To understand this film, you have to understand films in the early 1930s. Many of them were simplistic morality plays, and that's exactly what this is. And when I say simplistic, I mean simplistic.The much-loved principal of a high school (no principal was ever this loved...and I say that as a retired principal myself) -- Miss Bayles (May Robson) -- attempts to close down a shady "candy store" where her students hang out. It may be sodas out front, but it's gambling in the back room, even for those underage. Miss Bayles opens her own business, but is soon closed down after a fight in her place of business. The school system fires her and takes away her pension. Who should step in? The President of the United States...a former student of hers. But, Miss Bayles never gets back her pension. In today's world, this film is downright stodgy. So why view it? Well, it's nice to see a fine character actress like May Robson get top billing for a change, and she is interesting to watch. As noted in "Wikipedia", Robson was the earliest-born person to enjoy a major Hollywood career. She was also the earliest-born person to receive an Oscar nomination", although not for this film. The latter minutes of this film are as much a tear-jerker of a movie that I've ever seen. And, this film was an early role for Fred MacMurray...his first CREDITED part. Alan Hale plays the shady store owner who turns out to have a heart of gold.Aside from being incredibly stuffy, the biggest problem with this film is the improbability of the script. There are a few young Black actors in the film, and the way their parts were played would be another eyebrow-raiser today.This is a pre-code film, and the one place that shows is when Fred MacMurray, an adult in the film, flirts very strongly with one of the high school girls. It would certainly raise eyebrows today.Worth watching once as a sort of museum piece.

This is a terrible film that I watched simply because it starred the usually wonderful May Robson. I loved her crusty persona in other films but here she seemed pretty obnoxious and I hated so many elements in the film due to very, very shoddy writing. In fact, the film was downright embarrassing to watch at times--particularly (yuck) when the President came to town (which was reminiscent of the very wretched Presidential scene in OF HUMAN HEARTS--another film undone by schmaltziness and poor writing).In this film, Robson is the overly-involved but nice principal of a high school (where most of the kids look about 25 years-old). She seems to know every kid and it's obvious she cares, but at times she's so stubborn and blind that she gives everyone who dislikes her plenty of ammunition to say she's gone senile!! Her big crusade is to try to shut down the local malt shop because she KNOWS it's a den of sin! Surprisingly, late in the film she's able to prove this is so--where under-age drinking and gambling occur in a hidden back room. YET DESPITE THIS, the police don't prosecute! And, when Robson opens her own hangout for kids, jerks come in and deliberately start a riot and the new hangout is shut down by the authorities! This makes no sense at all--a fight in her store results in its closure, and yet gambling and drinking by minors is okay?!?! Come off it, this makes no sense at all.Additionally to several places where the film makes no sense (proving the writing was done by hacks), the film also is terribly offensive and gross in its treatment of Blacks. While I am usually one to look past this in old films (since it was just a product of the times), seeing a moon-eyed Black student behaving like a walking stereotype was very sad indeed. This was particularly awful when the young man sees dice and immediately he begins salivating and jumping for joy--illustrating the hurtful stereotype that all Black man wanted to do was shoot Craps. Sad indeed.Overall, there's little to commend this film despite an occasionally funny performance by Robson. By the way, a young Fred MacMurray is also in the film, but considering he wasn't given much to do and that the film sucked so badly...who cares?! A terribly dated and ridiculous film that just isn't worth your time.Did I really say "sucked"?

May Robson, two years after her Academy Award nominated performance in Lady for a Day, got roped into doing this film about a school principal in small town USA. The premise is actually an interesting one and you can follow the concept from a film like Grand Old Girl right up to a television series like Boston Public. She's a school principal 24 hours a day and takes an interest in all that goes on in her small town.The problem was that the script just had so many saccharine characters in it who in the end don't really turn out to be as bad as they first seem that it gets ridiculous. Alan Hale who runs a malt shop, but who has a back room where gambling and liquor are available to the kids, is one of her foes. In the end however he feels sorry for the old gal and turns out to be her rescuer. This is after she attempted to run him out of business.Mary Carlisle in the next generation would be labeled a high school hellcat. At first she is one spoiled rich kid tramp and then she breaks down and cry when the town fathers led by her father put Robson out to pasture. Among Robson's former pupils is a man who became an unnamed mythical President of the United States who makes a dramatic appearance in his home town. It can't be FDR since the president's face is never shown. Sort of like how Jesus was portrayed in films like The Big Fisherman or Ben-Hur later. Also the president is walking unaided which FDR could not do. But Gavin Gordon who plays the president has an FDR like mellifluous voice.Fred MacMurray here is wasted, none of his gifts of comedy are utilized and that's a shame. He's a delivery man who Carlisle has a yen for.Cecil B. DeMille made a controversial film two years earlier called This Day and Age about high school kids fighting corruption in their small town. Some of the same elements are here in Grand Old Girl, but the scriptwriters I believe were trapped by the persistent mythology of small town America and the good people in it. So the film got watered down to nothingness.Sad to say, but there's nothing of any real interest in Grand Old Girl.

Set in a small town that may as well have sprung from the pages of Archie & Jughead comics, Mrs. Bayles is the venerable principal of the local high school. She's a kindly soul, dedicated above all to the education and welfare of her students. You can tell as she painstakingly tutors a cement-headed member of the football team in geometry. There's one major bee in her bonnet, though; 'Click' Dade, who runs a gambling den out of the back room of his malt shop (yeah, you read that correctly...) Her own sleuthing turns up enough evidence for an indictment, but not a conviction. Outraged at her concern for the students, the school board issues her a stern warning. Still, she can't resist her urge to serve. When a shy, stuttering boy comes to her, Ms. Bayles tells him of another of her students, many years before. He, too, had been shy and teased by others, but he grew up to be *gasp* PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Still fighting, the foxy old gal connives to beat Dade at his own game. In a heartwarming scene of good old-fashioned racism, a black student teaches Ms. Bayles how to shoot craps with loaded dice. She wins enough money from Dade to open her own malt shop (with a jazz band, no less), but a fistfight erupts, leading the school board to close her storefront and fire her from the school. She's packing her bags and getting ready to move on, when who should come in to save the day? Yes, Ms. Bayles former pupil, the Chief Executive himself who just happens to be rolling through town in a motorcade. The Prez delivers a lecture on the holy calling that is the life of an educator, and the film ends with the town cheering their Ms. Bayles.Oh, yeah, and there's some stuff about some rich man's party girl daughter who has eyes for a local delivery driver (a young Fred MacMurray), but it's all rather plodding and stagy. Final word on "Grand Old Girl": Not aggressively bad but still not unique enough to be a true curiosity piece. You needn't go out of your way for it.