Bella ma pericolosa

She Couldn't Say No terminated the tempestuous relationship of Jean Simmons with RKO Studios and her most eccentric boss Howard Hughes. It was shot in 1953 and released in 1954. Being that it was held up for a year also made it the farewell film for Robert Mitchum on his RKO contract. Soon Hughes would unload the studio itself and before the decade was over, RKO would be out of business.

The film casts Jean Simmons as a rich heiress to an oil fortune who back when she passed through the town as a child she was the daughter of an oil wildcatter, ill and in need of an operation. The town raised the money for her and she's appreciative.

Jean should have taken her lawyer's advice and just given the town a new school or library. But she goes to town incognito to determine the individual needs and wants of everybody. That gets her in trouble, but does provide a few chuckles, no real belly laughs.

Simmons figures to make contact with the doctor who did the operation back then, but he's died and the practice has passed on to his son who is played by Robert Mitchum. He practices medicine as long as it doesn't interfere with his fishing with Jimmy Hunt.

She Couldn't Say No is set in rural Arkansas and the biggest thing the film has going for it is the casting of such people as Raymond Walburn, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Gus Schilling, etc. You see all those in the cast and you know the film is not going to be sophisticated comedy. They are as interesting a set of rustics you will ever find in any movie and they more than the disinterested stars make She Couldn't Say No entertaining.

Mitchum and Simmons both thought lowly of this film and I'm inclined to agree.