More Than a Secretary (1936) User Reviews

Worth a look for fans of romantic comedy from the Golden Age

[SaraX626 · 7/10 · 22 April 2003]

I'd never heard of this film until recently it was recommended to me as a pleasant but easily overlooked Jean Arthur film

Jean Arthur's range is hardly tested in this one - she plays Carole a nice girl next-door type with the typical Arthur intelligence but without any of the more complex qualities, which in certain of her films drew such memorable performances.

George Brent, as Fred Gilbert, is similarly untested in this film (as in most of his films) but is in the additionally unfortunate position of providing the comedy in the romance, initially through his health regime obsession and then his superficial attraction to Maizie (Dorothea Kent), (the latter also being the means by which an essentially simple story is sufficiently prolonged to allow a feature length gap between the boy meets girl beginning and the inevitable - this is 1930's romantic comedy - boy gets girl ending).

A modern audience may not react too well to Fred's comments about a woman's role in business or his attempt at ruthlessly (in intent if not in effect) resolving his `Maizie situation' once the attraction has palled. However the main problem with this film is not that the women's movement has moved on 70 years since the film was made - 1930's comedies are after all, remembered for the strong and independent heroines and Fred is of course made to regret and reconsider his words and actions. It is simply that you do wonder a little just what Carole sees in him. Fortunately this film is saved from the romance being completely unbelievable by Carole's obvious recognition (and Jean Arthur's ability to convey) that she loves Fred regardless of his faults.

What is slightly harder to accept is Fred's overlooking Carole for so long (at least once she is out of the rather scary suit and spectacles she wears in the film's opening scene). Even allowing for the fact that anyone can make a fool of him/herself when it comes to love, Fred's abrupt changes of heart, especially the first volt face when he decides to employ Maizie, left me a little puzzled. A nice clue is given in the scene where Fred follows Carole to the secretarial school and in response to he snappish `I'm busy' he sharply retorts, `I never saw you when you weren't'. However this is not explored fully nor given elsewhere as an explanation for his foolishness (at just 80 minutes long, an additional 2-3 minutes to deepen this rather more satisfactory explanation for Fred's behaviour would not exactly have overdone things).

In addition to the main cast there is the usual nice support from Lionel Stander and Ruth Donnelly, Columbia contract actors, as likely as not to be in any Jean Arthur film of this time. I'm not sure why but Lionel Stander saying the word `bellicose' just cracks me up. There are some nice scenes between Ruth Donnelly and Jean Arthur, which are a rarity in a film genre where scenes between 2 women are usually about romantic rivalry and bitchy exchanges. This element is of course present in the scenes between Carole and Maizie, the latter being as unpleasant and manipulative as the audience needs her to be in order that we do not need to worry about her (or Fred's treatment of her) when she is ultimately dispatched (landing on her feet in any event).

If you like 1930's Hollywood romantic comedy then this is a sweet, unassuming film, which, while not as memorable as many other films of Hollywood's golden age, is still worth a look.

Working girl works for fitness fiend...mild comedy...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 16 January 2007]

GEORGE BRENT, editor of a fitness magazine dedicated to diet and exercise, takes JEAN ARTHUR as a secretary--a woman who quits her job as a typing instructor to find out if she can find romance with a handsome and very particular employer if she pretends to be his full-time secretary. Seems that he's been unimpressed with all of the less skillful applicants.

RUTH DONNELLY, LIONEL STANDER and REGINALD DENNY have fun with subordinate roles in this wacky ode to screwball comedy. The fun comes in wondering just how Arthur is going to change his staid ways and overly dedicated devotion to exercise and body building. Of course what Brent needs is a fresh viewpoint on selling points for his dignified magazine and Arthur is just the gal to give it to him.

It's the sort of run-of-the-mill, breezy comedy that studios churned out for Depression weary audiences--so don't look for realism here. But JEAN ARTHUR is at her perky best and GEORGE BRENT manages to unbend a little in a role with comic overtones. DOROTHEA KENT tries hard, but manages not to steal scenes in a ditsy dumb blonde role that would have been perfect for either Jean Harlow or Judy Holliday (at a later time).

Trivia note: As surprising as it seems, this trifle of a comedy played at Radio City Music Hall on its original release.

