Seems safe to call this a screwball comedy. Cary Grant, a famous painter of Americana whose work we never see, gives a lecture before lovestruck Shirley Temple’s class a couple hours after being dismissed by Temple’s judge sister Myrna Loy for taking part in a bar brawl. An older-sister-younger-sister-Cary love triangle follows, complicated by serious man Rudy Vallee (guy with the constantly-broken specs in Palm Beach Story) who likes Myrna. Anyone who’s seen a romantic comedy before knows that two serious people should not end up together, so Myrna eventually warms up to the reputedly wild (we never see him misbehave much) Grant.

Cary, Shirley’s own-age love-interest Johnny Sands, and Rudy:

Shirley is too good for the bellboy:

Won a well-deserved oscar for writing, beating out Monsieur Verdoux and Shoeshine. Super enjoyable overall, and Shirley Temple is excellent. Can’t think of any other 18-year-old who would’ve equalled her performance. That’s the upside of being a child star. The downside is that the following year at 19, with a kid and an abusive husband (MST3K target John Agar), her film career was over.

Myrna Loy is not amused:

Also good: the girls’ uncle (Orson Welles regular Ray Collins) as a meddling, unethical psychologist, and grumpy oldster Harry Davenport (Meet Me In St. Louis, You Can’t Take It With You). Written by Sidney Sheldon (Anything Goes, Pardners, Annie Get Your Gun) and energetically directed by Reis, who’d be dead from cancer six years later.

How everyone in the 40’s saw Cary Grant: