Movie Type: Workplace Comedy, Sophisticated Comedy
Themes: Assumed Identities, Fighting the System, Labor Unions
Main Cast: Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington
Release Year: 1941
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
The Devil and Miss Jones is a social comedy with left-wing undertones. John P. Merrick (Charles Coburn), the world's richest man, gets word that someone is trying to unionize a department store that he owns. To thwart this blatant act of democracy, Merrick changes his name and takes a menial job at the store, the better to catch the union activists without detection. Once he himself is subjected to the humiliating treatment afforded his employees, Merrick starts to wise up -- and soften up. As things develop, it is Merrick himself who spearheads the union movement after discovering how duplicitous his hand-picked executives can be. The film also introduces Jean Arthur and Robert Cummings as fellow employees who fall in love before fadeout time. Keeping with the film's insistence upon equal treatment for everyone, Merrick himself is permitted a romance in the person of Elizabeth Ellis (Spring Byington). The Devil and Miss Jones was written by Norman Krasna and directed by Sam Wood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Devil and Miss Jones is a Frank Capra comedy without Capra. It most cases, that is a recipe for disaster, but Devil manages to escape that fate, thanks largely to its wonderfully appealing cast. Capra stablemate Jean Arthur, of course, is one of the main reasons the film works as well as it does. With that unforgettable voice (like a sore throat bathed in honey), precise comic timing, and a sense of vulnerability encased in iron, Arthur is almost always an asset; here, she also seems to be having a great deal of fun, and that fun is contagious. She's well-matched by the equally appealing Charles Coburn, avuncular, grumpy, and cuddly. If Robert Cummings isn't perfectly cast as a union firebrand, his failings are made up by the charming Spring Byington. Norman Krasna's screenplay is a little dated, and portions are a bit contrived, but it's also quite funny and filled with engaging characters. Sam Wood's direction is very solid, if not quite on Capra's level, and the end result is a sprightly, charming and amusing film. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cantankerous tycoon John P. Merrick (Charles Coburn) goes undercover as a shoe clerk at his own New York department store to identify agitators trying to form a union, after seeing a newspaper picture of his employees hanging him in effigy. He befriends fellow clerk Mary Jones (Jean Arthur) and her recently fired boyfriend Joe O'Brien (Robert Cummings), a labor union organizer. Through his firsthand experiences, he grows more sympathetic to the needs of his workers, while finding unexpected love with sweet-natured clerk Elizabeth Ellis (Spring Byington).
