Search - My Dear Secretary on DVD

Passable comedy thanks to Keenan Wynn! 3.5 stars

Dave | Tennessee United States | 02/25/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Of course with an Alpha dvd my expectations weren't that high, but I was actually expecting a better movie. Don't get me wrong, this has a top-notch cast, but they can only do so much with the awkward script which is mostly strained and unfunny throughout the film. The best thing about this is Keenan Wynn's energetic performance which steals the show.

Kirk Douglas plays ladies man and best-selling novelist Owen Waterbury, who's having trouble getting his latest novel started. Waterbury's secretaries have a bad habit of becoming romantic conquests of his, and when Stephanie Gaylord (played by Laraine Day) becomes his secretary he expects her to be yet another easy conquest.

She plays hard to get, however, forcing Waterbury to leave his womanizing days behind him (or so she thinks!). They eventually marry, but in no time at all they're both suspicious of one another and their happy marriage quickly becomes chaotic! Will he be able to stay loyal to his wife, and will she learn to trust him? Watch and find out!

Although Kirk Douglas was usually flawless playing selfish cads ("Champion", "Out of the Past", "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers", "The Bad and the Beautiful", etc.), here he just doesn't seem to be in his element, although he does a good job, given the script's flaws. But the award for scene-stealer goes to Keenan Wynn, who plays Waterbury's cynical best friend who knows his womanizing ways so well. Overall, I think Kirk Douglas fans may find this comedy entertaining, just be aware that it's not one of his best films at all. Even big stars like Douglas made a few flops in their career (like "The Big Trees")."

My Dear Secretary

Nard Kordell | Los Angeles area, CA | 04/04/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great, lighthearted, fun movie! For a contemporary, younger generation, it's probably just too much. But the generation for whom this movie was made, a generation that went thru a war that just killed 60 plus million poeple world wide, it was a simple, fun-loving, fresh, happy, 'the-future-did-look-brighter-and-new-days-were-coming' type of movie. It touches a wonderfully simple sense of love enough times to leave you in a better frame of mind once you have finished the last moments of the film."

Take A Letter, Any Letter.

Tom Without Pity | A Major Midwestern Metropolis | 10/10/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

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This is a review for MY DEAR SECRETARY (1948) written & directed by Charles Martin. The nearly forgotten Lorraine Day co-stars in this fast paced later day screwball comedy as a wanna be pro writer named Stephanie Gaylord taking a secretarial job with best-sellling home officed writer Owen Waterbury played by Kirk Douglas.

Mr. Waterbury's success seems to come from the fact that he is so poorly organized he doesn't know whether he's coming or going and no one else seems to know either.

Finally Stephanie threatens to leave and to get her to stay, the playboy best seller offers to marry her. Wildly unbeleivable story buttressed by fine performances from all in the cast especially Keenan Wynne. Well done comedy with more than a few gaps in logic and believability.

I rate it Three and One Half Stars.
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