“The Bride Goes Wild” is an unfortunate name for a great movie. This 1948 romantic comedy stars Van Johnson and June Allyson in their third of five movie pairings. It really isn’t about a bride for most of the movie, and she certainly doesn’t go wild. Based on lead couple’s characters, “Uncle Bumps and the Schoolteacher” would have been a very fitting title. I can see why MGM didn’t use that name, though.
My family is always on the lookout for cute movies, which aren’t epic stories and probably aren’t cinematic masterpieces but which are entertaining and easy to watch. They’re fun but not too silly. They’re romantic but not too deep. No matter what your mood is, there’s a good chance a movie like this will lift your spirits!
“The Bride Goes Wild” fits the bill of a fun movie which my family can enjoy at the drop of a hat. It’s a charming love story, but it has several unique characteristics beyond the usual boy-meets-girl scenarios. For one thing, there’s the addition of an adorable little boy, a mischievous orphan played by Butch Jenkins who helps bring the couple together. There’s also another man for her and another woman for him. His old flame seems like a character destined to remain unseen, but she makes a dramatic entrance halfway through the film. The reason why it’s enjoyable in a mature way instead of just being silly is because it also has a good message.
The Story
Martha Terryton (Allyson) is a schoolteacher from Vermont who wins a contest for drawing an illustration of “The Bashful Bull” for the upcoming book of the same name by beloved children’s author Uncle Bumps. The nervous publisher, John McGrath (Hume Cronyn), fears that the strait-laced teetotaler will be less excited about collaborating with the famous author when she meets the man behind the whimsical pen name. Uncle Bumps is really Greg Rawlings (Johnson), a young alcoholic playboy who hates children. Martha meets him at McGrath’s office, not realizing who he is. Greg is immediately attracted to the pretty young illustrator, so he convinces her that he’s a tippling author who needs encouragement to sober up and do some writing. She agrees to have one cup of coffee with him, but he tricks her by ordering Coffee Tasmanian for both of them, which he doesn’t tell her has brandy in it. She is outraged (and intoxicated) when she realizes how he deceived her to get her “pie-eyed.”Greg claims that he drinks for the fun of it, but his shiftless lifestyle is really his way of drowning his sorrow about an ill-fated romance. Years earlier, he was in love with a girl named Tillie Smith (Arlene Dahl), who left him to marry a millionaire. She is now a wealthy widow; news of her arrival in New York in a few days makes Greg desperate to leave town. However, John is afraid that Martha, who is outraged by Greg’s behavior, will denounce Uncle Bumps as a fraud to her cousin, a prominent moral guardian. John explained Greg’s drunken behavior by saying that he is an unhappy widower with a wayward son. To validify his story, John borrows a mischievous eight-year-old orphan named Danny (Jenkins) from a boys’ home to pose as Greg’s son.
When Danny shows his delinquent tendencies during Martha’s visit, she takes pity on the fake father and son. She suggests that the three of them should go on a picnic in the country together, and Greg has no choice but to agree. As the trio spends more time together, Martha and Greg feel a growing bond, while Danny is becoming increasingly attached to his surrogate father. Meanwhile, the lad’s love for ants has given Greg an idea for a new book.
A Bad Influence
An important part of this story is Greg’s low moral caliber when Martha first meets him. In order for him to mend his ways later, we have to see that he is a heavy drinker and a flirt. However, these topics had to be handled delicately enough to keep this in the family film category. I can just imagine how many shenanigans would ensue in a 1960s comedy about an alcoholic, philandering New York author, such as a Rock Hudson and Doris Day film, to say nothing of a 21st century movie! Thankfully, this movie was made in the 1940s, so it’s a very different story.By the early 1960s, when those risqué romps were made, Hollywood was tossing out its moral principles for film content like yesterday’s newspaper. Beginning in the later half of the 1950s, every year brought new daring ideas from filmmakers until the movie industry seemed as lawless as the Wild West. Much like an old Western town, there were laws in place, but the bad hombres were running the town because the corrupt sheriff let them. Back in the 1940s, however, there was law and order in Hollywood, since a good sheriff made sure the city’s laws were enforced through due process of law and justice. The laws were the Motion Picture Production Code, the justice department was the Production Code Administration (PCA), and the good sheriff was Joseph I. Breen. Unfortunately, after his weak deputy, Geoffrey Shurlock, took over in 1954 following Mr. Breen’s retirement, the Code was ignored, forgotten, and eventually replaced with the current Rating System in 1968. This inevitably led to Hollywood becoming the ghost town it is today.
In Code films, we often see characters who are understood to be “wolves,” “flirts,” “playboys,” or “party girls.” Like Greg Rawlings, they are described, discussed, and denounced by other characters for their behavior, usually with vague statements and few details. Most importantly, little or nothing is shown to provide condemning evidence of any suspicions we may be forming regarding such characters. Has Greg had a series of immoral affairs while trying to forget Tillie, or does he just casually flirt while drunkenly carrying a torch for her? I couldn’t tell you for sure either way, since no definitive answer is given. Due to the wholesome quality of the overall film, I would guess the latter, but it’s open to personal interpretation. That’s the beauty of Code films. You can believe whatever you want, good or bad, since the graphic details of bad behavior weren’t shoved in viewers’ faces.
Love Makes the Difference
“The Bride Goes Wild” is a story about the transformative powers of true, selfless love. Greg and Danny are the same type of person. They both are badly behaved, in different ways, of course, because they crave love and attention but only know how to get it in negative forms. When McGrath describes Miss Terryton to Greg, he winces at the words “schoolteacher” and “teetotaler.” Martha is just the sort of woman a man like him should want to avoid, yet he is immediately drawn to her. Beyond his purely visual reaction of thinking her legs are cute, he continues to pursue the interaction, even after learning her identity. It’s partly a game to him, but it’s also because, deep down, he realizes that she is just the sort of woman he needs. She is concerned for his wellbeing before she even knows who he is, urging him to get to work and avoid drinking. Once she thinks he is a widowed father, she goes out of her way to offer advice, support, and help to him and his son. This unconditional love from the pure young lady makes Greg want to mend his ways and live up to the image of him Martha is starting to form.Similarly, Danny is the terror of the orphanage when we first meet him. He sticks live frogs in people’s pockets, puts dead cats in lockers, and traps another boy in a barrel full of water! The matron of the home tries to give affection and care to all her wards, but Danny needs the full-time love which only a set of parents can give. Although he doesn’t want to pretend to be Greg’s son at first, he quickly forms a bond with the equally-reluctant man. The lad clearly is desperate for a father figure, and he finds one in Greg, to whom he bears a remarkable resemblance! As Greg and Martha give him more attention and love than he has ever known, he wants to try to be a good boy. He reveals that the only reason he’s been bad is that he thinks no one would ever want to adopt him.
This is a charming, heartwarming movie which the whole family can enjoy. If you are already a fan of Van Johnson and June Allyson, you’ll love them in this film. If not, this is a wonderful introduction to their work! I highly recommend “Uncle Bumps and the Schoolteacher.”
