Every now and then, it surprises me to come across a studio-era film with big stars that I haven't seen before. Then again, TCM doesn't have the rights to films from studios like Universal and Paramount, so some of the stuff that's A-level but not famous doesn't show up on TCM all that often. A good example of this is Teacher's Pet, a late-1950s Paramount movie with two big names leading the cast: Clark Gable and Doris Day. So I recorded it the last time TCM ran it.
Clark Gable plays James Gannon, who works at the sort of big-city newspaper that was a staple of 1930s movies, with a hard-boiled editor trying to break news, especially on things like lurid murders, and up-and-coming reporters going out there to get the stories. One would-be reporter at the paper, who is only a copy boy since he can't get a real reporter's job, is Barney Kovac (Nick Adams), whose mom would rather he go to college.
You'll note that this is an era when reporters didn't necessarily have to go to J-school, although there were already college courses for journalism. One person teaching night classes at such a school is Erica Stone (Doris Day), whose father ages ago wrote for a small-town paper. As a result of her father's experiences, Erica has decided views on what journalism should be like, which isn't quite like what Gannon does. Erica has written to Gannon to give a guest lecture about city journalism, but Gannon turns it down because he really has a thing about journalism school as well as thoughts about lady reporters.
Still, Jim's boss insists he go to the class, so Jim goes undercover, pretending to be a salesman with the name Jim Gallagher. Surprisingly, Erica doesn't recognize him. If she did, we wouldn't have a rest of the movie. But Erica is so insulting to Gannon that he decides he's going to audit the class after all, if only to be able to show Erica just how wrong she is about what real reporting is like. Unsurprisingly, since Jim is a real reporter, he's able to handle the first assignment that Erica gives the students and come up with a much better story than any other student possibly could.
This leads to Erica, still not recognizing Jim for who he really is, offering to tutor him privately outside of class hours, since he can "learn" more that way than in class. The next unsurprising thing is that Jim falls in love with Erica. This is a bit of a problem considering that Erica already has a boyfriend in Dr. Hugo Pine (Gig Young), an intellectual who is superior to Jim at all the things that you'd stereotypically expect a female college professor to want in a man. Since Clark Gable is top-billed, however, you know things are going to work out such that it's Jim who winds up with Erica at the end of the movie, despite his dishonesty about his true identity.
Teacher's Pet is one of those movies that feels like it's breaking no new ground, but what makes it worth watching is the acting ability of the two leads, who take to the material well and make a surprisingly appealing couple despite their age difference. They fit their parts like wearing a comfortable pair of shoes, making for an enjoyable watch despite there being nothing new here. They're also helped by a pretty good screenplay and good supporting performances. If you can find Teacher's Pet, watch it and be entertained for two hours.
