Careful, Soft Shoulders
                           
Director: Oliver Garrett
Year: 1942
Rating: 4.0
It is 1942 and I guess Hollywood didn't really have its propaganda machine going at full steam. At least Fox did not. This is pretty dreadful as a comedy and as propaganda. And Virginia Bruce has the lead. I like Bruce but all I wanted to do in this film was kick her in the pants. Not just her but the male lead as well. Two of the more irritating performances you will come across playing two useless people without a smart thought between them.

 

Bruce plays Connie, a woman who has gone to the best finishing schools and who knows everyone in Washington social circles. She makes her living by wearing clothes to these parties and circulating like a sewer pipe. She is at one such party fending off the obnoxious advances of Thomas (James Ellison) son of a wealthy father in the navy and a pointless appendage of capitalism. Does nothing but borrow money from his father and looks hurt when he is refused. It is your fault father that I can't do anything by sending me to Harvard. The audience should immediately dislike them both intensely and that is before you find out how incredibly stupid they are. At this party it is announced that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. They continue playing bridge and joking about. Connie blurts out that she could be a spy to which everyone laughs. Except the fat man (Aubrey Mather) in the corner. He takes her seriously.

 

When she comes home, he is waiting for her. Secret Service. We would like you to work for us, ferret out Fifth Columnists. Like an addled parrot she agrees. He is of course a Fifth Columnist. He points her nose at Thomas with some flimsy story to get him to hand over papers his father has in his safe at home. Because that is where they always keep Navy secrets and ship movements. The thing is you keep waiting for her to smarten up, for Thomas to turn out not be a parasite - they never do - to the last flicker they are as dumb as sheep. If this was supposed to be propaganda, it was Axis propaganda. See how stupid Americans are. We will win this war. In the film also as her sister is Sheila Ryan and her boyfriend is played by Ralph Byrd and they are so much smarter that you wish the film had been about them.