Okay, the audience is supposed to accept that Ginger Rogers, aged 31 at the time, is posing at an adolescent! This is patently ridiculous and if anyone could possibly pull this off, Miss Rogers was NOT the one! Had the film starred a very young-looking and less developed lady (such as Leslie Caron or Audrey Hepburn circa 1952),perhaps it wouldn't have seemed so ridiculous, but here it just makes the common-sense part of me want to scream. I just hate films with bad premises and bad casting--and I am not sure ANY actress could make this premise work. Oddly, this dopey plot was repeated a decade later when Jerry Lewis took on this same role--and he was 29 at the time! While Billy Wilder is a now huge name in directing, at the time he had no reputation in Hollywood so he was stuck with this utterly stupid casting decision. Had he been given this assignment later in his illustrious assume he would have likely refused such a ridiculous premise!

The silly plot occurs because Ginger is trying to buy a train ticket but the rate has recently changed. However, the child fare is half-price and so she decides to pose as a kid!! On board, the conductors naturally assume she's an adult but oddly, Ray Milland is an apparent idiot and has no idea she's NOT a child!!!! So, since he's a gullible idiot, Ginger hangs out in his private room during the entire trip. However, when Milland's fiancée sees Ginger in his room later, she naturally assumes that this 31 year-old woman is a 31 year-old woman!! But, to convince his fiancée and future father-in-law that she is only a child and nothing inappropriate occurred, he brings Ginger with him to meet them at the military school. And, oddly, when they meet Ginger, they immediately assume that she is 12!!! This is dumb AND creepy--after all, it's better that she's a 31 year-old than a pre-pubescent female riding with a strange man!!!

Now whether or not this is a watchable film just depends on how a able you will be to accept the premise. If you can somehow manage to not only believe the plot but also ignore all the creepy implications, the film is a lot of fun...and even romantic (especially at the end). I guess I just couldn't do this and the movie, despite its pluses, just didn't work for me. I couldn't get past Ginger's casting, her ridiculous impersonation of a child (calling it 'broad' or a 'burlesque' is way too charitable) and that Milland's character might just be a pedophile--a very problematic plot to say the least!

Paramount Pictures finally gave Billy Wilder a chance to direct his own material with The Major And The Minor. This rather interesting comedy depends a great deal not on just Wilder's writing and directing, but on the considerable comedy talents of Ginger Rogers to put it over. It's not easy for an actress in the full flower of maturity to pretend to be an adolescent, but Rogers was certainly up to the task.

Rogers plays Susan Applegate from Stevenson, Iowa who has had just about enough of New York. After trying several professions and making no headway in any of them, she's ready to cash it in and go back to Stevenson, maybe marry a local guy there. But cash is the problem when she comes up just short of the fare from New York to Stevenson. What to do, but pretend she's a child and travel for half fare.

A rather interesting set of circumstances has her stopping off as a guest of Ray Milland whom she has 'fooled' into thinking she is only an early teen. That doesn't sit well with Milland's fiancée Rita Johnson, a real ice princess who suspects something's up. And Johnson's sister Diana Lynn knows there is, but doesn't care. Milland is an instructor at a boy's military school and the sight of his female guest sends the cadets into hormonal overdrive. Milland's feeling a bit antsy around Rogers though he can't quite figure out why.

Wilder showed that even in his first film he was a master at slipping stuff by the censors. In a recent biography of Billy Wilder that was more important on this film than most because the subject matter was weaving dangerously close to pedophilia.

Paramount was disposed to let Wilder have this project especially after another of their writers a couple of years earlier showed he had the directing chops. But Preston Sturges was given a tryout in the studio's B picture unit with The Great McGinty. The Major And The Minor was an A film all the way because Wilder was able to sell Ginger Rogers on the story. He also brought the film only slightly over budget which definitely insured he would have a directorial career at Paramount.

Robert Benchley is also in the film as a lecherous old goat who is the one who finally sends Rogers packing to Iowa after putting the moves on her while she is trying the profession of masseuse. Wouldn't you know it, he turns out to be the father of a chip off the old block in the person of Cadet Frankie Thomas. Benchley's scenes in the film are precious indeed.

The Major And The Minor still holds up very well after over 60 years, no doubt because of the risqué subject matter. It's a film definitely guaranteed to make you a fan of the talents of its director and its stars.

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. It would help if the ticket takers would say something like, "Let it go. I'm tired of this job." Then there is Philip. Maybe he should be half-blind. Of course, that may exclude him from military service. It may still work if he knew her age and did it all to flirt with her. That comes with the other problem of his fiancée. Billy Wilder keeps it light in his first directorial efforts. It's a comedic romp as long as one ignores Ginger Rogers' obvious age. In addition, there are some fake underage awkward hijinx.