Ill Be Yours

Plot

Louise Ginglebusher (Deanna Durbin) is a young woman from the small town of Cobbleskill who comes to New York City to make it in show business. In a café, she's befriended by a kindhearted but ornery waiter, Wechsberg (William Bendix), and meets a bearded struggling attorney, George Prescott (Tom Drake). She gets a job as an usherette from Mr. Buckingham (Walter Catlett), the owner of the prestigious Buckingham Music Hall, who's an old friend of her father.

While working at the Music Hall she meets Wechsberg again, and later when she is accosted by a masher, she gets rid of him by claiming that Wechsberg is her husband. Wechsberg then invites her to come with him the next night when he works at an upscale social gathering at the Savoy Ritz. Louise borrows a gown and comes to the party, where they get her past the headwaiter by claiming she's one of the entertainers. Mingling, she meets the host, J. Conrad Nelson (Adolphe Menjou), a philandering meat magnate, who requests that Louise sing a song. She does, so beautifully that Nelson offers to star her in a Broadway musical. To discourage Nelson's obvious physical interest in her, Louise tell him that she's married, whereupon Nelson offers buy her out of her marriage by paying her husband for his loss. Impetuously deciding to do a good deed, she gives Nelson the business card that George Prescott, the struggling lawyer, had given her, and tells him that George is her husband.

When Nelson visits George the next day in his shabby storefront law office, and offers to make him the legal representative for his company, George is suspicious and refuses the offer, but Nelson allays his concerns by telling the ethical young attorney that he needs an honest lawyer as a role model for his staff – the truth is he wants George on his staff so he can keep him occupied while he pursues Louise. Many complications ensue after Louise gets George to shave off his old-man's beard, revealing the handsome young man underneath, and a stroll in the moonlight provokes George to propose marriage to Louise.

Cast

Cast notes:

Songs

I'll Be Yours was designed to be a vehicle for Deanna Durbin, and all the songs in it are sung by her.

Production

I'll Be Yours was in production from the middle of August to the middle of October 1946. Background scenes were shot on location in New York City. It was released on 2 February 1947. Among other taglines, it was marketed with "Heaven Protects the Working Girl...but who protects the guy she's WORKING to get?"

Other versions and adaptations

Before being adapted by Preston Sturges for the 1935 film The Good Fairy, the Molnár play had been presented on Broadway with Helen Hayes playing "Lu" for 151 performances in 1931–1932, with another production playing 68 performances later that year. Preston Sturges used his screenplay for that earlier film as the basis for the 1951 Broadway musical Make a Wish, which had music and lyrics by Hugh Martin.

On radio Lux Radio Theatre broadcast a radio adaptation of I'll be Yours, with William Bendix and Anne Blythe. For television, Hallmark Hall of Fame presented The Good Fairy on NBC in 1956, produced by Maurice Evans, directed by George Schaefer, and starring Julie Harris, Walter Slezak and Cyril Ritchard.