ShangLuda
Admirable film.
ThedevilChoose
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
Fatma Suarez
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
JohnHowardReid
Producer: Irving Starr. Copyright 7 July 1942 by Loew's Inc. Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Australian release: 28 January 1943. Sydney release at the St James: 20 January 1943. 7 reels. 66 minutes. 5,984 feet. Shooting title and U.K. release title: ONCE UPON A THURSDAY.SYNOPSIS: Maid writes scandalous best-seller.NOTES: Jules Dassin worked at MGM from 1941 to 1946 before joining up with producer Mark Hellinger on Brute Force and The Naked City. He then made Thieves' Highway at Fox — his last U.S. film before the blacklist forced him to flee to Europe and eventual world-wide fame with Rififi.COMMENT: The Affairs of Martha is hardly characteristic of Dassin's work. Nevertheless, his direction is a great deal more assured than on his first feature, Nazi Agent. In fact, for a second feature (in both senses of the adjective), his direction is quite polished.Admittedly he is helped by the efforts of a large, hard-working and agreeable assembly of players, headed by the pleasantly unassuming, mildly vivacious Marsha Hunt, and taking in some fine character people including the redoubtable wicked witch Margaret Hamilton and "Z"-western stalwart, Raymond Hatton. Even when the plot slows down occasionally and dialogue threatens to take over, the film is always attractive to look at. Unlike Nazi Agent it has been treated all over with MGM's best production gloss — bright photography, attractive sets and costumes, smooth film editing — and Dassin's deft, stylish direction. Only the ponderously Mickey Mouse music score strikes an off-note. To sum up: On the whole, an entertaining, enjoyable domestic comedy which has dated surprisingly well.
csteidler
An affluent Long Island community is thrown into a panic: word is out that a maid is writing a "kitchen's-eye view" of her employers.Marsha Hunt stars as Martha, the family maid who doesn't really mean to cause a big ruckus. Richard Carlson is the scientist son who unexpectedly returns home from studies abroad—and it's quickly obvious that he and Martha share a sensitive secret.Carlson and Hunt are quite good—both give unassuming performances as characters who are just slightly offbeat.Superb character actors in colorful roles fill out the rest of the cast: Marjorie Main is at her best as the boisterous cook who rounds up all the cooks and maids on the block for a strategy session. Virginia Weidler is fine as the young daughter who says, "Every now and then I get a feeling something's going on I don't know about." Spring Byington and Melville Cooper are the mildly eccentric mother and father. Allyn Joslyn is the sharp-witted publisher of the book-in-progress. And Barry Nelson is hilarious as the delivery boy who attempts to romance Martha (Main calls him a "pantry Casanova").No single character dominates but the entire cast is colorful and clever; the witty script gives just about everyone something funny to say and contains just enough plot to offer a few twists: It's surprising, funny and sweet.–Oh, and Margaret Hamilton, three years removed from Oz, has one hilarious line during the maids' and cooks' discussion of their employers: "You don't know how bad those witches can get once they get moving," she says.
ksf-2
We open with a narrator describing the quiet, calm life in Rock Bay, where even the horses wear silencers on their hooves to keep the peace. Then we're in the dining rooms of high society, where we find out that SOMEONE's maid has a written a "Tell-all" book about the private goings on in town... Keep an eye out for Spring Byington as the high-society Mrs. Sommerfield, and Margaret Hamilton in a smaller role a couple years after Gone With the Wind.... Grady Sutton is in here as Justin Peacock Jr (he made all those films with W.C. Fields). The awesome Marjorie Main was Ma Kettle, and also a major role in "The Women", is in here as Mrs. McKessic; Virginia Weidler is the daughter Miranda Sommerfield... you may remember her as "Mary", also from "The Women". The real story here is the class war where the maids all gather together, and the society women band together to find out who has written the book, and decide what to do about it. With that collection of stars, this one should be great, but as of September 2009, only 89 votes and 3 plot comments on IMDb. The lesser known Marsha Hunt stars in this MGM short, but it's really an ensemble film. Fun, wacky, screenplay by Isobel Lennart, who also wrote the screenplay for Funny Girl, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Anchors Aweigh, and soooo many more big time films. You can tell this was originally a play, with all the fast, clever talking. Excellent clear photography and sound. Directed by Jules Dassin, who had worked with Hitchcock. He apparently worked in France after being part of the McCarthy hearings, and was quite successful.
michael.e.barrett
I've been tracking down films written by Isobel Lennart, so although I wasn't completely surprised by how charming this film is, most viewers will be since it's so obscure. This brief B-comedy opens with many splendid characters and zany complications, reminiscent of a Preston Sturges film without quite hitting that height. (There's even a "hep" kid sister that reminds me of Diana Lynn in Sturges' masterpiece "Miracle of Morgan's Creek," although I think that came out a couple of years later. In fact, "Martha" even has a drunken overnight marriage!) The comic actors--Spring Byington, Margaret Hamilton, Marjorie Main, etc.--give full-throttle readings in even brief roles, down to glances and gestures. What I perceive as typically Lennart touches: the opening "union" meetings of the maids and the matrons, who each vow to "stick together" ("One for one and all for all!" says the Swedish maid); and the appearance of the lonely, oddly touching and philosophical beach worker (shades of the character Pop in "Skirts Ahoy"). And Martha's motives in writing her book, also typically, are not selfish; she's not writing a scandalous expose as they fear but an expression of how much she likes them. Interesting that it's about a misunderstood woman writer! It's an early script for her and she co-wrote it, which may explain why there are easy stock characters and selfish negative ones (like the fiancee) who are shut out of the community instead of being recuperated.
