Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

A Brilliant Conflict

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

SHE COULDN'T SAY NO is a fascinating entry in the canon of Robert Mitchum films; it is comedy set in a small Arkansas town in which he plays a doctor with a passion for fishing. Life proceeds in a calm unhurried manner until spoiled rich girl Korby Lane (Jean Simmons) pays an extended visit. With more money than sense, she makes every effort to make the citizens' life better by giving them presents and/or gifts of cash, as she believes she has a debt to reply to the town, for having saved her life when she was a little girl. Unfortunately she only succeeds in creating chaos. Lloyd Bacon's film (his final work in a long career) has a strong moral tone to it, suggesting quite overtly that money is the root of all evil. D. D. Beauchamp's and William Powers' screenplay has some sharp one-liners in it, allowing Mitchum to display his talent for throwaway observations (something equally evident in the interviews he gave over the years on television). The film also has some strong character-performances by Arthur Hunnicutt (as Odie, a recovering alcoholic with a penchant for non sequiturs such as "It's very Monday today, isn't it"); Wallace Ford (as a splenetic vet); and Hope Landin (as a maternal boarding-house keeper). Simmons' costumes are a continual source of attention, especially when compared with the rather dowdy attire of the citizens; it's clear she is trying her best to draw people's gazes towards her. In terms of ideology. SHE COULDN'T SAY NO is redolent of mid-Fifties attitudes towards women, suggesting that they are not "fulfilled" unless they get married and have children. Hence the ending is rather wearily predictable. But nonetheless there are some incidental pleasures along the way, not least the sequence where Mitchum brings boxes of diapers to one of his patients' houses, only to find that Korby has (anonymously) sent a huge pile already. The sight of Mitchum's face, a mixture of anger and sheer bewilderment, is a sight to behold, reminding us - if we didn't already know - of his versatility as a film actor, despite his public protestations to the contrary.

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.

She Couldn't Say No terminated the tempestuous relationship of Jean Simmons with RKO Studios and her most eccentric boss Howard Hughes. It was shot in 1953 and released in 1954. Being that it was held up for a year also made it the farewell film for Robert Mitchum on his RKO contract. Soon Hughes would unload the studio itself and before the decade was over, RKO would be out of business.The film casts Jean Simmons as a rich heiress to an oil fortune who back when she passed through the town as a child she was the daughter of an oil wildcatter, ill and in need of an operation. The town raised the money for her and she's appreciative. Jean should have taken her lawyer's advice and just given the town a new school or library. But she goes to town incognito to determine the individual needs and wants of everybody. That gets her in trouble, but does provide a few chuckles, no real belly laughs.Simmons figures to make contact with the doctor who did the operation back then, but he's died and the practice has passed on to his son who is played by Robert Mitchum. He practices medicine as long as it doesn't interfere with his fishing with Jimmy Hunt.She Couldn't Say No is set in rural Arkansas and the biggest thing the film has going for it is the casting of such people as Raymond Walburn, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Gus Schilling, etc. You see all those in the cast and you know the film is not going to be sophisticated comedy. They are as interesting a set of rustics you will ever find in any movie and they more than the disinterested stars make She Couldn't Say No entertaining.Mitchum and Simmons both thought lowly of this film and I'm inclined to agree.

I just couldn't get over the character of Jean Simmons being portrayed as someone you were supposed to care for, but during the entire film she treats everyone she meets with such a superiority complex. A town of less than 200, and she's honking her horn for a bellboy at a boarding house, calling a doctor on an emergency Bell, simply because she wants to talk to him. It goes on and on, and in the end she gets the guy and comes out on top? Her little speech to explain why she was giving away money, was meaningless and going nowhere, until Mitchum diverts everyone's attention with a punch to a spectator. Terrible stuff. Robert Mitchum is essentially wasted trying to counterpunch her irritating character. Again, not my cup of tea