WOW this film is very morally scandalous. The sex and the sexuality push the envelope for the day greatly. There is a lot of things in this movie that the women and feminists of today would shout at, suggestions of a group of old men buying a ticket for a young woman and then going on the “hunt” for her when she disappears, gang rape, group bukake sex suggestions and things of that nature. This movie is basically about the notion of finding a wealthy husband to pay for sex basically. It presents the more accepted view in society of older men buying young women and everyone being comfortable with that.
It’s definitely “dated” in morality when compared to the standards of today. However, what’s so shocking about it is how outright the sexual references are considering the Hays code of the day. When claudette slips into Joel Mccrea's lap, twice, it’s very provocative, even for standards of today.
The whole screwball comedy shtick though seems dated and completely done by this point. We’ve seen this movie over and over and over and over again, it’s essentially a rehash of the comedy of remarriage that we've seen done several times in the 1930's.
What is striking is the representation of the women of the late 30’s and early 40’s seem to be more promiscuous than the women that came after them in the 50’s. The sexual politics of the day are on open display mostly the fact that women asserted the notion that they are sexual creatures with sexual desires to be embraced rather than repressed which becomes the dominant viewpoint going into the 1950's.
This movie is almost a toss away as just pure entertainment drivel. It’s clearly made by a guy who lived around money which explains his entertainment career. He had money in the family. This guy was a wealthy kid exposed to the circle of rich people hob-nobbing and living off the wealth of ex-husbands, etc…
This explains the superficiality of his movies, much like Sofia Coppola. You can really see the cultural difference here of how money and the right to money and the notion of “inheritance are treated at the time, as something that is natural and just a part of life rather than an unfair system of wealth distribution which will bubble up over the second half of the century.