Technically, she could have said no

This past weekend's movie viewing included the pre-Code She Had to Say Yes.

The movie begins with an office gofer looking for Tommy Nelson (Regis Toomey), who's in middle management at one of the businesses in New York's garment district. Eventually, Tommy is found -- in a phone booth with another woman! At the meeting, the big bos Sol Glass (Ferdinand Gottschalk) tells management that there's a problem. When the buyers from around the country come to New York to visit the clothing manufacturers, they expect a little bit of "entertainment", which heretofore they've been getting from the models. That "entertainment" comes with an implied expectation of sex, although even for a pre-Code they can't be quite that explicit. Still, the models have reached the point that they're getting sick of it, and some of the models have even locked the buyers out of the buyers' hotel rooms, leaving them to spend hours in the hall in just their underwear.

Obviously that won't do, but how can you get people to show the buyers a good time in the big city with discretion? Tommy eventually comes up with a brilliant idea. The firm has a whole bunch of naïve young women who could provide the entertainment already, in the form of the secretarial pool. Why not use them! The ladies will get a bonus, and the orders will keep rolling in. The only thing is that Tommy is insistent that his girlfriend Florence (Loretta Young), who is one of the secretaries, not be among the women providing the entertainment.

Tommy tells Florence this, and she doesn't seem too pleased, she obviously having no idea what the buyers are expecting out of their night with the women. But there's something more important: we see that Florence is not the same woman who got out of the phone booth with Tommy in the opening scene! So when Florence is given the chance to be one of the escorts, she jumps at it, partly to spite Tommy and partly because the bonus could help the two of them financially.

The buyer in question is Danny Drew (Lyle Talbot), who gives Florence a nice dinner and night on the town, until he tells her that he needs someone to "take dictation", and that this is going to involve her coming up to his room. When she realizes what he really has in mind, she's none too pleased. But then she finds out about Tommy's cheating, and she sees a way to use Danny to her benefit....

She Had to Say Yes is an odd little movie, partly because of the subject material, and partly because it veers from one plot point to the next rather quickly, what with its 66-minute running time. The ending between Florence, Tommy, and Danny is particularly odd. Toomey is OK as the hypocritical boyfriend; Talbot is better as man who obsesses about Florence; and Young is in as fine form as ever. Still, the movie comes across as a bit of a period piece.

The movie is available as a standalone DVD from the Warner Archive, but I think it's another of those movies that would be better served being in a box set.