June Bride (1948)

June Bride is based on Feature for June, a play by Eileen Tighe and Graeme Lorimer. Bette Davis plays the businesslike editor of a fashionable woman's magazine, who plans a feature on a "typical" midwestern marriage. She assigns her aide (and former fiance) Robert Montgomery to cover the story, a task he feels is beneath him. Even so, Montgomery keeps his mouth shut as Davis and her assistants Fay Bainter and Mary Wickes descend upon the hapless family of the bride and re-arrange the household so that it will be more "appealing" to the magazine's devoted readers. Unable to stand any more of this, Montgomery devilishly upsets the apple cart: he convinces the younger sister (Betty Lynn) of the bride (Barbara Bates) to elope with the groom (Raymond Roe), for whom the sister carries a torch. Infuriated by Montgomery's intervention, Davis fires him on the spot. She later relents, realizing that the change in marital plans will make an even better story than her original concept. In so doing, Davis finally admits that she's still in love with the cheeky Montgomery. One of the better Bette Davis vehicles of the late 1940s, June Bride is chock full of brisk, bright dialogue and appealing characters. Debbie Reynolds makes her film debut in the teeny-tiny part of a friend of the bride. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi