Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

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.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

jpstewart-02578 I cannot claim this as among the great comedy films which would come later for Wilder (I'm thinking Some Like It Hot Kiss Me Stupid and The Front Page) this is certainly very good. Ginger Rogers looks glossy and glamorous in the opening shot and is in the last shot too, giving an excellent performance in a part which could easily have fallen flat on its face. In this she is helped along by Ray Milland who gets every little thing right in another performance which could easily have fallen on its nose. There are plenty of plot twists and turns. The plot ground covered is unusual. A nice touch is that Ginger Rogers' mother is played and very well by her real-life mother.

SnoopyStyle Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) is a hair massager making hotel calls in New York. She's tired of men making passes and decides to go home to Iowa. She's short on cash and pretends to be 12 for a train half-fare. She hides from the suspicious conductors in Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland)'s compartment. He's protective of the scared little girl. His fiancée Pamela Hill comes looking for him and finds Susan in his bed. Pamela's father Colonel Oliver Slater Hill is Philip's commander.Ginger Rogers is 30 and looks nowhere near 12. That hill is always going to be tough to climb but it would help if she's younger and more fresh faced. Billy Wilder keeps it light and fun in his first directorial efforts. It's a comedic romp as long as one ignores Ginger Rogers' obvious age. In addition, there are some underage awkward hijinx.

dougdoepke No need to recap the familiar plot.Thanks to a winning Ginger Rogers, the difficult impersonation of a 12-year old is brought off in charming fashion. Never mind that the actress is actually 30; we're willing to suspend disbelief because of Roger's skill at girlish innocence. The first part is a real hoot, especially with a randy Robert Benchley getting a scrambled egg along with a scalp rub. The train ride too amounts to a sparkly farce as Rogers has to manage sleeping arrangements with Milland in a single compartment. Also, shouldn't overlook Milland's avuncular charm as the good Samaritan "uncle". Any slip on his part with a presumed adolescent and the comedic aspect collapses. But once events reach the military school where Milland instructs, the narrative settles into a more conventional type comedy. It's still amusing but not up to the inspired first part. After all, it's hard to get chuckles from a disciplined cadet corps. I guess my only complaint is that the deliciously droll Benchley doesn't get more screen time. Just his presence is enough to get me chuckling.Anyway, it's tricky subject matter that could have spoiled at many points. Fortunately, Wilder and company manage to keep the amusement rolling in tasteful fashion despite the risks. All in all, the Paramount production amounts to one of the better comedies of the period.

calvinnme Ginger Rogers was lucky in that she wasn't pigeonholed into being a specific type of character and that she can play a variety of characters in different roles. She demonstrated a real knack for comedy here, in Billy Wilder's first job of direction. Ginger Rogers can't afford an adult train fare to Iowa, so she disguises herself as a pre-teen, and from there the film progresses into one long funny con-game.I loved watching Ginger assemble her little girl outfit in the bathroom of the train station. Granted, even without makeup and with her hair in pigtails, Rogers does not look 12. However, that is also part of the comedy of the film. Co-star Ray Milland's character has poor eyesight in one eye and as a result, he cannot tell that she simply looks too old to be 12. I thought Rogers looked very pretty with just minimal makeup and with the darker hair.Milland's character's fiancee's sister, Lucy, was hilarious and she was the one person who called Rogers out on her farce right away. Lucy is the real brains in the film and she actually says what the audience is thinking: "She doesn't look 12!" I loved how she blackmailed Rogers into helping out Milland whom Lucy seems to genuinely care about. She does not like her sister. And good for Rogers for being a 20-something ( actually a 30-something) who could still fit into a teenager's clothes! The squeaky voiced cadets at the school were funny with them all having the same pickup line about Sudan. I especially liked the cadet who thought he was more sophisticated because he was from New York. The actor played Nancy Drew's boyfriend Ted Nickerson (Ned Nickerson in the books) in the "Nancy Drew" films with Bonita Granville.Robert Benchley was great as Rogers' old customer who by sheer coincidence is the father of the New York cadet. He always did the befuddled sophisticate very well and with great dry humor.There were many things in this film that I recognized from I Love Lucy. 1) Rogers' hair treatment on Benchley with the oil, eggs and painful massage is similar to Lucy's scalp treatment on Ricky when he thinks he's losing is hair. 2) The cadets sing "Sweet Sue" on the way to picking up Rogers. That song was the song that the Ricardos and Mertzes sing in the "Breaking the Lease" episode. 3) Benchley's character's wife played Mrs. Benson in the episode where Lucy and Ricky moved into the 2-bedroom apartment.What was so interesting was the whole angle of an adult pretending to be a child who is falling in love with an adult who thinks she's a child. I thought it was strange when Milland complimented "12 year old" Rogers on her legs saying that they were a "nice shape" (or something like that). That seems like a strange comment to make toward a child. It's not something you'd see today in film.I liked that Milland's character kept meeting Rogers at all these different ages: 12, 20s, presumably 40s-50s and didn't really seem to question it, only that it was remarkable how all these ladies look so much alike.I saw this on the Universal DVD (although it's actually a Paramount film) the other night, and Robert Osborne's introduction is great, but it is a bit sad seeing him looking so hearty and strong in this eight year old DVD release versus the downturn his health has taken recently.