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Billy Wilder jokes about slipping his American directorial debut, The Major and the Minor, past censors in 1942. Seven years before Nabokov wrote Lolita, Wilder and co-screenwriter Charles Brackett penned a script based on repressed pedophilia -- a grown man takes an undeniable interest in what he deems to be a 12- year-old girl -- and watched it become a mammoth success. The Major and the Minor was one of the year's most popular films, breaking box-office records in both Hollywood and Los Angeles. As a director, Wilder proved that he could render a taboo subject crowd-pleasing, not simply with comic irreverence, but with insight and compassion. The Major and the Minor presages an essential human aspect of what would later be called the "Lolita story": the rejuvenation a young girl inspires in her much older male counterpart. Masquerading as young Sue-Sue, Ginger Rogers unwittingly enlivens Ray Milland's Major Kirby. Wilder and his actors approach this change innocently and naturally; it is appealing and sympathetic. Moreover, Sue-Sue does not only inspire Kirby's rebirth as a man, but also as a soldier. She is a key player in his much-desired return to active military service, a fact that marks the film's sincere acknowledgement of wartime preoccupations. The Major and the Minor, despite its tawdry premise, is a precocious film with a big heart.