The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) – S. Wood

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Jean Arthur starred in films for Capra, Hawks, and George Stevens, as well as Mitchell Leisen/Preston Sturges, and, for this film, Sam Wood. She’s always a delight.  Wood, however, was an ultra-right-winger who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 – which makes absolutely no sense when it comes to this film which strongly advocates for unions and the rights of workers – in a gentle comedic way.  So much for auteur theory (at least under the studio system).  Jean Arthur wasn’t the only reason we tuned into this one on TCM – it also stars Charles Coburn (who was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but didn’t win).  He’s the wealthiest man in America (or at least New York) who finds that he still owns a Manhattan department store and worse, that the workers are agitating for their rights, including by hanging a dummy of Coburn in effigy.  However, Coburn is a man who values his privacy, so no one really knows what he looks like.  This allows him to go undercover as a shoe salesman to try to identify the rabble rousers on his staff with the intention to fire them. Instead, he makes friends with Jean Arthur (also in the shoe department) and her boyfriend Robert Cummings (the main union organizer) and Spring Byington (who becomes his love interest).  Although not really laugh out-loud funny, Coburn’s reactions to the situations he finds himself in (while pretending not to be himself) are always amusing and the film has plenty of charm and a message we shouldn’t forget. Escapist fare for challenging times.