What to Do on a Date (1951)

the audience applauded

Simply A Masterpiece

i must have seen a different film!!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

"What to Do on a Date" is an 11-minute black-and-white short film from 65 years ago and the title gives away the core story of the film already. We watch a young man and he is not sure what to do with the girl he fancies when he has plans to go on a date with her. There were some not so great moments here, for example the girl must hear the other boy talking to him while she is on the phone and she'd probably not like it. But the main problem is that each girl is so different from the other that it is a bit pointless to make a film about that issue. Just do what she likes and what you like as well. On a positive note, this educational movie is among the most relevant today as young people everywhere still wonder what to do on a date these days. Oh yeah, people voted this down to the ground because MST3K picked it up and made fun of it, but I don't pay attention to these as they obviously cannot make up their mind by themselves and they probably have not even seen it. The film is better than the rating suggests, but it is still not a good watch. I do not recommend it. If you still liked it, you can check out the sequel if you find it anywhere.

'What to Do On a Date' is a title to probably make you smile already. I can assure you, everything in it will bring a smile to your face as well. But it is not the smile a film wants. Here you do not smile because the guy actually gets the date with the girl he likes, the way it is supposed to be, but because it is so stupid.We see a shy teenager asking a girl on a date after his friend has persuaded him. The girl agrees and while they are on their first date (together with at least ten other friends) the guy wonders what the girl would like for a next date. Funny stuff. The acting in terrible films like this is quite hilarious as well. Although I rate it poorly, I had fun watching it. For the wrong reasons that is.

The following is more of a summary of the movie than a review:In "What To Do On A Date," Nick, a lovesick dork who sounds perpetually constipated, wants to go on a date with Kay, whose status as a member of the fairer sex is confirmed when she needs Nick's manly help to nail a paper elephant to a rafter. Nick calls up Kay, and asks her if she wants to go see a movie on Friday night. But Kay knows that in the darkness of the movie theater, Nick might put his arm around her shoulder or hold her hand, and that would cause their swell little fifties white suburban world to implode, so she rejects him. Fortunately, our flustered hero has some help from his smooth best friend Jeff and a fifty-year-old's Authoritative Disembodied Voice, who clearly knows what all the teenagers are into. They suggest all sorts of sanitized dating ideas for Nick and Kay, most of which involve doing things in a group so the teens can frustrate themselves trying to suppress their hormonal urges. Nick and Kay talk about various dull, non-sexual dating scenarios and Nick discovers a great pick-up line in the process: "Say, you like to do lots of things, don't ya?" Nick asks Kay if she'd like to go for a bike ride or a weenie roast or a bowling party or a baseball game or a taffy pull next Friday, and here we reach the climax of the movie: will Kay go on a second date with Nick, or will she dump him for somebody who's not such a loser, or will she spend Friday night listening to the Authoritative Disembodied Voice tell her about the importance of home economics? Will Nick continue to have a bland and asexual relationship with Kay, or will he find true friendship and companionship with Jeff, or will he become celibate and devote his life to nailing paper elephants into rafters?But still, the fact that a socially inept loser like Nick can get a girl to go to the community center to set up a garage sale on a first date should give the rest of us hope.

Such as this one. While it was nice and cute in the 1950s, and reflected the morals of the time, today it is viewed as an antiquated piece of dated trash. I found it to be rather so-so. Not bad, but not great either. The story about Nick and his nerves on choosing a date is a timeless one, but how the story is handled is quite dated.