The Girl Said No (1930 film)

Tom Ward, a cocky young football hero, returns home after graduation determined to conquer the world. He begins a flirtation with Mary Howe, secretary to his rival, McAndrews, and in a restaurant he bribes a waiter to spill soup on her employer. Although offered a local banking job, Tom stakes his fortunes on a scheme to sell bonds to wealthy old Hattie Brown, a befuddled spinster, and achieves the difficult task while posing as a doctor by getting her drunk. Finally, desperate over Mary's engagement to McAndrews, Tom kidnaps her from the altar. In a chase finale she is convinced that he loves her. ==Cast==

• William Haines as Tom Ward • Leila Hyams as Mary Howe • Polly Moran as Polly • Marie Dressler as Hettie Brown • Ralph Bushman as J. Marvin McAndrews • Clara Blandick as Mrs Ward • William Janney as Jimmie Ward • William V. Mong as Samuel A. Ward • Frank Coghlan as Eddie Ward • Phyllis Crane as Alma Ward ==Production==

After the box office success of Anna Christie (1930) and the rave reviews that not only Greta Garbo received for her performance but also her co-star Marie Dressler, M-G-M management decided to cast the latter actress in The Girl Said No. Although Dressler was happy to have a new assignment from the studio, she had to hide her disappointment over the script and her role. According to biographer Betty Lee in Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star, "It seemed fairly obvious..that although M-G-M was impressed with Dressler's potential...the top office did not know how to handle their unique new contract player. [Studio head] Louis B. Mayer, who had already informed his minions that he wanted Dressler to be marketed as a mother figure who was also a battered version of life's wars, asked her to lunch in his private bungalow on the Culver City lot. Not only did Dressler appear to be a substantial mother figure in real life, M-G-M's boss was also aware that the actress exuded an easy air of upper-class panache. She was, he decided, a far classier individual than the Hollywood glamour girls he often professed to disdain." Dressler would go on to star in a total of seven films in 1930 and win an Academy Award for her performance in Min and Bill (1930), opposite Wallace Beery. ==External links==