Gem of a comedy with a beautifully structured script from Norman Krasna about a shop girl (Ginger Rogers) who gets mistaken for the mother of an abandoned baby. The story flows logically and cleverly – they tell the boss’ son (David Niven), she keeps up the charade to keep her job, people think the boss’ son is the father. Krasna loved misunderstandings and mistaken identities – there is even a sequence here where Rogers accompanies Niven to a dance on New Years Eve and pretends to be Swedish to avoid embarrassing herself.
Ginger was always good as a shopgirl and she does a few dances; Charles Coburn is a delight as Niven’s tycoon father (they don’t look very much alike!) who gets all blubbery at the thought of a grandson. One of the sweet things about this film is it shows how people turn nice at the thought of a baby: the landlady who helps out, the boss who helps out, etc.
However, Krasna’s world always had a nasty undercurrent (which is why many of his scripts have aged well, the fairytales have a dark side) – Rogers is sacked at the drop of a hat and threatened, she has no welfare support, Coburn makes threats to take the baby away. This is what makes the fairy tale aspects of the story work so well.
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