# The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
**The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer** is a 1947 American romantic comedy directed by Irving Reis, written by [Sidney Sheldon](https://www.edgepedia.org/sidney-sheldon), and starring [Cary Grant](https://www.edgepedia.org/cary-grant), Myrna Loy, and [Shirley Temple](https://www.edgepedia.org/shirley-temple), in which a teenage girl's crush on a playboy artist forces her older sister, a judge, to sentence the artist to date the girl until the infatuation fades.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) • [2](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) RKO Radio Pictures released it wide on September 1, 1947, after a New York opening on July 24.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) Sheldon's screenplay won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York premiere July 24, 1947; wide release September 1, 1947, by RKO Radio Pictures[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) |
| Principal cast | Cary Grant (Richard "Dick" Nugent), Myrna Loy (Judge Margaret Turner), Shirley Temple (Susan Turner), Rudy Vallee (Tommy Chamberlain)[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) |
| Running time / format | 93 or 95 minutes; black and white, RCA Sound System, 8,537 feet[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) |
| Production | A Dore Schary production; shot mid-July to mid-October 1946; personnel borrowed from David O. Selznick's Vanguard Pictures[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) |
| Award | Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Sidney Sheldon[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) |
| Box office | Modern sources give $5,550,000; the-numbers.com lists $8,750,000 domestic[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) • [5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Bachelor-and-the-Bobby-Soxer-The) |
| Afterlife | Grant and Loy re-teamed in *Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House* (1948); Grant and Temple reprized the story on Lux Radio Theatre, June 13, 1949[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Judge Margaret Turner ([Myrna Loy](https://www.edgepedia.org/myrna-loy)), a single judge who is guardian of her teenage sister Susan (Shirley Temple), hears a case involving Dickie Nugent (Cary Grant), a playboy artist charged with three acquaintances after a brawl in a Los Angeles nightclub, and dismisses the defendants with a warning.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) Later that day Nugent lectures on art at a local high school, where Susan becomes infatuated with him after imagining him as a knight in shining armor; she interviews him for the school paper, and he invents a lurid past for himself and offhandedly agrees to use her as a model for one of his "Americana" paintings.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455)
Susan sneaks into Nugent's empty apartment and is found there by her sister, which lands Nugent in jail and widens the split between the sisters.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455) • [6](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/14347/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) The remedy comes from Matthew Beemish (Ray Collins), the sisters' uncle and a psychiatrist: Margaret offers Nugent his choice of jail or dating Susan until the crush abates, and he chooses Susan.[6](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/14347/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) As Susan pretends to be more sophisticated than her age and Nugent tries to behave like a hip teenager, Margaret realizes that she herself has fallen for him.[2](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
## Production
The film began as a project called **Suddenly It's Spring**, developed in late 1946 when [David O. Selznick](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-o-selznick)'s Vanguard Films worked with RKO to team Shirley Temple with Cary Grant.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) • [7](https://classicgoldenagefilms.com/2022/07/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer-1947/) In addition to Temple, RKO borrowed actor Johnny Sands, producer Dore Schary, and writer Sidney Sheldon from Selznick's company; the film was Schary's last personal producing assignment before he became vice-president in charge of production at RKO.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) Sheldon's screen story had also circulated under the title "Too Good to Be True."
