Thoroughly Modern Millie

New York, 1922. Millie arrives from the provinces and decides to become a modern woman: she will cut her hair, learn to type and marry her boss. At her hotel something else is going on; the proprietor, Mrs Meers, drugs young women with no family and sells them East. The subject is not romance but mocking the twenties idea of modernity. Millie's plan is entirely calculating, and rather than criticising it the film finds it ridiculous; in the end the plan collapses. The form is a musical stuffed with silent cinema references: intertitles, undercranked motion, dance numbers that are deliberately old-fashioned. It runs close to three hours and was shown with an intermission. Today the production carries a problem. Mrs Meers is played by a white woman in Asian disguise and the two Chinese henchmen are pure stereotype; the choice was sharply criticised in later years and was changed in the 2002 Broadway musical adaptation. George Roy Hill directs. Julie Andrews plays Millie, Mary Tyler Moore her friend and Carol Channing the wealthy widow. Elmer Bernstein won the Oscar for adapted score. Who it is for: viewers who like the big musicals of the sixties and Julie Andrews. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for racist caricature; those passages are central and cannot be looked past.