It's silly and completely dated, and exactly what we all need right now.
Wonderfully talented Ginger Rogers plays Susan Applegate, a small-town girl trying to make it in the big city of New York - to which I immediately bonded with her over that feeling. After a client makes advances on her, and refuses to take no for an answer, she leaves that seen and the city altogether. However, when she tries to buy a train ticket, she learns that the money she kept for a one-way ticket back home has since increased in price since she moved in New York. Having no other money and trying to come up with a solution, she witnesses a mother purchases less expensive tickets for her underage children. Enter, the minor: Susan quickly alters her attire and her appearance and convinces the ticket seller that she is in fact eligible for the cheaper fare.
Having issues keeping up with her youthful façade, Susan runs from the train conductor who sees the cracks in her story, and she flees into what she thinks is an empty sleeper cabin. Enter, the major. Ray Milland, who I absolutely loved in The Uninvited (1944) skillfully plays Major Philip Kirby. And I say skillfully, because while it does seem odd (especially by 2020 standards) that the Major would suddenly take a strange girl under his wing, the character and storyline is as plausible as you're going to get; and it never once strays over to the creepy side of things.
Though what can you expect when the story was written and directed by Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity [1944]; Sunset Boulevard [1950], etc.); need I say more!! ...Sorry, just have to pause for a moment to reflect in the awesomeness that is Wilder movies....
Major Kirby insists young "Susu" stay with him in his sleeper cabin, as he has an extra bed. This would be the end of the story expect the train is detained from flooding, and Kirby cannot expect a young girl to fend for herself as she tries to get home, can he? He insists she comes with her to the Military Academy where he teaches, and where his fiancé lives with her father (Kirby's commanding officer). The only one to catch-on to Susan's scheme is the fiancé's teenage sister, Lucy - who is far too smart in science and biology to fall for the figure of a grown woman as a young teenager girl. But she agrees to keep Susan's secret as she sees she is falling for Kirby - who also wants to see the engagement ends as her sister is secretly keeping Kirby back in his career but not allowing a transfer to go through.
Again the movie becomes a bit dated as all of the boys at the Academy take a shot a dating Susu, but it's still sweet and endearing, and actually quite funny. Eventually Kirby's fiancé discovers Susan's secret, and threatens to "out" her. Susan tries to have a proper meeting with Kirby to confess to him, but the fiancé stops the meeting and Susan has no choice but to leave and return home. Cut to Susan living quietly at home with her mother (played by Rogers real life mother!) when she receives a call from Kirby advising he'll be in town for a few hours during a stopover to San Diego. Susan keeps up the scheme by acting as her own mother when Kirby arrives for a visit - only to find out that "Susu" is at a school play. He tells the fake Mrs. Applegate that his fiancé married another man, as a man heading off to war as no right to marry - but that one man on his train is meeting his girl in Nevada to get married.
At the station, Kirby waits for his train and sees at the end of the platform, Susan, the real deal Susan. He asks her where she is going, and Susan lovingly tells him that she's heading to Nevada to marry a soldier - if she'll have him. They embrace and kiss, and I actually cheered at the screen.
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