The title itself was contested. Schary objected to *The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer* because he felt it suggested a distasteful sexual relationship, but the more commercially minded Selznick overruled him.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) A "bobby-soxer" was then the term for a teenage girl wearing socks with the tops turned down.[8](https://ashleywyman.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/4/4/26440230/85_-_the_bachelor_1947.pdf)
Filming ran from mid-July to mid-October 1946, and it was an unhappy shoot. Director Irving Reis collapsed a week after filming started and was replaced temporarily by Schary; when Reis returned, he concentrated on technical matters while Schary handled the actors.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) Grant publicly disapproved of Reis, whom he considered to lack comedy credentials, and complained that Reis favored Loy by allowing her "...to get away with murder"; at one point Reis walked off the picture.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) Grant had accepted the role to work off his old RKO contract, and off the set he was troubled by an FBI investigation involving his friend [Howard Hughes](https://www.edgepedia.org/howard-hughes), who nearly died a week before filming in the crash of his [XF-11](https://www.edgepedia.org/hughes-xf-11) prototype, and by the death of his business partner [Frank Vincent](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-vincent) from a heart attack.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
One scene was changed under outside pressure. According to a pre-release article, a representative of the [Woman's Christian Temperance Union](https://www.edgepedia.org/womans-christian-temperance-union) in Chicago, reading that Temple was to take her first screen drink in the film, asked RKO to eliminate the scene; in the released film Temple takes no alcoholic drink.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) Exterior shots of [Beverly Hills High School](https://www.edgepedia.org/beverly-hills-high-school) appear in the picture, and art director Carroll Clark scouted locations at [Lake Arrowhead, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/lake-arrowhead-california), though it is not known whether any scenes were shot there.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography)
## Reception and box office
The film opened to favorable reviews, and the TCM account describes ticket sales of "an almost unprecedented 5.5 million dollars," enough, it says, to carry RKO over into 1948.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) Reported totals differ across sources: the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute)'s modern sources give $5,550,000,[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) the-numbers.com lists $8,750,000 in domestic box office,[5](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Bachelor-and-the-Bobby-Soxer-The) and one retrospective fan site gives $10,500,000.[7](https://classicgoldenagefilms.com/2022/07/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer-1947/)
At the 20th Academy Awards, honoring films of 1947, Sheldon won Best Original Screenplay, a result the TCM account calls a surprise: RKO had expected its Goldwyn co-produced *[The Bishop's Wife](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-bishops-wife)* to win the category, and [Ed Sullivan](https://www.edgepedia.org/ed-sullivan) had predicted Grant for Best Actor; neither was even nominated.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) The film benefited from an "enormously successful post Oscar re-issue" as audiences lined up to see it again.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
## Legacy
The on-screen chemistry between Grant and Loy, despite the troubled production, led RKO to re-team them immediately in the profitable *Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House* (1948).[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) When Grant received his honorary Oscar in 1969, he thanked Sheldon among the select people he acknowledged.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer) For Sheldon, then at the start of a career that later produced bestselling novels and the television series *I Dream of Jeannie*, the Oscar was the culminating success of his early Hollywood screenwriting years.[9](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/sidney-sheldon) Grant and Temple reprized their roles in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of the story on June 13, 1949, with Sands also repeating his part.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography) The story was later adapted for the stage by F. Andrew Leslie and is licensed by [Dramatists Play Service](https://www.edgepedia.org/dramatists-play-service) as a full-length comedy for a cast of 9 women and 16 men.[6](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/14347/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
## References
1. [The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELORANDTHEBOBBYSOXER?cp=1&pos=2&sid=1a7407da-fcc3-46c6-bf8a-a5f3bfdb1b6c&sr=10.301455)
2. [The Bachelor And The Bobby Soxer, Movies Anywhere](https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
3. [The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), AFI Catalog (history and details)](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25069-THE-BACHELOR-AND-THE-BOBBY-SOXER?cxt=filmography)
4. [Mel Neuhaus, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer," TCM (July 28, 2003)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/31546/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
5. [The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Bachelor-and-the-Bobby-Soxer-The)
6. [The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Concord Theatricals / Dramatists Play Service](https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/14347/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer)
7. [The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), Classic Golden Age Films](https://classicgoldenagefilms.com/2022/07/the-bachelor-and-the-bobby-soxer-1947/)
8. [Review #85: The Bachelor and Bobby Soxer (1947)](https://ashleywyman.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/4/4/26440230/85_-_the_bachelor_1947.pdf)
9. [Sidney Sheldon, Television Academy Interviews](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/sidney-sheldon)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1940s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license