She Couldn't Say No (1940)

• Director
  • William Clemens
• Writers
  • Earl Baldwin(screen play)
  • Charles Grayson(screen play)
  • Benjamin M. Kaye(from the play by)
• Stars
  • Roger Pryor
  • Eve Arden
  • Cliff Edwards

  Eve Arden played her first bonafide film-starring role in the 1941 Warner Bros. "B"-picture She Couldn't Say No. A brilliant lawyer, Alice Hinsdale (Arden) is obliged to act as secretary to her legal-eagle fiancé Wallace Turnbull (Roger Pryor) because he can't abide the notion that his wife might be smarter than he. Taking on a breach-of-promise suit, Turnbull represents the defendant, only to discover that the attorney for the plaintiff is none other than newly-liberated Alice. Once before a judge and jury, Alice and her female client resort to "women's tricks" to win the case -- proof positive that She Couldn't Say No is a product of its times. The film's basic premise was used to better effect in the 1949 Tracy-Hepburn starrer Adam's Rib.