Doris Day and Clark Gable are two of the best that Hollywood ever dished out, so it’s no surprise that “Teacher’s Pet” is an extremely good movie.
Day plays Erica Stone, a professor of journalism at a local university. Her father ran a small newspaper for years, and she honors his memory as she teaches her students how to write. She decides she’d like to enrich her class by inviting in a guest speaker, and what better guest than James Gannon (Clark Gable) the city editor for the largest newspaper in the town? She sends him a nice letter, inviting him to come, and he can’t help himself – he sends her a scathing reply, belittling the idea of “teaching” journalism. He’s always believed it has to be learned by the seat of your pants, and he mocks the idea of learning it in a classroom.
But his editor-in-chief demands that he go speak to the class. Irked and outraged, James heads down there in time to hear Erica reading his reponse out loud to the whole class. She makes a few ascerbic comments of her own, and James decides he can’t exactly announce who he is. Instead, he poses as a new student.
The first assignment throws most of the students for a loop, but not James. Erica gives the class the details of a case, and asks the students to write it up like they would for a newspaper. James immediately leaps to work, pulling together a brilliant article, and impresses Erica quite a bit. He has to admit, he’s pretty impressed with her – she’s a looker.
He sees no problem in continuing his masquerade, but as his feelings toward her get stronger, complications arise. He thought he was doing it to teach her a lesson, but then he realizes that he can’t hurt her in that way.
By the end of the film, both Erica and James have had a partial change of heart – he learns that it is important to study the craft, and she agrees that some things, you do have to learn by doing. A romantic comedy at its best, you’ll enjoy “Teacher’s Pet,” although you may want to keep your eyes peeled for James’ showgirl girlfriend.
This film was not rated.
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