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the same Pullman. Bowman assumes he will be occupying the upper berth;
and Winninger, the lower. The upper, however, has an occupant: Rosalind,
who pops her head out to remind Bowman that she loves him, but, to marry,
you have to know what s happening. Winninger announces that they can
be married in Nevada; and Rosalind, although she has been, like Shakespeare s
Malvolio, notoriously abused, asks Bowman with a sincerity that only a
true actress could bring off, Will you marry me? Since a romantic embrace
is impossible in a Pullman, the scene fades out as Rosalind s hand reaches
down to his.
The original ending was even more cockeyed. Rosalind has a nervous
breakdown and has to be analyzed herself. The analyst administers a drug
that induces a surrealistic dream in which the Nixie is whistling advice in her
ear while Allura metamorphoses into a spider, and Bowman into an aspirin
bottle. When Rosalind inquires about the nature of her neurosis, the analyst
replies, Some call it love, which was the film s working title.
Cured, Rosalind discovers that Bowman is leaving for the West Coast
by train. When he climbs into his berth, he finds Rosalind there, insisting
that they are married. The conductor, on the other hand, insists she get off
the train. Bowman persuades him to let them stay on until they reach
Nevada, where they can have a real wedding; and the film was to end with
the train whistle mimicking the sound of the Nixie.
Neither ending was plausible, although the first was more imagina-
tive. But plausibility was never an issue in She Wouldn t Say Yes. If it were,
the American Psychiatric Association would have denounced it.
94 THE LADY AND THE MOGUL
The issue, at least for the Legion of Decency, should have been the
dialogue. No 1940s film, not even This Thing Called Love, abounded in so
much double entendre, which even today can elicit a chuckle if one disso-
ciates it from the pervasive sexism. Although Breen found the final script
acceptable, the Legion threatened a C (Condemned) rating, not because of
the dialogue, but because of the film s irreverent view of marriage. The
Legion insisted on at least one line of dialogue in which Rosalind states that
consent is necessary for a valid marriage; hence, You have to know what s
happening. The matter was resolved by early fall 1945. The November
issue of Screen Romances (later renamed Screen Stories), which synopsized the
latest films in short-story form, included a fairly accurate version of She
Wouldn t Say Yes. Since the magazine hit the newsstands in mid October and
film went into release in late November, the change must have been made
by the end of September 1945.
Personally, Rosalind was unconcerned. Her films had run afoul of the
Legion before and would continue to raise sanctimonious hackles. Besides, as
an actress she knew that deception has always been an integral part of com-
edy: disguised females attracting unsuspecting males, wives dressing up as
their maids to trick their philandering mates, and men adopting outrageous
disguises to test their fiancée s fidelity. She Wouldn t Say Yes pulled out all the
stops: the chance meeting, the mix-up in the Pullman, the steady stream of
double entendre, verbal misunderstandings, the lovers quarrel, and finally
reconciliation. Although offend and mend was the comic credo, the Legion s
idea of mending was adding a line of dialogue. Yet one wonders how many
moviegoers, including Catholics, paid any attention. Rosalind was the attrac-
tion; as a bonus there was the usual Jean Louis fashion show, racy dialogue,
a swift-moving will she or won t she plot, and a happy ending.
The cycle of breezy comedies that Rosalind made at Columbia in the
1940s came to an end with two films similar in their philosophy that profes-
sional women are incomplete unless they marry. But given the way Rosalind
played a prospective federal judge (Tell It to the Judge) and a college dean
(A Woman of Distinction), it is hard to imagine either character sacrificing
THE LADY AND THE MOGUL 95
a career for domesticity. Those familiar with the Rosalind Russell persona
would reshoot the ending in their imagination, so that the character would
have a marriage and a career, like Rosalind herself.
Buddy Adler s production of Tell It to the Judge, for all its sophisticated
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