ECP 345: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show – “Harry’s Private Secretary” (November 23, 1950)
In which Blanche is worried about Harry's secretary's privates
What I watched: The fourth episode of the first season of The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show, a variety show/sitcom hybrid. In addition to the eponymous pair, the series co-starred Bea Benederet, Bill Goodwin and Hal March. “Harry’s Private Secretary” was directed by Ralph Levy and written by Paul Henning, Sid Dorfman, Harvey Helm and Willy Burns, with Camilla deWitt, Harrison Muller, Bob Fosse and Jim Benson as guests.
What happened: George’s monologue regales us with all of the acts he was in coming up in Vaudeville, including one where he got second billing to a seal, and a joke about a stuttering partner. We cut to the plot of the story, where Gracie is trying to comfort Blanche. She’s worried because Harry has a new secretary, and she was his last secretary, so naturally he’s going to sexually prey on the new one.
Harry comes home and says that his secretary is a man, so there’s no issue. They both argue again about how they hate one-half of their neighbours, and also seemingly each other. George asks the audience what they think of the story so far, and shouts out writer George S. Kaufman. This leads into a performance by tap-dancer Harrison Muller. George challenges him to a dance-off. They end up doing a group dance, with George just about following along.
In the plot of the story, George gets a call saying that Harry is going to be bringing his secretary to dinner. Gracie still thinks this secretary is a woman, and goes on a rant about how men mistreat women. This is undercut by Gracie being portrayed as an idiot, and asking George to powder her nose in the middle of it. George’s monologue tells us that she doesn’t mean it.
A young woman comes by the residence, looking to interview George for her school paper. George initially mistakes her for Harry’s secretary. Bill Goodwin is also there, flirting with this teenager. He interrupts the interview to keep going on about Carnation evaporated milk, in a pretty funny gag.
Harry does finally bring his secretary, and it is indeed a man, named Jim Benson. He explains that Jim and he went to Europe together after college, and now I’m thinking that maybe Blanche had reason to be jealous after all. Gracie tries to perform a magic trick, but ends up just cutting up a napkin. George brings out the ukelele to sing, much to his friends’ dread, but is interrupted by the roast burning. George and Gracie send us off after another ad for Carnation Milk.
What I thought: I’ve written before about the very gendered nature of the Burns and Allen Show, and this is another episode that essentially hinges on these roles and how they manifested in the 1950s. It’s assumed here, almost as a matter of course, that Harry will have an affair with any female secretary. The resolution is not to disprove this idea, but to simply show that it doesn’t apply in this case. Blanche’s transition from secretary to wife is, in turn, treated as just the course of things.
I try not to be too censorious, and at its core there’s nothing wrong with the idea of this plotline. But the script itself is keen to depict these as not just the foibles of these two particular characters, but of their genders in particular, ultimately reaffirming that men are the reasonable runs in this situation. Gracie doesn’t just rant about George or Harry, she rants about “men”, and the staging of this scene suggests that women ultimately have nothing to complain about.
This episode is also a good reminder of how patriarchy ultimately has a pretty diminished view of men as well. It’s assumed that Harry won’t have the willpower to not sleep with a woman that he works with, and that George desires nothing more in a marriage than a blithering idiot. And hey, why can’t he have an affair with his sexy male coworker instead?
I don’t know. I should try to focus on other things if I’m going to write about 287 more episodes of this show. Maybe Carnation Evaporated Milk.
Coming up next: We’re finally done with Thanksgiving, and on to Kukla, Fran, and Ollie prepping for a trip to Minnesota