While perhaps not quite as relentlessly awesome as The Awful Truth, this 1940 Cary Grant-Irene Dunne screwball comedy is nonetheless charming and funny as hell. The premise is totally incredible (Grant too spineless to fess up to bigamy? Maybe; Irene Dunne barefoot on a desert island? No chance), but it’s effortlessly pleasurable and deeper in its suggestions about love, marriage, trust, and fidelity than such a goofy movie has a right to be. But then, this is Stanley Cavell’s favorite kind of movie, so there’s bound to be plenty of pushing and pulling, crossing and double-crossing, and gentle power-plays before the married couple give in to one another. In many ways, it’s just Scenes from a Marriage, but nicer, several hours shorter, and without Grant kicking Dunne in the ribs.
And, if nothing else, the scene in which Grant uncomfortably admires his former “roommate” Randolph Scott’s form makes the whole thing worth it.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Home Video DVD
14 Mar 2007 4:13 PM | Submit Comment
