What in the heck is wrong with June Allyson in "A Woman's World"?

Seriously. I think she's supposed to be a certain character type, but that character comes off as socially inept at best and borderline mentally handicapped at worst--and I say "at worst" not as a swipe at mentally disabled people, but as a swipe at the screenwriters.

"A Woman's World'" is a 1954 Fox picture directed by Jean Negulesco, known for directing some pretty darn good noirs and for being European. Well, that's an idiotic simplification, of course, but I can't help but wonder if Allyson's character is the product of his European background or just the typical Hollywood sensibility that equates "Middle America" with stupid.

This movie focuses on a fictional auto manufacturer whose general manager dies, leaving his brother, played by a very Clifton Webbish Clifton Webb, to select a replacement. He finds 3 capable candidates, then invites them and their wives to New York so he can meet with them, spy on them, etc. You see, Webb believes the quality of a man's wife is as critical to his executive suitability as he is. I can't tell if this movie's premise is incredibly sexist or refreshingly empowering.

So we see 3 couples "competing" with each other at social gatherings and meetings with Webb: Fred MacMurray and Lauren Bacall, Van Heflin and Arlene Dahl, and the token "nice" couple from Kansas City, Cornel Wilde and June Allyson.

Everyone is out dancing at a nice restaurant when someone tells Allyson that crossing your fingers is a good way to get what you wish for, and since she doesn't want to leave Kansas City, she crosses 'em and hopes her hubby doesn't get that great promotion, salary bump, and prestigious position at a major American car company that should thrive for decades to come (hey, this is the movies, remember). This is supposed to be endearing the way she plays it, on;y she keeps her fingers crossed after the dancing and spills her drink back at the table because it didn't occur to her that, you know, it might be tough to imbibe that way. This is an embarrassing moment, to be sure, but left unsaid is the implication that had she NOT spilled the drink, she presumably would have kept her fingers crossed the entire time they were in New York. She also drinks a few too many martinis and hiccups her way through a speech by Webb.

Later, the women are sent on a day trip around the city with Webb's assistant as their driver, and in the car, she badmouths the boss, not realizing that the assistant is Webb's nephew. Oops! She acts mortified, but, nephew or no, didn't it at least occur to her that the guy was an employee of the company and that maybe she should watch what she says around him? Apparently, she's just too "plain-spoken" to worry about that high-falutin' big-city stuff like being tactful about your husband's boss around his subordinates.

Allyson's character seems so much like a refugee from an "I Love Lucy" knockoff that it's no surprise when she dejectedly tells Wilde, "Oh, I did it again," and you expect to hear a muted trombone on the soundtrack while he shakes his finger and goes, "Oh, Katie, what'll I do with you," as they hug and we fade on the studio applause.

Instead, we get more hijinks. Wilde keeps telling her to get some nice, sexy clothes for the events they have planned, but she takes the money and buys it on a barbecue set she sees in one of the first store windows she passes because, gosh, the family would love it so. Evidently, they don't sell barbecue grills in Kansas City.

You have to wonder how in the world this couple has children, because it's difficult to picture Allyson being capable of sexual intercourse, let alone interested. Wilde even suggests she ask Bacall for help shopping because she is a woman who knows about clothes. Yeha, right, Cornel--she knows about clothes.

In fact, the writers do give Allyson's Katie a small triumph later, as she purposely spills a drink on herself to get some alone time with Webb's sister. Here she impresses Evelyn with that plain-spoken Midwestern know-how...or something. I still can't wrap my head around the fact she deliberately spilled the tea.

"A Woman's World" looks like part of the long Hollywood tradition of portraying Middle America types as rubes. It would be one thing if Allyson's character were seen as a deceptively sharp one, cannily subverting her husband's chances of getting the job on purpose, or if she were used more as a tool to puncture the stuffiness of urban corporate culture. But instead, she is a dimwit, an "Aw, what are you gonna do?" kind of wife Wilde puts up with because he loves her.

The movie itself is an amusing reflection of 1950s attitudes and lifestyles, but Allyson is a real oddball.