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

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A very amusing Billy Wilder directed comedy featuring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland.Rogers plays a woman working in the big city, who's tired of all the "come ons" from all the men, particularly the married ones. So, with the money she saved for just this purpose, she goes to the train station to buy a ticket home. When the train fare is more than it was, she must pose as a child in order to afford the ticket home.On her journey, Rogers meets soldier instructor Milland, whom the woman in her is attracted to, but unfortunately he's engaged and thinks she's a teenager. However, she ends up being a guest of his fiancée (Rita Johnson), rooming with Johnson's younger sister Diana Lynn (whose performance is great!).Plus, Rogers's character is a hit with all the cadets at the academy where Milland teaches. They literally fall over one other to date and dance with her. When Rogers learns that Johnson has conspired against letting Milland realize his dream of joining the fight overseas, she decides to disrupt things.Can it possibly lead to Milland and Rogers getting together?

I agree with many that THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR is a marvelous light comedy with a few serious undertones, but I doubt that pedophilia has much to do with it. Co-author Charles Brackett's diaries (recently published) give not a hint that he and Billy Wilder had any such subtext in mind. Wilder climbed onto the Lolita bandwagon years after TMATM had been released, but so far as I know prior to Nabokov's notorious success he hadn't said a word about any such thing (Billy also said that Ray Milland had absolutely no sense of humor, which seems unlikely given Milland's success in EASY LIVING as well as here, not to mention his fine handling of the black humor in DIAL M FOR MURDER and in other films). So far as I know, the only hint of such a subtext occurs at the end of the 'light bulb' scene, and I'll try to give an alternate explanation of that in due course.It seems to me that the serious subjects underlining TMATM are the thoughts that people believe what they want to believe and that there is a subconscious part of the mind that can realize things that don't quite break into consciousness. The first is a commonplace, the second an idea that goes back at least to Homer. The main example of the commonplace comes when the college committee lets the Major off the hook for having SuZu in his train compartment overnight. It seems clear to me that they immediately accept Ginger Rogers as a 12 year old child because they want to avoid scandal, they want to exonerate the popular Major, Pamela wants to believe that the whole incident was innocent, etc. The vicar even calls it "a wonderful solution" or words to that effect. What adult has really been fooled by her charade other than the Major with his poor eyesight and infinite gullibility, except when they'd wished to be fooled?Similarly, a lot of people accept consciously what they're told (that this is a 12 year old girl) while subconsciously noticing that something isn't right. Lucy tells SuZu that she isn't 12 because she acts like she's 6. Notice that Susan Applegate never acts like she's 6 again after realizing that she'd been overdoing it. The quips become very mature from that point on ("Are you sure you're not mulling over yesterday's lesson?"). There's no real reason to believe that the cadets were ever told SuZu's assumed age, and they sense that they've lucked into a lot more than a youthful companion! I'd say that that's what has begun to penetrate the Major's consciousness in the Light Bulb Scene, that this really is "a beautiful young lady" rather than a precocious child. Notice SuZu's struggles to keep a straight face while the Major is fumbling over the facts of life. A part of the Major has noticed, too (and we should all notice how subtly brilliant this performance by Ginger Rogers is).Be that as it may, I'd say that the ending of the movie would play better if we assume that the Major realizes the truth before coming to Iowa, having been told by Lucy (after Pamela's marriage to someone else, why would Lucy keep up the pretense?). Then his immediate acceptance of the adult Susan at the end makes sense. However, Milland really doesn't play it that way. Oh well.I'll close by emphasizing that the movie is very funny, Ginger Rogers is superb in it (her use of various voices is terrific) and Milland is excellent, as are all the supporting actors. The switchboard scene is as good as they get. Wilder was off to an excellent start.

The set-up is a comic spin on the romantic longings of older men pining for little girls; and for young boys longing for older women. It's amazing that some of this made it past the censors.The scene where Miss Rogers' character is passionately kissed by an underage boy; and the earlier scene where Mr. Milland's character comforts her in bed on the train and how he begins to admit he is developing feelings for what he believes to be an 11 year old girl, is depraved. The film subverts wholesome values with a story that is heavy on the Freud mumbo jumbo and too clever and too ridiculous for its own good.Again how did some of this material make it past the censors? Is it because the elements are presented in the guise of a comedy, and that comedies are not supposed to be taken seriously?

This was one funny film. Ginger Rogers is just a delight as a comedienne. Her films of the 40's were fantastically funny.The supporting cast, especially the Cadet's at the military academy, really compliment this little gem of a film. Ray Milland is sorta ho-hum but he plays his role well.What's a lot of fun about this film is when Ginger Rogers transforms herself into a 12 year old girl. You get to see, shockingly, Ms. Rogers without any makeup throughout most of the film. She does such a great job in this one I was smiling from ear to ear at the end of this.Just a sweet/fun little romantic comedy. It will certainly brighten your day. It did mine.