Tom, Dick and Harry (1941)

(On Cable TV, May 2020) There was a clear risk that Tom, Dick and Harry’s familiar premise (a young woman must choose between three different suitors) would have produced a very familiar romantic comedy, but the Oscar-nominated script goes a few extra steps to ensure that the film would be something better than the average. For one thing, it’s far more visually imaginative than other similar movies of the time, from an interesting opening credit sequence that plays with anagrams to extended daydream sequences in which our heroine imagines visions of her future life with her suitors in a dollhouse. Ginger Rogers, who won an Oscar for Kitty Foyle during the shooting of this film, seems to enjoy a purely comic role and looks good with a great hairdo. Some good dialogue underpins a familiar tale, albeit one that goes to the wire before delivering a conclusion. I do have issues with that ending—not so much how it ends as the way it goes about it in a way that could have been more graceful and hopeful. Still, some of the film’s period details can please and surprise: while the newsreel mention of Hitler is a bit wild for a romantic comedy, the film does provide an interesting depiction of the life of a telephone operator—and even throws in a fun split screen to depict a three-way phone conversation. But all of that pales in comparison to the examination of social mores at the time—Tom, Dick and Harry is not just about having the richest guy throw himself at the heroine, but her making a choice about which one is the most appropriate.