She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945)

Dr. Susan Lane (Rosalind Russell,) a happily (or unhappily as the case may be) unmarried psychiatrist working with shell-shocked soldiers disapproves of a comic featuring an id-based nixie who disrupts her controlled and orderly society by encouraging adults to give in to their emotional impulses.

The title credits seem to imply light fantasy content, but the illustrations of a (frankly, unattractive) kewpie doll-cute sprite are instead that of an in-story cartoon character.

While the nixie is not a real creature, the spirit of the comic strip gnome imbues the entire length of the film with one main character arguing for chaotic, emotion-based fantasy and the other siding with ordered, rational reality (a theme shared by other contemporary fantasies and semi-fantasies such as Miracle in 34th Street (1947), Harvey (1950) and You Can’t Take it With You (1938).)

Influenced by the very same comic and unbeknownst to either, a clerk sells two tickets to the same train sleeping compartment to Dr. Lane and to Michael Kent (Lee Bowman,) the creator of the comic strip who moments before had openly expressed romantic interest in her at the depot, (she simply reacted in annoyance.)

Building on this initial premise we eventually get to a point where the artist and Kent’s desperate-for-grandchildren father (Charles Winninger) plot to have her marry Lane without her figuring out that she actually is getting married(!)

Lane, in turn, schemes to pawn Kent off to a blonde, attractive patient (Adele Jergens) who suffers from the irrational fears that her kisses kill can kill men and that she can only desire men who 'belong' to other women.

Obviously, these two nutty plans are hardly practical or realistic, and the movie wisely chooses to avoid showing the actual wedding ceremony or the moment where the artist inevitably lets the blonde down, and instead focuses on the crazy buildup to these two outrageous situations (both achieved successfully, I might add!)

With Arthur Q. Bryan (the voice of Elmer J. Fudd) in one scene.

The movie has a strangely dismissive attitude towards shell-shocked/PTSD suffering G.I.s

A crazy, screwball comedy with an unmemorable but still apt title.