The Lady Pays Off

First of all ,why was beauty Linda Darnell cast as a lonely heart demure schoolteacher ,so devoted to her work she was elected teacher-of the-year and was not interested in men (but she's wooed by a math teacher ,lost in probability problems in the casino ) and made the Times cover !Claudette Colbert ,who worked with Sirk in the thrillers " sleep my love" and "thunder on the hill" would have been a much better choice.

This is not to be considered one of Douglas Sirk's masterworks (and I'm a big fan) ,it's predictable since McNally hired Darnell to cure his beloved daughter (Gigi Perrault ,a child actor and a Sirk habituée) who does not succeed at school ; it's a melodrama masquerading as comedy but if Darnell and the sailors roar with laughter on the fishboat , the viewer does not .

Virginia Field plays the thankless part of the sacrificed woman who has done nothing wrong but displease the shrewd litte brat : she is taken to an exhausting trek and ends up bedridden with painful rashes ; she would play more or less the part of the same "wrong " woman in Sirk's "weekend with father" where she served as a foil to Patricia Neal.

In fact , whereas McNally believes he manipulates Darnell (and as the movie progresses the other way about) both are manipulated by the not-so-nice little devil whose last sentence is revealing : "I pronounce you........"