Almost, but not quite

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 14 March 2011]

It's right around 1936-1938 that, in my humble view, Hollywood movies gain maturity and sophistication. This film is on the cusp, but isn't quite there. And, for Jean Arthur, her greatest successes are also just around the corner (perhaps with 1938's "You Can't Take It With You").

There's a period midway through the movie where, it seems to me, things drift a bit. I'm not even quite sure why George Brent's character wants to have a fling with the floozy secretary...not well established. And then the wrap-up of the film seems a bit weak to me, as well.

Jean Arthur is good here...playing a bit of a prudish secretary-type at the beginning of the film...sort of reminds me of her next to last film role in "A Foreign Affair", although she comes off much better here. I like George Brent, but I didn't find him totally convincing here; of course his best films were often those with Bette Davis. Ruth Donnelly is interesting here...sort of reminds me of a slightly more gentle Eve Arden-type role.

To whom would I recommend this film? Well, I guess if you enjoy Jean Arthur films (and I myself am in that category), you should see this film. Otherwise, I could take it or leave it.

Funny, old-fashioned romantic comedy

[costellorp · 7/10 · 26 January 2019]

We enjoyed this movie very much! I think you will like this movie if you generally like movies from the 1930s or if you like the actress Jean Arthur. It was a lot of fun to watch. When you consider the outrageous corporate-executive behavior exposed recently by the #MeToo movement, you won't say that the movie is dated. This movie takes a funny look at some of the consequences of that behavior.

Apt allegory for how corporations treat Americans

[charlytully · 8/10 · 11 March 2011]

Any industry with an accelerated worker shelf life (which includes sales, pro sports, and certainly show business) is ripe for serving as a prime example of what corporations do to 90 per cent of Americans (i.e., the working class): look for pretty faces, then chew them up and spit them out. Set in the context of the fictitious "Body and Brain" health magazine editorial offices, MORE THAN A SECRETARY would have been slightly more plausible in a moving pictures studio (but THAT would have struck Columbia Pictures too close to home).

All the secretaries portrayed in this film, other than elderly spinster Helen (of undisclosed sexual orientation, though she jumps at the chance for an intimate two-girl camping trip with her roommate, Carol) blatantly state they are only jumping into the secretarial pool with an eye toward matrimony (i.e., giving themselves to the boss, body and soul). Some try to learn typing and spelling; others conclude, "Why bother?" As a harder, more educated, and more intelligent worker than her corporate boss Fred, Carol rights his Body & Brain sinking ship virtually overnight with her working class common sense. Fred's reward to Carol? He finagles a way to get her out of his sight completely while dumping ALL of his remaining work load in her lap. What's left in good ol' Fred's lap? It's not hard to imagine, seeing him weak in bed after drunken all-nighters with Carol's replacement in the private secretary slot, mercenary no-talent total airhead Maizie, Carol's secretarial school flunk-out from the movie's prologue. The film hammers home its didactic moral by showing that the richer and more powerful a corporate goon, the bigger a fool: Maizie lets go of Fred only to get her hooks into a much bigger fish, Fred's boss, magazine mogul Mr. Crosby. (If regular grade school math teachers ran Wall Street, instead of 12th generation Mayflower descendant Ivy League frat boys, the U.S. would have been spared the trauma of both this movie's Great Depression and today's Great Recession).

To summarize, MORE THAN A SECRETARY's message is that the wealthiest 10% of Americans hide behind corporate shenanigans in what is still predominantly a good ol' boy's club, enslaving the remaining 90% of us to do all the useful work as long as we're youthful, and preferably pretty.

Not a great example of Jean Arthur's work

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 18 January 2007]

Jean Arthur is a secretarial teacher who becomes "More Than a Secretary," a 1936 comedy also starring George Brent, Lionel Stander, Ruth Donnelly, Reginald Denny and Dorothea Kent. Arthur and Donnelly run a secretarial school for dizzy young women who plan on using their skills to nab husbands in corporate America. One gal in particular, Maizie (Kent) is a total dropout but seems to have the man magnet technique down, to the disgust of the bespectacled Carol, who hasn't given up on love. When a client fires another secretary, Carol decides to replace her and goes to work for a health magazine run by Fred Gilbert (Brent). Carol falls for him...and then complications arise in the form of the aforementioned Maizie.

