Cute and diverting. Several other species of the genre have been produced over the years, like "Move Over Darling" and "My Favorite Wife." They're all amusing, but this may be the most dodgy while, in my humble opinion as an expert, "My Favorite Wife" is funnier, and also features the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite.
Fred MacMurry is lost at sea and presumed dead. His widow, Jean Arthur, marries their best friend, Melvyn Douglas. MacMurray shows up a year later, quite vital. Complications ensue.
Arthur now has two husbands in the same house. After the initial confusion, she gets to sort of like the idea of having two men competing for her. The men in their turn act like two kids in the fifth grade fighting over a girl in the schoolyard. When they're not fighting, they're pretending to be ill in order to attract her attention and gain her sympathy.
Well, why shouldn't she be tickled? It's a favorite feminine fantasy. The corresponding male fantasy is conquering a kingdom.
It's not really too inventive but it has moments. The two husbands are forced to sleep in the guest room, which has been decorated as a nursery for the daughter that Douglas and Arthur had been hoping for. It's filled with fripperies and bows. "What's this?", asks the sullen MacMurry, fingering a valence. "Dotted Swiss," replies the sulky Douglas. "Oh, dotted Swiss," says MacMurray breathlessly with the slightest of lisps.
I guess it was the code that demanded the men sleep in separate beds, although it would have been funnier if they'd had to argue over who was hoarding the blankets.
Jean Arthur was never a sexpot but she was always appealing with her cracked whine of a voice. She remained winsome even in middle age in a dramatic role in Shane (1952). She was born in New York state and died at 90 in Carmel, California. Not a bad life course.
Fred MacMurry is lost at sea and presumed dead. His widow, Jean Arthur, marries their best friend, Melvyn Douglas. MacMurray shows up a year later, quite vital. Complications ensue.
Arthur now has two husbands in the same house. After the initial confusion, she gets to sort of like the idea of having two men competing for her. The men in their turn act like two kids in the fifth grade fighting over a girl in the schoolyard. When they're not fighting, they're pretending to be ill in order to attract her attention and gain her sympathy.
Well, why shouldn't she be tickled? It's a favorite feminine fantasy. The corresponding male fantasy is conquering a kingdom.
It's not really too inventive but it has moments. The two husbands are forced to sleep in the guest room, which has been decorated as a nursery for the daughter that Douglas and Arthur had been hoping for. It's filled with fripperies and bows. "What's this?", asks the sullen MacMurry, fingering a valence. "Dotted Swiss," replies the sulky Douglas. "Oh, dotted Swiss," says MacMurray breathlessly with the slightest of lisps.
I guess it was the code that demanded the men sleep in separate beds, although it would have been funnier if they'd had to argue over who was hoarding the blankets.
Jean Arthur was never a sexpot but she was always appealing with her cracked whine of a voice. She remained winsome even in middle age in a dramatic role in Shane (1952). She was born in New York state and died at 90 in Carmel, California. Not a bad life course.