Tell It to the Judge (1949)

Director:

Norman Foster

Writers:

Devery Freeman (story)
Nat Perrin (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 November 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

Rosalind returns to comedy...with a BANG!

Plot:

Marsha Meredith, an attorney-at-law, is nominated for a Federal judgeship, but her nomination is opposed...

Plot Keywords:

Misunderstanding | Judge | Washington D.C. | Mistaken Identity | Attorney

Cast

Rosalind Russell	...	Marsha Meredith
Robert Cummings	...	Peter B. 'Pete' Webb
Gig Young	...	Alexander Darvac
Marie McDonald	...	Ginger Simmons
Harry Davenport	...	Judge MacKenzie Meredith
Fay Baker	...	Valerie Hobson
Katherine Warren	...	Kitty Lawton
Douglass Dumbrille	...	George Ellerby
Clem Bevans	...	Alonzo K. Roogle
Grandon Rhodes	...	Ken Craig
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Maggie Hathaway	...	Maid

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:Approved (PCA #13755) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Finland:S | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Snow Valley, San Bernardino Mountains, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Funny comedy

Rosalind Russell is the Judge in "Tell it to the Judge," a 1949 film also starring Bob Cummings, Marie McDonald and Gig Young. Russell plays Marsha Meredith, a recently divorced woman up for a judgeship, encouraged in her career by her judge grandfather (Harry Davenport). The ex-husband, however, Pete Webb (Cummings) wants her back. The two are still in love. The divorce was basically a misunderstanding - Webb was working with a beautiful blond witness (McDonald) and Marsha mistook it for something else. Even though it puts her career in jeopardy, Marsha remarries Pete. On their wedding night, her grandfather kidnaps Pete so that Marsha thinks he's up to his old tricks. She then takes off and announces to the press that she's married to someone else, and makes up a name. When Alexander (Gig Young), a man she met previously appears, she has him play the part of her husband.

This is a typical screwball comedy centering around the struggle that the independent woman has between being a career person and a wife - and apparently back then, it was one or the other. I thought Russell was fine as Marsha, unlike another reviewer - I've seen her miscast, and I didn't think she was this time - but I agree with another remark the poster made, that Bob Cummings steals the movie. Cummings is thought of as a bland film actor, and perhaps he was. What made him a tremendous television star was his sense of comedy, which he didn't get to use much in films but which was his strength. Here he gets to show it off, and a few years later, he made his mark in television.

A fun movie, not earth-shattering, as films were going through a difficult transition. So apparently were women, and in the '40s, they lost the career battle, only to pick it up again a couple of decades later.