The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Plot

Margaret and Susan Turner are sisters who live together. Susan is an intelligent 17-year-old high school student with a habit of forming short-lived enthusiasms after hearing the regular guest lectures at school. Margaret, who is a judge, is Susan's guardian. Richard Nugent, a handsome and sophisticated artist, is a defendant in Margaret's courtroom, charged by assistant district attorney Tommy Chamberlain with starting a nightclub brawl. Margaret releases him with a warning when it becomes clear that the fight was started by two women, Agnes Prescott and Florence, fighting over him.

Richard proceeds to Susan's school, where he is the guest lecturer for the day. Listening to his speech, Susan becomes infatuated with him. After the talk, she insists on interviewing him for the school paper and suggests that she model for one of his paintings. That evening, she dons a sophisticated outfit and sneaks away from home and into his apartment while he is out.

Soon after Richard returns and discovers Susan in his apartment, Margaret and Tommy arrive frantically knocking on the door. Richard assaults Tommy and is held in jail until Matt Beemish, the court psychiatrist and also Margaret and Susan's uncle, intervenes and explains the situation. He recommends allowing Susan to date the 35-year-old Richard until the infatuation dissipates and Tommy promises to drop the assault charge if Richard complies.

At a high school basketball game, Richard unsuccessfully tries to boost Susan's image of her ex-boyfriend Jerry White. At a neighborhood picnic, Susan persuades Richard to enter a series of novelty races but he loses repeatedly to Tommy. In the main event, an obstacle course, Susan asks Jerry to help Richard win. Because he still loves her, Jerry complies, bribing his friends to sabotage the other competitors and colliding with Tommy so that Richard wins the event.

Richard and Margaret are attracted to each other but Tommy considers Richard a habitual troublemaker and wants Margaret for himself. Hoping that Richard will stop seeing Margaret if he no longer must date Susan, Tommy announces that he is dropping the charge. When Margaret invites Richard out to a nightclub, they are continuously interrupted. Susan dramatically accuses Margaret of stealing her boyfriend. Uncle Matt takes Susan in hand and makes her realize that she is only infatuated with Richard and he is too old for her, so she returns to Jerry, who is being drafted into uniform.

Matt learns that Richard is planning a trip away, so he convinces Margaret she also needs a break and books her on the same flight. Hearing that Tommy is coming to arrest Richard on exaggerated charges, Matt stalls Tommy by telling the police at the airport that Tommy is a mental patient with delusions of being an assistant district attorney. Richard and Margaret are happily surprised to meet each other as they approach the plane to board and head off together.

Cast

Cary Grant as Richard Nugent, a sophisticated bachelor

Myrna Loy as Margaret Turner, a judge

Shirley Temple as Susan Turner, her teenage sister

Rudy Vallée as Tommy Chamberlain, an assistant district attorney

Ray Collins as Dr. Matt Beemish, a psychiatrist and Margaret and Susan's uncle

Harry Davenport as Judge Thaddeus Turner, Margaret and Susan's great uncle

Johnny Sands as Jerry White, Susan's teenage boyfriend

Don Beddoe as Joey

Lillian Randolph as Bessie

Veda Ann Borg as Agnes Prescott

Dan Tobin as Walters

Ransom M. Sherman as Judge Treadwell

William Bakewell as Winters

Irving Bacon as Melvin

Ian Bernard as Perry

Carol Hughes as Florence

William Hall as Anthony Herman

Gregory Gaye as Maître d'

Pat Flaherty as Coach

Reception

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer premiered at Radio City Music Hall. In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film "most agreeable" and praised the four principal performers, the direction and screenplay. At the 20th Academy Awards, the film's screenplay won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Sidney Sheldon, who later created the television shows I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart and wrote novels such as Master of the Game (1982), The Other Side of Midnight (1973) and Rage of Angels (1980). According to RKO records, the film earned $4,200,000 in theater rentals in the United States and Canada and $1,350,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $700,000.

Radio adaptation

The script was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the May 10, 1948 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple. It was also dramatized as a Lux Radio Theater adaptation starring Grant and Temple that aired on June 13, 1949.

Home media

In 2009, the film was available on videocassette and DVD.