''My Dear Miss Aldrich'' is a 1937 low-budget comedy film starring Maureen O'Sullivan, Walter Pidgeon, and Edna May Oliver about a young woman who inherits a New York City newspaper and decides to become a reporter rather than a publisher.

Plot

Martha Aldrich (O'Sullivan) is a young woman from Nebraska who inherits a New York City newspaper from a distant relative. She's accompanied to New York by her aunt, Mrs. Lou Atherton (Oliver). Editor Ken Morley (Pidgeon), whose ''Globe-Leader'' newspaper is in hot competition with the ''Chronicle'', refuses to hire a woman as a journalist. But as owner, Aldrich demands to be hired and is. She quickly scoops the male staff on a royal birth. But when she keeps a society friend's wedding a secret, Morley fires her. Determined to win her job back, Aldrich spies on industrialist Talbot ( Walter Kingsford) and trade union leader Sinclair ( Paul Harvey) as they secretly negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. Believing Aldrich has been kidnapped, Morley and Mrs. Atherton track her down as Mrs. Sinclair ( Janet Beecher) tries to foil Aldrich's schemes in order to protect her husband. Aldrich gets her scoop, wins back her job, and marries Morley—who has fallen in love with her.

Cast

* Maureen O'Sullivan as Martha Aldrich * Walter Pidgeon as Ken Morley * Edna May Oliver as Mrs. Lou Atherton * Rita Johnson as Ellen Warfield * Janet Beecher as Mrs. Sinclair * Paul Harvey as Mr. Sinclair * Walter Kingsford as Mr. Talbot

Production

The film was written by

Herman J. Mankiewicz Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (; November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953) was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'' (1941). Both Mankiewicz and Welles would go on to receive the Academy Award for Best Or ...

. It was one of a number of scripts written by Mankiewicz early in his career which film historian Charles Higham called "hackwork" and "manufactured...written without enthusiasm". The director was

George B. Seitz George Brackett Seitz (January 3, 1888 – July 8, 1944) was an American playwright, screenwriter, film actor and director. He was known for his screenplays for action serials, such as '' The Perils of Pauline'' (1914) and ''The Exploits o ...

, a director best known for the gentle and bland "

Andy Hardy Andrew "Andy" Hardy is a fictional character best known for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer series of 16 films in which he was played by Mickey Rooney. The films were released from 1937 to 1946, except for a final one made in 1958 in an unsuccessful att ...

" series of family comedies which starred

Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...

Reception

According to MGM records, the movie earned $238,000 in the US and Canada and $120,000 elsewhere, making a $1,000 profit. The film later aired as a radio play on '' The MGM Theater of the Air'' on July 21, 1950, with Donna Reed in the title role.

References

External links

''Mr Dear Miss Aldrich''
at TCMDB * {{George B. Seitz Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1937 comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films Films with screenplays by Herman J. Mankiewicz American black-and-white films 1937 films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films