If you only know Gene Tierney for Laura, Heaven Can Wait, Leave Her to Heaven, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, you don’t know all of her yet. Rings on Her Fingers came before all that, and here she plays Susan Miller, a salesgirl at Stuyvesant’s, a department store that caters to the wealthy. She chews gum and has a snappy patter as she tells a fellow salesgirl, also her roommate, that she wants to experience life on the other side of the counter, to be the woman who can look through pairs upon pairs of gloves and then tell the saleswoman that she’s just looking, instead of pointing out through different saleswomen and the boss what she’ll look like in 10 years and 30 years at Stuyvesant’s.
Fortunately for her, she gets the chance to begin experiencing quickly that kind of life, when Mrs. Maybelle Worthington (Spring Byington) insists that she try on the dress she picked out, and then invites her to a party, having her replace someone named Lillian, who has gotten married and left her and Warren (large, good-natured Laird Cregar) with the trouble of finding someone new to replace her. It turns out that Maybelle and the at-times imposing Warren are crooks, looking to carefully bilk millionaires out of their money, and the scheme involves Maybelle and a girl posing as mother and daughter, while Warren keeps track of the proceedings. Susan learns of this when she goes back to Maybelle and Warren’s house and tries to give back $100 that Maybelle gave her out of appreciation for her presence at the party. She gladly becomes part of the scheme because it is the life she wanted, no matter how she lives it.
Now as Linda Worthington, Susan and Maybelle go to Catalina, and Linda, just by lying on the beach, snares the attention of a millionaire named John Wheeler (Henry Fonda) who’s looking for a boat. To both women, John is a catch, especially his money.
That’s all I can give because there’s a plot twist in the middle that’s ingenious, not readily found in movies like this, making me wonder why other screenwriters haven’t thought of it. Of course, if they do now, they’d have to find a way to make it seem fresh because this one is as fresh as it gets. The playful screenplay by Keith Englund is a huge help in making it convincing, and it sounds like he had fun writing it, which is most important in a comedy, especially one that has an effervescent humor.
Tierney stretches easily in the role, completely believable, and her significant beauty always hints at more beneath Susan/Linda. Nothing is shallow with her. She’s game to play along just like Henry Fonda is, just like the entire cast is. Mamoulian must have encouraged this kind of set, likely seeing Rings on Her Fingers as a nice break after The Mark of Zorro and then Blood and Sand, both starring Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. In fact, there’s a slot machine attendant named Chick (“No, I’m Chick. Nick is sick,” he says to Linda when she asks if he’s Nick), played by George Lloyd, who looks like he could place 3rd in an Edward G. Robinson lookalike contest. There’s also a Captain Beasley (Thurston Hall), who finds the group of Linda, Maybelle and John on his boat, whose wife (Clara Blandick) repeats everything twice. Mamoulian, Englund, and the cast know that in order for a comedy to work, you have to give a fair number of throwaway jokes like these, with dialogue that can occasionally serve the same purpose, but make sure that it all ties in nicely to the story. These jokes do.
Despite still relatively strong comedy after the twist is revealed, Englund’s screenplay falters and then runs out of steam toward the end. Part of the problem is Tod Fenwick (John Shepperd), who likes Linda too and wants to marry her, but then disappears for most of the movie before reappearing toward the end when this crazy situation keeps having more and more foul-ups piled onto it. He seems to only be there to be one of those foul-ups, but it interrupts the rhythm that’s been established throughout. It then becomes less a comedy and more idly wondering without the same investment how Susan-as-Linda is going to get out of this and marry John, as she wanted, even though John now fancies himself a gambler after gradually thinking that the games Linda arranged to be fixed at a casino are just his good luck, luck that he didn’t previously believe in. But at least three-quarters of it is entertaining.
Nothing else is included on this Fox Cinema Archives DVD, not even a trailer, which is surprising, because I thought Fox had trailers for all its movies, what with how often they’re featured on Fox Movie Channel. The label still needs to work on restoration, though, because in instances where the men are wearing black suits, they look like they’re wearing black holes. Way too dark. There’s not enough done for contrast, but it may just be that certain movies are restored well on the thought that they may offer more profit. However, no matter what the movie, Fox Cinema Archives should make sure that all their movies get close attention in restoration. After all, they own these movies, so that’s less money they have to spend right off.
Nevertheless, this manufacture-on-demand DVD service is going to be a treasure for movie buffs who want movies they either haven’t seen in years or which they’ve seen on Turner Classic Movies and want in their DVD collection instead of on their Tivo. There are a lot of possibilities opening up, more movie history revealed. Because of Fox, and Warner Archive, and Sony’s manufacture-on-demand label, we are again in a golden age of movies, looking back on the past and finding it available to us.
