The Major and the Minor

The Major and the Minor
Paramount, 1942, B/W, 101 minutes, ****
Released September, 1942

Screen icon Ginger Rogers masquerades as a schoolgirl in The Major and the Minor, the directorial debut of legendary writer-director Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot).

After a year in New York (and twenty-five jobs), Susan Applegate (Rogers) decides that she's giving up on big city life, figuring it's time to go home. Only the train fare has gone up since she last rode, so she disguises herself as a 12-year old named "Sue Sue," and manages to get a ticket for child's fare. Now on board, the conductors are on to her scheme so she ends up hiding out in a compartment, not knowing it's already occupied by Major Kirby (Ray Milland), a military academy instructor with poor eyesight. When the railroad tracks flood and the train stalls, Kirby demands that Sue Sue accompany him to the academy, since she's without parental supervision. There she'll be able to get a ride to her home town.

Now, Susan must remain in character as the academy's young cadet vie for her attention... and she finds herself falling for the Major, whom, she is convinced, is about to marry a woman who's all wrong for him!

Produced by: Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Written by: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
Suggested by a Play by Edward Childs Carpenter
From a Story by Fannie Kilbourne
Music Score: Robert Emmett Dolan
Art Direction: Hans Drier, Roland Anderson
Costumes: Edith Head
Makeup Artist: Wally Westmore
Sound Recording by: Harold Lewis, Don Johnson
Director of Photography: Leo Tover
Edited by: Doane Harrison
Military school exteriors were photographed at St. John's Military Academy, Delafield, Wisconsin

Cast: Ginger Rogers [Susan Applegate], Ray Milland [Major Kirby], Rita Johnson [Pamela Hill], Robert Benchley [Mr. Osborne], Diana Lynn [Lucy Hill], Edward Fielding [Colonel Hill], Frankie Thomas [Cadet Osborne], Raymond Roe [Cadet Wigton], Charles Smith [Cadet Korner], Larry Nunn [Cadet Babcock], Billy Dawson [Cadet Miller], Lela Rogers [Mrs. Applegate], Aldrich Bowker [Reverend Doyle], Boyd Irwin [Major Griscom], Byron Shores [Captain Durand], Richard Fiske [Will Duffy], Norma Varden [Mrs. Osborne], Gretl Dupont [Mrs. Shackleford], Additional Cast: Marie Blake [Bertha], Billy Ray [Cadet Sommerville], Stanley Desmond [Cadet Shumaker], Billy Cook, John Bogden, Bill Clauson, Don Wilmot, Jim Pilcher, David McKim, Billy O'Kelly, Buster Nichols, Bradley Hail, Ralph Gilliam, Kenneth Grant, Dickie Jones, Dick Chandlee, Jack Lindquist, Stephen Kirchner [Cadets], James Conaty [Officer], Tom Dugan [Con Man in Railraod Station], Mary Field [Wilbur and Margie's Mother in Train Station], Freddie Mercer [Wilbur, Little Boy in Train Station], Carlotta Jelm [Margie, Little Girl in Train Station], George Anderson [Man with Esquire Magazine], Bess Flowers, Sam Harris, Edmund Mortimer [Guests at Cadet Ball], Archie Twitchell [Sergeant at Main Gate], Ken Lundy [Elevator Boy], Dell Henderson [Doorman], Alice Keating [Nurse], Milton Kibbee [Station Agent], Edward Peil, Sr. [Stationmaster], Will Wright [Ticket agent #1], William Newell [Ticket Agent #2], Stanley Andrews [Conductor #1], Emory Parnell [Conductor #2], Ralph Brooks [Extra in Train Car]

Musical Program: Not a musical, but contains some background and incidental music: [1:03] Ginger Rogers and Raymond Roe dancing (no music); [1:07] Blues in the Night (instrumental played on radio, danced by Raymomd Roe); [1:08] We Do (?) (sung by Cadets); [1:11] Lover (waltz [instrumental] danced by Ginger Rogers and Cadets at Ball); [1:14] unidentified waltz (danced by Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland and by Cadets and guests at the Ball)