Nice effects though.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Director: RICHARD WALLACE. Screenplay: Frank Ryan and Bert Granet. Original screen story Arthur T. Horman and Jerry Cady. Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Film editor: Henry Berman. Art directors: Albert S. D'Agostino, Carroll Clark. Set decorator: Darrell Silvera. Costumes: Renie. Music composed by Roy Webb, directed by Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Assistant director: Sam Ruman. Sound recording: Hugh McDowell Jr. RCA Sound System. Producer: Howard Benedict. Copyright 8 September 1941 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Palace: 12 February 1942. U.S. release: 30 January 1942. Australian release: 5 March 1942. 7,338 feet. 81 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A young girl finds herself the center of a custody battle. COMMENT: An unexpected find. A gem. Why isn't this movie better-known? I agree entirely with a previous breezy reviewer. Not only is this a well-produced and absolutely hilarious comedy, but the fun gets crazier and daffier at every turn of the chucklesome plot. It's beautifully acted by a fine cast. In addition to the talented principals and other gifted comics like Eve Arden who are along for the ride, some of our favorite character players are spotted here and there, including Ralph Sanford as Pudgy, George Lloyd as another court attendant, Jimmy Conlin as the man hit with the pot, Hal K. Dawson as a train Romeo, George Chandler as Skip, Emory Parnell as the first motorcycle cop, and Joseph Crehan as the newspaper editor. Superbly photographed - in black-and-white of course - by Nicholas Musuraca and inventively directed at a really smart pace by Richard Wallace, An Obliging Young Lady is one of the greatest comedies RKO ever made.

I could have decided not to watch this film since it was rated very low. Never judging a book by its cover, I thought I'd give it a chance. It caught me up in the romantic pursuit O'Brien after Ruth. The little girl was cute with her attraction for getting a thrill by putting tacks on seats. Believe me, I know from experience that this kind of act shouldn't be funny because it once happened to me in grade school. However, it is part of the movie that O'Brien can relate with when he meets the little girl on the train and how he did it too to people. PLEASE WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! Never be afraid of ratings because some movies haven't been out there to the public and need a chance. It is a movie THE WHOLE FAMILY CAN ENJOY! My Father (bless his heart!) reminds all his 10 children to just concentrate on watching ROMANTIC COMEDIES! I want to say that this would definitely be a movie that my Pop was talking about. As far as the Bird-calling scene, only true birders can understand and appreciate the comedy. I don't want to spoil anything else but real birders will obviously find errors in the actual bird that made the calls made by the actors.

This weirdly inept attempt at screwball comedy is undone by the casting of its three leads. Edmond O'Brien -- best remembered today as the desperate poisoning victim in the 1950 cult classic "D.O.A." and the alcoholic senator in "Seven Days In May" (1964) -- and Ruth Warrick -- known primarily for playing Charles Foster Kane's first wife in "Citizen Kane" and a long run on a TV soap opera -- were never known as adept farceurs. And moppet actress Joan Carroll has the kind of physical and verbal precocity that makes the audience wonder if perhaps she might not be a midget (OK, "little person," if we have not yet appropriately repudiated the silliness of political correctness). And she's a little person with a distracting tendency to let her mouth hang open in closeup reaction shots, at that. The script -- rewritten (over Frank Ryan) by Bert Granet, suggesting that a certain paucity of talent may have been what redirected him to demi-success as a TV producer in the '50s and '60s -- is littered with what are presumably meant to be running gags, but bespeak a lack of understanding that to merit that classification, the shtik must be funny, not merely repetitive. These "runners" include the bizarre notion of a train's sound mimicking the name of a famous baseball player of the period, Heinie Manusch, and every passenger on the train getting the name stuck in their head, treating us to tedious extended sequences of extras chanting the name over and over again in syncopation with the chugging of the locomotive. There is also Carroll's character, Bridget, who repeatedly demands, for no apparent reason, "What's wrong with the name Bridget?" This farrago of badly-executed ideas is ultimately ill-served by the direction of B movie hack Richard Wallace, whose coverage is so inadequate that the cutter is repeatedly forced to go from masters to two-shots in which actors' positions and expressions change radically, making startling jump cuts out of what should be seamless transitions. Wallace even manages to undermine the usually-redoubtable Eve Arden, evidently sabotaging her trademark talent for wringing laughs from the lamest one-liners by underplaying. It almost looks like Wallace coaxed her to overact. It's painful to watch...not unlike the film as a whole.

It's painfully obvious that OBLIGING YOUNG LADY is about a bratty girl who isn't the least bit obliging. Nor do the adults around her behave with any more common sense throughout the running time of this weak screwball comedy.JOAN CARROLL gets top billing as the bratty girl given to putting tacks on chairs for sheer delight. EDMOND O'BRIEN proves that comedy was not his forte; EVE ARDEN is totally wasted as a newspaper woman; RUTH WARRICK is pretty but can do nothing much with a bland role as a lawyer who takes the girl to a lodge in the country while the parents are involved in a custody battle.The good supporting cast includes GEORGE CLEVELAND, CHARLES LANE, FORTUNIO BONANOVA and FRANKLIN PANGBORN. Pangborn is the only bright note in the comedy, arriving at the lodge with his bird group and providing some genuinely amusing comic moments with their bird calls.RKO was obviously hoping to provide a star vehicle for child actress JOAN CARROLL but the character she plays is obnoxious from scene one and the script never gives her an opportunity to be anything but annoying.Bad script defeats everyone and results in a strained and very foolish comedy in which everyone is guilty of boorish behavior.