Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

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.

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.

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.

blanche-2 Marlene Dietrich is the lady in "The Lady is Willing," a 1942 film also starring Fred MacMurray and Arline Judge. The beautiful Dietrich plays a musical star, Liza Madden, who walks off with an abandoned baby and takes him home. Though Liza lives well, she owes a fortune to the IRS and gives all of her money away, and she won't be able to adopt the child unless she's either married or solvent. She convinces a pediatrician (MacMurray) to marry her. He does, and they adopt the baby, now called Corey. The marriage is supposed to be in name only, but you know how those things go."The Lady is Willing" is not much of a story or a movie, but Dietrich is just stunning, and her acting is charming. She creates a very lovable character. MacMurray, as the doctor who falls in love with her, turns in a good performance. He's part of a dumb subplot involving rabbits that is dropped along the way. Dietrich's assistant is played by Arline Judge and her maid by Marietta Canty and they are both excellent in their roles. It's just too bad all of these good people had to be in this particular story.Obviously, the baby in question (David James) is unaware that the story is weak; he laughs and plays with telephone cords, Dietrich's hats and smiles at everyone. Just adorable.Definitely worth it for Dietrich and her fashions, and if you like kids, little Corey. Interestingly, one of Dietrich's famous legs was in a cast for part of the film, though it's not noticeable.

RanchoTuVu An amusing and fast-paced comedy about an actress (Marlene Dietrich) who finds an abandoned baby, brings it home, wants to adopt it but can't unless she gets married, then marries the pediatrician (Fred MacMurray) who she hired to check the baby out in what is at first a marriage of convenience. Later the pragmatist doctor and the impulsive actress will fall in love, and who better to play them than MacMurray and Dietrich? It all happens with great speed and dexterity, with some funny scenes with the police and a lady from child protective services and later a dishonest lawyer and a couple whom he persuades to declare that the baby is really theirs. In addition, MacMurray's true ambition is to do scientific research on rabbit reproduction, and Dietrich, as part of the deal sets up the adjacent apartment as his laboratory. Unfortunately, Dietrich's role gets to be bothersome and the film wanders off into melodramatic goo when the baby gets sick and needs an operation signaling a sad goodbye to what was a fairly sophisticated and promising comedy.