Up Goes Maisie (1946)

Excellent adaptation.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I kept ignoring all the Maisie movie titles as they seemed superficial, supercilious, and rather bland entertainment. However, this plot was so insane I found it most appealing to my great amusement.If you have a Navy Fly Boy friend who can handle any helicopter with adroit skill, have him or her watch this one, they will just bowl over with laughter especially with the er, cell phone scene in the helo....How empowering for women it must have been to be seen in such a capable light to read blueprints, weld, build behemoth warcrafts, AND have superb secretarial skills!! Ann Southern is a delight in her transformational role from frump to triumphant and is most endearing. I look forward to extending my hand to the remaining series I have lost out thus far.Great to see the 1941 aerial views of downtown Los Angeles and the Rose Bowl which I have attended recently. High recommend!! Enjoy.

World War II is over and Maisie Ravier is now finished her Rosie the Riveteer thing and is looking for more traditional employment for women. She's even enrolled in a business school and got her diploma. But when she goes job hunting all the potential bosses see a former showgirl and a quick roll in the hay. In order to get a job and keep the wolves at bay Ann Sothern dresses down and gets a job working for George Murphy.Where to her complete surprise she finds her past experience in a war plant a real asset. Murphy is designing a brand helicopter and it's a hush hush project. But he doesn't know that tycoon Paul Harvey and his daughter Hillary Brooke are looking to steal it for themselves. Murphy's even got a Quisling in his own ranks.This is one of the best of the Maisie series with Sothern given some really good comic bits to work with. She gets slipped a Mickey Finn and does a great drunk act with tips no doubt from Red Skelton until she plunges into a swimming pool. The climax of the film is having Sothern fly Murphy's helicopter. It must be a good machine if a flying novice can handle it.One of the problems of the Maisie series is that she's gotten involved with some man in each of the films. But this is the first one where Sothern actually got a formal marriage proposal. And you know it once again didn't take because there was one more in the series that was so popular at MGM.But as Maisie Sothern is at the top of her game in Up Goes Maisie.

Another enjoyable Maisie movie starring the delightful and lovely Ann Sothern. Maisie has just graduated from business school and wants to get a job as a secretary. However, everywhere she goes the men who interview her are only interested in her looks. So Maisie puts on some glasses, pins her hair up, and tries to dress like a woman with her mind on nothing but business. In the movie this is supposed to make her less appealing. But it's pretty hard to buy as Sothern is so adorable you could put her in a potato sack and she would still be attractive. Anyway, Maisie gets a job with Joe Morton (George Murphy). When Morton learns who she really is and that she used to work assembling airplanes, he invites her into his secret helicopter project. It's always fun to watch Ann Sothern in these Maisie films. They're cute, funny, lightweight entertainment. This isn't my favorite in the series, but it's a good one.

"Up Goes Maisie" has an interesting start, which makes a social statement on how hard it was for a woman to find a decent steady job in post-WWII America without having to compromise for the unwanted advances of dirty-minded middle-aged bosses who don't understand the meaning of the word "no"; things haven't changed so much over the years, I guess, though the men (usually) go at it more discreetly these days. The climax is also pretty crazy, with Maisie flying a helicopter all on her own. But the rest of the movie is almost determinedly average. Did we really have to know exactly who the bad guys / two-timers are all along? How can Maisie fall in such deep love with a man so quickly? And why was a big catfight between Maisie and Hillary Brooke's character set up so carefully and then never followed through? (Maisie hits her once with her knee and it's all over). Rhetorical questions. ** out of 4.