A Woman of Distinction

Rosalind Russell plays Dr. Susan Middlecott, a brilliant professor and dean of a college for women. However, her father (Edmund Gwenn) is concerned that she's all work and needs a man in her life. So, when the newspaper comes up with the incorrect notion that she's having a relationship with a professor (Ray Milland), the father makes the most of it...encouraging and pulling strings to try to get them together.

While Milland, Gwenn and Russell are all wonderful actors, here they are burdened with a bad script. The essential idea isn't bad (though some feminists today will balk at the notion that a woman needs a man), it is executed poorly. There are two main problems. Towards the end, the film relies too much on slapsticky sorts of laughs...with Rosalind on the receiving end again and again. Additionally, the whole relationship between the professors goes from hostile to head over heels so abruptly and unexpectedly that it made no sense at all. It's a shame...the film should have been a lot better.