With Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn, Robert Cummings.
Written by Norman Krasna. Directed by Sam Wood.
J.P. Merrick is richer than J.P. Morgan, has an intemperate stomach and an ungovernable temper, and can’t for the life of him understand why the employees down at his department store don’t like him. They’ve never even met him – nor he them.
When word comes of a strike in the offing, the frustrated Merrick decides to root out the rabble-rousers himself, going undercover in the shoe department to get the goods on the surreptitious Spartaci.
Three things, though, he hasn’t reckoned with: 1) the sneering condescension of his own managers, 2) the kindness, candor, and convictions of his new co-worker Mary Jones, and 3) his hilarious inability to work an everyday job. (Being a millionaire, it seems, is his sole talent.)
Mary’s guileless hospitality soon has Merrick eye-to-eye with the strike leaders, but also face-to-face with the people he’ll be firing. His fondness for Mary, his growing respect for her boyfriend (the chief agitator) Joe, and the distant stirrings of romantic interest in a co-worker more his own age (Spring Byington), all gradually complicate his perspective.
Mary, meanwhile, begins to suspect, to her horror, that she and her friends have welcomed into their trusting ranks the very fiend they’ve been gearing up to fight.
Coburn’s frustrations at having to fend for his wealthy self within the confines of a poor man’s resources are a delight – the world looks very different when you’re on your feet all day. And Joe’s cheery, bold assertion of his constitutional rights is an inspiration – what a different country this would be, if everyone understood those rights so well.
But it’s the priceless Arthur, as the heart of the store, who steals the show. Her soliloquy on love – shared in confidence with Merrick on a crowded Coney Island beach – is not just the pure highlight of a wonderful script … it’s one of the most mature and realistic assessments of romantic commitment ever filmed.
Romeo and Juliet could have learned a lot from Mary Jones. J.P. Merrick does.
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