior mostly because the film seems very forced--as if the director and actors act loudly in order to convey how wacky the film is supposed to be.

When the film begins, you learn that the Fletchers are very rich and they are horrified that John O'Halloran (Ray Milland) is raising two little girls who belonged to the sister of Susan Fletcher (Miriam Hopkins). After all, John is poor and lives a crazy bohemian lifestyle in a strange boarding house...and he doesn't even send these two little girls to school! Susan decides to investigate all this undercover and befriends this odd family...and naturally John feels stabbed in the back when he later learns that she and her father are going to court to take the kids! However, inexplicably, Susan has fallen in love with John and also has determined to make a success of him whether he likes it or not!

This film does have some cute moments though I had a hard time believing any of this and the film often got louder instead of more clever. Worth seeing but a pale imitation of the goofiness of "You Can't Take it With You".