IMDb plot summary: A brash, pushy young man gets a job in a bank and sets his cap for his boss's secretary, but the death of his father makes him reassess his priorities.
Directed by Sam Wood. Starring William Haines, Leila Hyams, and Polly Moran.
The Girl Said No is a movie from 1930 about a rich young playboy who ends up falling in love with a secretary. He is very pushy toward her, to the point where she is absolutely not interested. After he loses all his money and has to start to actually work for a living, he tries to woo her again, with a slightly lower ego. My main problem with this one is basically exactly what the title says -- the girl said no and he doesn't care. His pushiness doesn't go away after his change of heart, he's just a little bit less absorbed with himself, but the big romantic ending is full of moments that are basically assault, and that doesn't work for me at all. I did find it interesting how the film was paced. It felt very modern in how the beats of the story unfolded. And if that ending had been less approving of literal kidnapping and sexual assault in the name of romance, it might have landed differently. But ultimately what I hated about the guy from the beginning was unchanged by the end, and that makes the romance angle really not work. It's too bad, because it really set itself up to be a fun story about someone improving themselves and then fell right back into some really icky romantic tropes.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Girl Said No < Hamlet (2009)
The Girl Said No < Cry-Baby
The Girl Said No > Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The Girl Said No > Bright Lights
The Girl Said No > The Phantom Tollbooth
The Girl Said No < Heidi (1937)
The Girl Said No < Dinner at Eight
The Girl Said No > Deep Blue Sea
The Girl Said No > Elizabethtown
The Girl Said No > Bunraku
The Girl Said No > Our Idiot Brother
The Girl Said No < Cassandra's Dream
Final spot: #3118 out of 4029, or 23%.
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