Janie Gets Married

First things first, "Janie Gets Married" is something of a madcap comedy, but it has a important point. Janie Conway's (Joan Hutton) parents prepare their daughter to marry returning WW II soldier, Dick Lawrence (Robert Hutton). Janie's old boyfriend, a vacationing soldier called "Scooper" (Dick Erdman), comes back and threatens to complicate things. Janie sets up her marriage so that at the end of each month, the couple can elect to take up the option to stay married or to dissolve the thing. It's playful.

Dick is given a job at Janie's father's newspaper despite his having no journalistic training or experience. His old army girlfriend, Sgt. Spud Lee (Dorothy Malone) arrives and she and Dick being working on a project. Janie becomes suspicious. Her parents and his parents each want to run their lives in their own way, and the pressure builds.

It finally explodes when Janie is throwing a dinner party for the man who wants to purchase her father's newspaper. Dick is drinking with his old army buddies in the house, as well, and there is the future husband of one of Janie's friends sleeping in another bedroom, and… the scene is wild for a few minutes.

I'm not going to give any spoilers. Robert Benchley is great as John Van Brunt, kind of the father figure to Dick, who seems to be the only person in this movie who understands everything, albeit in his laid-back way.

The important point, the underlying theme, was that the veterans returning from World War II might have been young and inexperienced in day-to-day Stateside commerce, but they were grown men who had to do things which required an adult mind and heart. Coddling them was foolish and unnecessary.

Throughout this movie, young Dick Lawrence, Jane's husband, seemed the naïve, young putz. When all is said and done, we understand what he really is.