the audience applauded

Absolutely brilliant

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I do enjoy watching vintage films that feature actors such as Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum is non gangster roles, but it does seem to a bit stretched to believe Mitchum as a small time country doctor.Jean Simmons is a wealthy socialite who travels to the small town of Progress in Arkansas to do good deeds for the citizens who helped her out when she was an infant. She does this by sending money in envelopes to the townsfolk, a bit ill thought out as this brings in people from out of state who also think they will come into riches from an anonymous benefactor. Simmons should had listened to her lawyers who told her to build a library.Along the way she crosses swords, wits and falls in love with Mitchum's country doctor. I think the film does not really work as a romantic comedy, Mitchum is fine as the easy going kind hearted doctor, But Simmons comes across as too snooty and superior and the film is not that funny.

Jean Simmons is as serious minded as can be in this comedy. Wanting to thank a town for saving her life by paying for an operation, Simmons returns years later and literally gives money away.She comes back to the small town in Arkansas that saved her. There she meets the town doctor, a terribly miscast Robert Mitchum. Nothing much is doing in this rural town, but that is basically true for the entire picture.The town has some notable people such as Edgar Buchanan and Arthur Hunnicutt, who had won a supporting Oscar nomination 2 years before this film for "The Big Sky."The film shows that when money is misdirected, problems may result.Trouble with the film is its writing and that the characters depicted are boring.

The 200 residents of Progress, Arkansas are each sent cash in the mail via an anonymous donor--a rich New York City gal who feels she owes the townspeople her debt of gratitude after her life was saved when she was only 2-years-old. Three screenwriters (William Bowers, Richard Flournoy, and D.D. Beauchamp, who also originated the story) worked on this stale tale of how the advent of sudden money turns citizen against citizen, with Jean Simmons snippy and unpleasant as the high-fashion figure who bulldozes her way into their sleepy backwater. Robert Mitchum, dressed like a gangster in over-sized suit jackets, is the bachelor doctor who, we're to believe, is just waiting for a girl like Simmons to come along. Considering how grim their conversations are, the 'happy' ending is anything but. *1/2 from ****

Jean Simmons goes to Progress, Arkansas where she rock and rolls all night and parties every day. Oops! wrong Jean Simmons. Actually Jean does do a little partying in Progress upon her arrival. Progress, Arkansas is a sleepy small town of 200 people and almost all of them character actors. Jean plays a spirited young rich woman who wants to give the citizens gifts and money because they saved her life when she was a child. Her gifts and money cause turmoil in the town. Mitchum plays the level headed town doctor. This may be the only film in his long career where he had to run a fair distance while wearing fishing waders. Come to think of it, Mitchum never really ran much in his films. He maybe did a short dashes in the many war pictures he made, but he never had to do a sustained run. Now Dustin Hoffman, there's an actor who ran a lot in his films. He ran in "The Graduate" and in "Marathon Man." I think he may have even ran a bit in "Tootsie." Anyway, I really liked the premise of "She Couldn't Say No" but I wish the film would have explored the disintegration of the town a little more after their economic windfall. It seemed like the troubles that Simmon's character wrought were resolved too easily as well. I still found the movie to be fairly amusing and entertaining.