A Guy Could Change (1946) Allan Lane, Jane Frazee, Twinkle Watts, Robert Blake, Wallace Ford, Mary Treen Movie Review

A Guy Could Change (1946)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Allan Lane and Jane Frazee in A Guy Could Change (1946)

Hurt Down Lover's Lane

Journalist Mike Hogan (Allan Lane) is the eager father to be, buying bouquet after bouquet of flowers as his wife is in labour. But his early happiness turns to sorrow when his wife dies in labour and unable to deal with being a single father ships out his daughter to his sister Grace (Mary Treen) to bring up. Over the next 8 years Mike has little contact with his daughter and has become a womanizer, afraid to get too involved because of the hurt of losing his wife. But his attempts to seduce young bell hop Barbara (Jane Frazee) don't go to plan when she learns that he has abandoned his daughter Nancy (Twinkle Watts). Just as Mike sets about changing his ways Barbara's dodgy past comes back to put any future happiness in jeopardy.

One of the marvels when you watch some old movies is how they manage to cram so much in to lesser running times. Take "A Guy Could Change" it starts with a bit of fun abandon which quickly descends into heart break and then we have a trio of damaged characters as we have Mike who fears heartbreak of getting close to someone his daughter who feels abandoned by her father choosing to lie to her friends about him and then you have Barbara who has a troubled, criminal past which comes back to haunt them. Somehow all of this is nicely packaged in to just 65 minutes and never feels rushed for one minute. In fact at times it even feels like it is drawn out as the humour of some of the scenes is focused on.

Twinkle Watts in A Guy Could Change (1946)

But this is one of those movies which works because of the actors with Allan Lane drawing nicely on the audiences sympathy as he easily gets across the pain he is feeling and that fear of being hurt again. But then there is Jane Frazee who gives us a nice touch of attitude and of course there is Twinkle Watts who gives us a perky like stage school performance as young Nancy which of course now feels extremely forced yet kind of entertaining for being such.

What this all boils down to is that "A Guy Could Change" is an entertaining little drama from the mid 1940s. There isn't anything special about it but as an hours distraction it keeps you watching with a playfulness mixed with drama.


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