"...a very pleasant style of male-animal humor, with charm and a distinct sense of where to poise or throw his weight"
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| With Donald MacBride and Irene Dunne. |
My Favorite Wife - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):
"There is some of the best comedy work in My Favorite Wife, a sort of nonsense-sequel to The Awful Truth. There is also some of the worst plot making, and Irene Dunne. The story was written by Bella and Samuel Spewack and I am not going to tell it; but apart from its being quite impossible, which may be called comic license, it forces its best people to treat each other with an aimless viciousness that even Boris Karloff might hesitate to reveal to his public. And while most of the characters can manage to cover up this bankruptcy of motivation with quips and tumbles, Miss Dunne has apparently become very interested in acting and what may be achieved with the Human Voice. So it becomes her field day. She is not one person but seven, and if she is not all seven at once she is seven in rapid succession without aid from script or meaning, running the gamut from Little Eva to Gracie Allen, from The Women to (by actual account) Amos and Andy. What a lark.
But this is a Garson Kanin picture and to miss it would not be sensible, for Mr Kanin is already first-string in comedy, and comedy is no steady boarder these last few months. In addition, it shows Cary Grant developing a very pleasant style of male-animal humor, with charm and a distinct sense of where to poise or throw his weight. ... The best indication of a director's presence is the opening scene in court, where Granville Bates as the Judge had himself a picnic. Only four people, only one room, and it went on quite a time - but so easily you would not realize till afterwards that all the heavy exposition of Act I, Scene I, had run off in it like a shout. There was another courtroom scene near the end, too, though with more people; and there were scenes here and there all the way through, covering the retreat of the story. Such flowers will not bloom unseen, but it's a pity there has to be so damn much desert air around."
- Otis Ferguson, The New Republic
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| New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 - Number 36 - My Favorite Wife (Lobby Card Style) |
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