Brilliant and touching

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

In the mood for a fun romantic comedy? I recommend "Tom, Dick, and Harry", a golden oldie released by RKO back in 1941.Janie, a blue-collar chick played by Ginger Rogers, can't decide which guy she wants to marry. And in the course of the story, she has "an understanding" with each of the three title characters. Tom is an ambitious white-collar car salesman (George Murphy); Dick is a millionaire playboy (Alan Marshal); and Harry is a bohemian mechanic (Burgess Meredith).In amusing dream sequences, Janie imagines what it would be like to be married to each of them. And in one envelope-pushing scene that must have just barely gotten past the censors, she imagines what it would be like to be married to all of them! If this storyline turned up in a romantic film or novel nowadays, the heroine would obviously have to end up with Dick. But this movie was made in the 1940s. Therefore none of her three suitors is her inevitable choice. And the film demonstrates wonderfully how the heart knows best, even if it can be full of surprises.

Ginger Rogers is romantically impish while being pursued by three suitors in this worthy if somewhat predictable follow-up to Roger's Kitty Foyle Oscar role. Breezily directed and well paced by Garson Kanin the film conceals its comic suspense right up until the last minute as Roger's Janie wavers and weighs her decision on who would make the ideal husband.Writer Paul Jerrico's screenplay is light and witty but also trenchant and insightful as he toys with the varied qualities and foibles of each aspirant and society in general. Smart casting of B actors instead of a major star playing the boyfriends enables the film to remain balanced and offer no indication of it's outcome and Kanin skillfully evens the playing field for his competitors. George Murphy, Burgess Meredith and Alan Marshall thankfully lack the "movie star" style and looks of a Cary Grant and Randolph Scott and thus allow Roger's bright eyed and determined Janie to control the action. They are convincingly everyday. Kanin also gets some fine underplayed performances out of his other characters including all of Janie's family and especially Vickie Lester as her co-worker at the phone company. Unlike the raucous characters and slapstick found in the screwball work of Sturges and Hawks, Tom Dick and Harry avoids over the top abrasiveness and settles for a more subdued approach, well buoyed by a charming cast and a light directorial touch.

-- Is it just basically awful? I am inclined to think the latter.The Surrealistic dream sequences may have come from German Expressionist movies. The translation, if so, was a bad one. And the split- screen may have come via Gance's "Napoleon." In any event, to me this movie is singularly lacking in charm. Brunette Rogers plays a self-absorbed operator. The title characters are men who woo her, or whom she woos. George Murphy plays a gauche car salesman. Burgess Meredith is a dreamer with a negligible job. And Marshall is a millionaire.The whole affair is overly precious without being at all likable.

In fact everyone is at the top of their form in this wonderfully entertaining movie, but Ginger has never been better. Even Alan Marshall, who frequently came across in films as being a little on the smarmy side, is quite likeable here. And Phil Silvers is wonderfully obnoxious as the ice-cream salesman.It is interesting to compare this film with it's 1957 remake "The Girl Most Likely", which apart from its musical numbers sticks pretty close to the original. Now "The Girl Most Likely" is quite an entertaining film in itself, and Jane Powell is certainly a talent not to be sneezed at. But having seen both films a number of times it always surprises me just how much better "Tom, Dick and Harry" is, and how flat "The Girl Most Likely" seems in comparison. Garson Kanin has somehow managed to infuse a lightness and subtlety of wit into the original which seems to have eluded Mitchell Leisen in the remake. And of course the three male leads in "The Girl Most Likely" don't hold a candle to the three male leads here.