This is a very dated, slow, and ultimately boring comedy that fails to hold interest. Brent is actually quite good as a passionate health nut. Comedy is a departure for him, and he's successful at it. Arthur is very good, but it's not a role with the type of range one is used to seeing her do. And it's hard to get past the extremely dated notion of women going to work only to meet men and then quitting their jobs, their goal accomplished. But the typewriters are a hoot as are the phrases being dictated. If you're old enough to remember Peter Piper picked a peck etc., standard manual typewriters and manual returns, you'll have a good laugh.

vehicle for jean arthur, star of the talkies.

[ksf-2 · 8/10 · 16 December 2023]

Carol baldwin (jean arthur) runs a secretarial school. And when she has a run in with a client (brent), she ends up working for him. Misunderstandings, romance, arguments. You'll recognize lionel stander.. he was max on hart to hart! And ruth donnelly was so good in chickadee, mister deeds, and mister smith. The film code had just come in full force, but there were still some pretty naughty references scattered here and there, if you pay attention! This is one of the columbia romance pictures from the 1930s, where it was all about the girl's mission to trap a man. It's pretty good. Directed by al green. Jean arthur was huge in the 1930s, 1940s. Oscar nominated for more the merrier. In so many big big films, like "angels" in 1939 with cary grant. She had started in the silents, but didn't really hit it big until the talkies came along.

Jean Totes A Heavy Load

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 5 September 2008]

With Jean Arthur, Ruth Donnelly, and Lionel Stander in the cast, More Than A Secretary starts to look like a road company Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. Too bad it isn't quite up to the standard of that comedy classic.

But this was more an example of the fluff that Jean Arthur was asked to carry in her career. Not every film could be a Mr. Deeds.

Jean and Ruth Donnelly run a secretarial school from which they graduate women of all kinds including Dorothea Kent, a poor man's Marie Wilson. Dorothea's typing and shorthand leave much to be desired, but she does have other assets and his certainly decorative enough.

Jean goes to work for health magazine editor George Brent who is maniacal on the subject of fitness, sexist in his views of women, and something of a puritan. But Jean proves pretty indispensable as his magazine circulation starts to boom.

But then Reginald Denny who has a jealous wife dumps Dorothea back on George who with Jean has to put up with her incompetence. Something has to give.

The whole thing was rather silly to me. Why they don't just fire this bimbo is beyond me. Maybe Denny's hormones are making the decision for him, but Brent's certainly aren't.

Maybe I'm too harsh on the film though. I in fact worked for a woman who headed a state agency and she was so stupid she couldn't probably spell the word. I could have seen her like Kent, running Tina's Nail Salon on Cropsey Avenue in Brooklyn. But she also was in her job because somebody's hormones went into overdrive.

George Brent was borrowed from Warner Brothers by Harry Cohn for this film. My only question is why did he use a favor from Jack Warner for this. Or was Brent being punished?

This film is way overrated on IMDb

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 20 January 2007]

This film is a good example of the actors and their personas being MUCH better than the material they are given! While I have always loved Jean Arthur as well as George Brent in films, they are much too good for this tripe. In particular, Jean tries very hard in this film, but Brent's character is so poorly written and stupid that it drags the entire film to a standstill and looks as if it were written by some inexperienced hacks.

The film begins with Jean and Ruth Donnelly at a secretarial school they own. So far, so good--both are wonderful actresses and I had my hopes set VERY high since they were in the film. Then, 'Maizie' (Dorthea Kent) makes an appearance as a ditsy hussy and the film begins to slowly slide downward (she was a truly cardboard and annoying character). So I was THRILLED when the film moved from this school to the offices of a magazine editor played by Brent. Apparently, he was such a demanding boss that secretary after secretary from the school either quit or were fired and so Jean goes to give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she is smitten by him and takes the job herself.

