Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

Another film named after a song in the film to sell copies of that song, this is a film adaptation of the stage play “No-No Nanette”. That would have been a much more fitting title for this but sorry, there’s a profit to be had.

As I am kind of sick of Doris Day films, I wasn’t looking forward to this but it’s actually pretty cute. It takes place just as the stock market crashes and Nanette’s uncle, who was previously quite wealthy, finds himself suddenly without nearly as much funds as before. Nanette wants to fund a stage production with her uncle’s money, unaware he needs to cut back considerably on expenses. Not wanting to tell her of his financial situation, the uncle instead makes a deal with her where she is not allowed to say yes to any question she is asked for a certain amount of time. This has both hilarious and potentially sad results as she is inundated with a barrage of very important questions over the course of the following days.

Everyone is pretty funny throughout this film but the lady assigned to keep Nanette accountable during her “Must say No” time is hilarious. She’s just full of self-deprecating humor that doesn’t come off as abusive. That’s likely made possible by the fact that everyone around her is very appreciative of her and if I recall, she’s rewarded too at the end.

This is one of those movies that’s good even without Doris Day but it was Doris Day so deal with it. The songs all have purpose and/or further the plot along. It’s literally a musical about producing a musical so the pretext for a song here and there easily makes sense.

The whole movie is actually a flashback, the story being told by the uncle to Nanette’s children. It was amusing to see these approximately 1930s kids making fun of their parents’ 1920s fashion. It’s the same way today. Although a couple of my kids and I share similar tastes in music. I shan’t spoil the kids’ reaction to their great uncle’s reminiscences but they seemingly didn’t enjoy the story as much as I did. Good stuff.

Probably would have been more memorable if it actually had a title that made sense like, oh, I don’t know, maybe  “No-No Nanette”?