JUDY has left a shop, but oh no, it's raining! Fortunately SECONDARY MALE LEAD is nearby, and falls for her instantly based on her hat, and there's an umbrella nearby which he grabs, allowing him to sing that he is "A Fella With An Umbrella" while walking Judy to her next appointment.
That sounds... remarkably familiar, actually. Were the screenwriters ripping off Leave it to Psmith?
I'm pretty sure there wasn't enough wiggle room in the script for them to rip off anyone at all. They just needed to get from "song about Michigan" to "song about a hat" to "song about an umbrella" to "song about a piano" etc as quickly as they possibly could...
Well, perhaps lifting a little from Wodehouse was the quickest way to get from "song about a hat" to "song about an umbrella." On the other hand, perhaps "man falls in love at first sight with woman wearing elegant hat who is about to get rained on and steals an umbrella for her" is just one of those universal, archetypal plot points floating about in the collective unconscious of all romantic comedians.
He doesn't technically steal it, in this one! Just... buys it quite forcefully. And it's very, very large (from a fruit cart), unlike Psmith's - but on the other hand that might just be because it's pretty hard to film two people under a small umbrella.
That sounds... remarkably familiar, actually. Were the screenwriters ripping off Leave it to Psmith?
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Well, perhaps lifting a little from Wodehouse was the quickest way to get from "song about a hat" to "song about an umbrella." On the other hand, perhaps "man falls in love at first sight with woman wearing elegant hat who is about to get rained on and steals an umbrella for her" is just one of those universal, archetypal plot points floating about in the collective unconscious of all romantic comedians.
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Oh, dear. Not only did they steal it, they got it all wrong!
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