At this point, I was intrigued by the film. No major problems. However, when she came to work the next day, Brent's character was such a ridiculous and impossible to believe jerk that the film really began to spiral downward very quickly. Not only was he bombastic and a total health nut, but his having everyone do group exercises (like those done in many Japanese companies, by the way) was poorly executed. What person would order these exercises and then open the window and let all their many, many papers blow across the office and yet continue exercising?! Surely it would take hours to rearrange all the papers--why not stop for five seconds to close the window! This sort of extreme and stupid behavior continued from then on, such as when they went out to eat at a vegetarian restaurant, go for long, long walks in the middle of pouring rain and talk on and on and on (ad nauseum) about "right living and exercise". This was all supposed to be funny, but really came off poorly, as his character seemed more like a silly caricature of a person! Now if this wasn't bad enough, about midway through the film, Maizie re-appeared and then the film's romance between the leads was completely derailed. At this point, Brent ("Mr. Extreme") became such an obnoxious jerk that it was small wonder that Jean didn't just kill him! The bottom line is that it must have taken a lot of work to but Brent and Arthur in a film and have me so bored and annoyed by the whole thing. Considering all the warm and wonderful films these two made, it's amazing that this film was as poor as it was.

Calling for a male chauvinist boss, pronto!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 4 February 2016]

Don't attack your machines. The "typewriter is an instrument, not a man." So says secretarial instructor Jean Arthur. She ends up working as a secretary herself when she arrives at fitness magazine editor George Brent's office, turning the magazine upside down and predictably falling for the son of a brute. He's not really likable here, and Arthur gives the lesson to him that women can be of enormous help if given half the chance.

Given a bit of an early feminist stance, this is a bit of a misfire because it tries to put a new twist on an old plot but doesn't come off as truthful. With Ruth Donnelly and Lionel Stander as confidantes to Arthur and Brent, it manages to be the supporting characters who steal the scenes. Dorothea Kent plays a stereotypical dumb blonde from Arthur's school who succeeds at two things: turning married man's heads and causing trouble for the leading lady. She has an element of crafty bitchiness that isn't found in most of these types of characters.

Arthur and Brent could have been a much better match had they had a better catch. Made around the same to be as the glossier MGM drama "Wife vs. Secretary", this one is no match when compared to Gable, Harlow and Loy. It is standard stuff with substandard writing.

A lesser Jean Arthur film without much spark

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 25 October 2016]

"More Than a Secretary" is a mildly entertaining and interesting film. It's not particularly funny as a comedy, nor is there much spark in the romance. My five stars are mostly for the interesting plot. It has a subplot that was becoming old hat in Hollywood by that time – the young secretary who went to work to snare a wealthy husband. A sub-subplot of that was the ditzy blonde who couldn't type or take dictation getting a private secretary job.

The initial humor of this aspect quickly fades, and we are more interested in seeing how Jean Arthur's Carol Baldwin will win over the driven Fred Gilbert. George Brent plays the efficiency and healthy living expert who publishes a men's fitness magazine. Lionel Stander does very well in the role of Ernest. The rest of the cast are OK.

One other interesting thing in this film is its look at the schools that flourished for a few decades in America to train secretaries. Arthur's Baldwin and Ruth Donnelly's Helen Davis run such a school. This isn't a movie to run out and buy. Jean Arthur fans may like it, although it's one of her lesser works. For others who may come across it on TV, it's worth a watch.

goof

[stampspleez · 4/10 · 17 January 2007]

Did anyone wonder why the trailer had no door? Must have been a creation of the prop department. Why in the world would anyone want the guy after fooling around with Mazie. The guy seems like a real jerk rather than a leading man. And that mustache does not help George Brent either. I thought it was real weak acting from pros than sure can do better. Stander and Donnely really stand out, and The girl that plays Mazie isn't too bad either. There are so many loose plot lines in this that it's hard to accept any of them. I like comedies from this period, but this one is a waste of time unless you are a BIG Jean Arthur fan. Columbia should have thrown the Three Stooges in for some serious plot twist.

A script! A script! My kingdom for a script!

[harl-7 · 3/10 · 9 March 2011]

Romantic comedies aren't supposed to tax the brain, and so they tend to have weak plots. This one is far weaker than most romantic comedies.

That's not to say that the characters aren't pleasant. Dorothea Kent as Maizie is an especially fun character, but the rest of the cast is certainly competent as well. If only they'd had a decent script, the resources put into this film could have resulted in a really nice movie.

This movie was released on Christmas Eve 1936, but it would have fared better had it been released in late summer. In that era, movie theaters were among the few facilities that were air conditioned. Spending the day in a blast-furnace of a workplace, and sleeping in a bed soaked with sweat was miserable, so movie houses didn't need much in the way of entertainment to sell tickets; the cold air was sufficient for that.