The Major and the Minor

The Major and the Minor (1942) is a screwball comedy with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland you can watch online on iFILM — and it carries a footnote worth knowing: it was Billy Wilder's first film as a Hollywood director.

Susan Applegate has had enough. A year in New York, no job, time to head back to Iowa. Trouble is, she can't afford a full fare, so she pulls a stunt — dressing as a twelve-year-old to ride home at the child's rate. When conductors get suspicious, she ducks into the train compartment of nearsighted Major Philip Kirby, who, glasses off, takes a grown woman for a kid. From there it spirals: a military academy, a slow-building crush, and the major's fiancée, all forcing little "Sue Sue" to think on her feet.

Wilder, fresh from the writers' room, already had the trademark nerve here — a premise that shouldn't work, dialogue that flirts with the censors, and a heroine sharper than every man around her. Rogers clearly relishes the double act. Quick, sly and a touch more wicked than the poster lets on, it's a great place to start if you want to trace where a master got his footing. Stream The Major and the Minor (1942) online on iFILM.