Ask Any Girl (1959)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The first must-see film of the year.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Copyright 1959. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 21 May 1959. U.K. release: 18 October 1959. Australian release: 10 September 1959. 8,404 feet; 98 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Small-town girl arrives in Manhattan in search of a job and a husband.COMMENT: Although some critics hailed this super-predictable yarn as a bright and witty sex comedy, it is mostly a bore, enlivened only by the energetic playing of Shirley MacLaine (and, in lesser roles, Jim Backus and Gig Young). Charles Walters' relentlessly pedestrian direction doesn't help Wells' plodding screenplay either. And Walters does so little with CinemaScope, one wonders why the studio bothered with the process at all. (Well, I suppose it just had to be in 'Scope to attract an audience).

This is one my favourite early Shirley Mc Claine films which didn't really tap her enormous acting talents, but gave the viewer a pleasant look at her comic talent. David Niven is the star of this film and is wonderful as the uptight, sexually oblivious brother of Shirley's love interest, who is of course a complete womanizer and twit. This movie also explores the different personalities of woman and how men react to them and vise versa. Rod Taylor also makes a good and memorable cameoin the role of Shirley's boyfriend. The soundtrack is nothing special but is forgotten in the wake of the zany events of this film. I definitely recommend this movie to all lovers of predictable and sweet romantic comedies.

Shirley MacLaine made her film debut a scant four years earlier in The Trouble With Harry and in her third film, Around the World in 80 Days, co-starred with David Niven. Reportedly they did not get along on the set, Niven felt she wasn't suited for the part of a Hindu princess and after seeing it I think you would agree. MacLaine really made her mark in the following year by blowing all the rest of the cast off the screen in Some Came Running. Had it not been the year for Susan Hayward's I Want to Live, Shirley would have gotten her Oscar back in 1958. David Niven had won his Oscar in 1958 for Separate Tables so both of them were box office then.Seemed only natural team them up again and this time MacLaine is most suitable for her role as a hopeful career girl in Ask Any Girl. Shirley's fresh from the country having made her way to New York in the hopes of getting a career going and/or landing husband. She develops quite a few potential suitors along the way.Ask Any Girl is a combination of Sabrina plus elements of any number of Doris Day vehicles that came out at that time. Eventually Shirley winds up at an advertising agency run by two brothers. Older brother David Niven runs the agency and younger brother Gig Young views the place as fertile ground for female companionship.MacLaine exasperates Niven, she's not real good at anything, but he's given up all hope in Young just settling down and tending to business. He sees maybe MacLaine just might be what Young needs, or maybe just what the elegant, but stuffy Niven needs.The principal players go through roles they were all seasoned veterans at handling. Ask Any Girl is pleasant enough entertainment though looking back I wonder just what the very outspoken feminist Shirley MacLaine thinks of this husband hunting woman she plays here.

What I like about this movie is that the lead character, Meg Wheeler, is innocent and remains innocent. She doesn't look stupid for fighting to keep her virtue and in the end, others respect her for it. Also, society seemed to uphold that and support it. Her girlfriends kept an eye on her and gave her sound advice. The "easy" women didn't come off looking good in this movie at all and the playboys looked superficial. This is a movie I think I will show to my youth group. If only there were more movies like this. How far society has gone since these days. Meg at one point said she came from a line of six generations where the Wheeler women waited before marriage and she wasn't about to stop that trend. Unlike movies like "Grease" where the naive girl becomes just like everybody else (and there's a long, long list of movies that do this, "Dirty Dancing," etc., I felt even better about Meg at the end. Naive doesn't have to mean stupid. Here, there's a strength in her innocence. Well acted, good writing, solid story.