He Couldn't Say No

"He Couldn't Say No" ranks as one of the top ten worst films I have ever seen. Jane Wyman, a brilliant, Academy Award winning actress, is completely wasted in this film. There are brief humorous moments, but they are overshadowed by the cardboard plot and insufficient character development. Frank McHugh was well-cast in the lead, but the film is so unbelievable that this is the only point in its favor.

The basic "plot" (such as there is) is as follows: Lambert, a less than average looking fellow (McHugh), who is fascinated by the beautiful Iris Mabby (Diana Lewis), a senator's daughter, is engaged to one his coworkers (Wyman). His fiancé dominates him and has an overbearing mother (Cora Witherspoon) as well. The three of them go to an auction to buy furniture to furnish the apartment in which all three (!) of them will live after the wedding. At the auction, Lambert spends an outlandish sum on a nude statue that looks exactly like Iris Mabby, infuriating his fiancé and her mother. From then on, the film centers around his attempts to keep the statue despite a great deal of crusading efforts from numerous other people.

All of the actors in this film were far more talented than this film makes them appear. If you are a Jane Wyman or Diana Lewis fan, don't disappoint yourself by watching this pathetic motion picture. There are a great many far better classic films that you could be viewing instead.

Frank McHugh is a browbeaten man with an overbearing boss, a hectoring fiancee in Jane Wyman, and a awful prospective mother-in-law in Cora Witherspoon. They go to an auction house to purchase furniture, but McHugh sees a statue that looks like his ideal woman. He buys it for $100, arousing the ire of the two women, and the offers for profit from Berton Churchill; it seems the statue is modeled on his daughter, Diana Lewis. But McHugh will not sell

This is a well-constructed comedy that irritates me far too much to enjoy. McHugh isn't strong enough to carry even a 57-minute comedy. He's playing one of those characters who are timid as rabbits, which annoys me. I think the people who made this movie understood they had to dig for giggles, so they named McHugh's character .Lambert T. Hunkins, and his employer Oxnard O. Parsons, and had him put the statue on a plinth so it could continually wobble and threaten to fall and shatter. All of those things annoy me. I think it's a matter of personal taste, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.

In the midst of all this annoyance, I should note that Tom Kennedy gives a nice comic performance as a gangster deputed to guard McHugh and the statue. But it isn't enough to make me like this movie.

He Couldn't Say No (1938)

** (out of 4)

A weak story kills this film about a broke office clerk (Frank McHugh) who is getting pressured from his co-worker's (Jane Wyman) mother (Cora Witherspoon) to get married to her daughter. Things take a turn for the worse between the three when the guy goes to an auction and spends all his money on a plaster statue because it reminds him of a model (Diana Lewis) and soon all hell breaks loose due to this statue. At just 57-minutes there's certainly nothing overly bad or evil with this film but there's no question that it should have been much better. If you're a fan of classic Warner films then you've bound to have seen McHugh appear with some of the studio's biggest guys. It was good that the studio finally gave him the lead part in a movie but sadly the screenplay just can't pull anything off. There are some pretty funny moments including a one-liner coming back towards the mother during a dinner sequence and there's another good piece at the start when the clerk goes into his manager's office thinking he's going to be fired. The rest of the comedy pretty much fails because the comedy just isn't that funny. The second portion of the film deals with the model's father trying to buy the statue back and then we have gangsters getting involved. None of this stuff is funny and when he's offered thousands of dollars for this statue and refuses to sell, it's not cute but instead annoying. The screenplay really lets the cast down because everything is pretty good here. McHugh gives that comic performance like only he can deliver. Wyman is very good in the role of the girlfriend and Witherspoon is very believable as that annoying future mother-in-law. Berton Churchill plays the Senator trying to buy the statue and Lewis is simply divine in her part. HE COULDN'T SAY NO probably best sums up what went wrong with the story when someone didn't say no to it.

Lambert T. Hunkins (Frank McHugh) is a mild-mannered pushover office clerk. He is obsessed with socialite Iris Mabby (Diana Lewis), daughter of Senator Mabby. He gets a surprise promotion and an extra $10 a week. With that new money, his girlfriend Violet Coney (Jane Wyman) is getting pressure from her mother to get a marriage proposal. The brow-beaten Lambert doesn't have the courage to bid on auction items until they bring out a statue resembling Iris Mabby. All hell breaks loose.

I do have issues with this movie. This premise could do with a remake. First and most obvious, the statues need to be really nudes and not faux nudes. The other issue is nice girl Jane Wyman. They can't make her into a shrew. She's all wrong for the role. In fact, she would be a great Iris Mabby. On the other hand, Frank McHugh is the perfect Lambert. He is a complete pushover. It's actually quite compelling to have him stand up for himself. I really like this movie. It just need to switch out Wyman.

Annoying little Warner Brothers shortie … only 57 minutes, but they manage to waste a lot of film in a short time. Frank McHugh, with his great comedic character emotions and expressions, had supporting parts in many a film, but he sure couldn't carry this one. Even more annoying is that at every opportunity to get away from the "bad guys", he stays and taunts them more. Furthermore, he is hen-pecked by his girlfriend (Jane Wyman), her mother (Cora Witherspoon), and his boss at work. Just frustrating to watch all around. Cora Witherspoon was a pro, starring with W.C. Fields and other headliners; she frequently played the nosy, next door neighbor or old aunt or sister. The girlfriend, played by Wyman, would go on to win an Oscar for Johnny Belinda in 1948…. after being married to co-star R Reagan for eight years. One of the writers, Joseph Schrank, had also worked on some great shows, like Panama Hattie, Cabin in the Sky, and Ziegfeld Follies, so it was disappointing to see how this one turned out. Skip this one if there's something else on.