I really enjoyed this fine screwball comedy, from a very clever story by Paddy Chayefsky, about a man forced to retire from a beloved printing job because he turned 65. He decides to go straight to the president to question the ageist policy, discovers no one knows what the president looks like, decides to impersonate him, and hilarity ensues. Wonderful roles for Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter, Constance Bennett and Marilyn Monroe. Heartily recommended if you're in the mood for a few good laughs at the expense of American big business. Still a relevant question that wrangles society today: Whether or not capable people should have to stop doing what they love because of age. I wonder if many instances are simply excuses to incorporate age-related discrimination.

or, 'Frank Capra Joins a Union.' A strange, almost confounding exploration of labor, corporate cynicism and citizen activism/civil disobedience. Directed without much inspiration or cleverness by Harmon Jones. It's a somewhat interesting dud. The ideas intrigue, but the tone is extraordinarily flat.Wooley is outrageously miscast as a laborer (!), who disguises himself (barely) as the head of his own firm, to agitate in the favor of older employees (because he was let go). Despite multiple family members working alongside him, it takes half an hour of film time for them to figure out that no firm has two effete, erudite, wordy, opinionated figures like Wooley associated with it. Going even further, the movie promotes other unlikely ideas; A 43 year old woman abandons her family for a 65 year old. Writer Paddy Chaevsky thinks he's saved some time and effort by having three of the workplace characters also be relations of Monty Wooley, but it just clutters up the movie, and cheats it of a smarter structure. The script feels like it never got a 2nd revision, and though ripe with comic potential, there isn't a single laugh in it; perhaps due to Wooley's overbearing presence. It operates at a weird domestic scale: many of the scenes occur in a living room filled with people, or in a second household, as if it had been a play once. The most interesting idea is a throwaway; corporations in 1951 have grown to an anonymous scale at which no one knows what the boss looks like anymore.Making all these convolutions more confusing is that two different actors, who look way too similar, play boorish heads of households (Allyn Joslyn / Clinton Sundberg). Wooley and his faux-continental accent are simply over the top. Thelma Ritter is completely extraneous to the plot. Russ Tamblyn in an early role, reads his lines without any energy, facing away from characters, as if he's reading cue-cards. Don't watch it for Monroe. She has twenty lines as a put-upon secretary, and is not a key figure in the piece. This is strictly a Wooley vehicle. It reminded me of George Bernard Shaw's labor/morality tale, 'Major Barbara.'

This is one of those conventional comedies of the '50s in which the righteous triumph over big bad corporate America, with MONTY WOOLLEY as a man who becomes indignant when forced to retire and goes about hatching a plan to draw attention to the subject of forced retirement.The theme isn't conventional, but the treatment is. Woolley gets to strut his stuff in scene after scene until the point becomes so obvious that you're willing to watch others in the cast who seem to be watching him on the sidelines. And there are some new faces to watch. David WAYNE, JEAN PETERS, RUSS TAMBLYN and newcomer MARILYN MONROE, who already had such a publicity build-up from Fox that many flocked to see the film because Marilyn was in it. She has a small, but choice role, as a curvy secretary who knows her effect on men. She shines (glows is a better word) in a charming small role.If you're a Monty Woolley fan and like his particular style of emoting (acid-tongued and quick witted most of the time), you'll enjoy this, although it's certain a lesser work considering that it was written by Paddy Cheyefsky, who was then at the height of his writing powers.

This film was indeed a mildly amusing comedy and one's acceptance of it will depend on one's affection for Monty Wooley. But I was fascinated by the credits. It's part of the feel-good type of movies of the early 1950s. The story is by a young Paddy Chakevsky, who would later write Marty, A Catered Affair, The Goddess, The Americanization of Emily, Hospital, Network, and Altered States, and the screenplay is by Lamar Trotti, who wrote the screenplays for John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk, for Ox Bow Incident, and won the screenplay Oscar for Wilson in 1944. A lot of talent in a thimble. It might be interesting to compare this screenplay to their other works for similarities. Chakevsky's work later became sharp and hard and even bitter. But his Marty, Catered Affair, and maybe even this show a gentle, humorous side. Trotti would die the next year, so this is one of his last screenplays