My Favorite Wife

Funny Farce...
This one has been a fave of mine since I was a kid and I had been anxiously waiting it to be released on DVD, and in black & white (no "coloring", thanks).

Although it is not the masterpiece that "The Awful Truth" is (starring both Grant & Dunne too), it's anyway an engaging, tongue-in-cheek, romantic comedy, thanks to Cary Grant's and Irene Dunne's wonderful chemistry (They also were good at drama, check the great "Penny Serenade").

Dunne plays the long lost (7 years) wife of Cary Grant, who after years of searching her in the realms of Asiatic continent & islands, has decided to re-marry...to give his two a children a brand-new mother.

I have to state that the quality of the transfer is much better than the Columbia DVD (of extremely "uneven-quality") edition of "The Awful Truth", and you know that Columbia-Sony Editions are more expensive than these Warner editions; and above all, lately the Columbia-Sony Classic releases don't bring bonuses, beside...

"I bet you say that to all your wives."
Some may be surprised at my reviewing a film like this, as the movies I usually review tend to fall into the science fiction and horror genres, but I do enjoy all kinds of films, especially romantic comedies from Hollywood's golden age. There's something about films from 30's and 40's that I don't often see in movies today, and I would define it as class. Characters in these old films often exuded a suave, sophisticated demeanor you rarely see in contemporary releases...maybe it had something to do with the now defunct studio system in those days, one that always tried to promote it's contract actors in the best possible light, cultivating and protecting them like the valuable commodities they were, elevating their status to a level usually reserved for royalty. Nowadays, every wart, blemish, and pimple, metaphorically speaking, is exposed (remember not so long ago when Hugh Grant got caught in that tryst with that rather seedy street walker? Fifty years ago the general public...

Let Us Now Praise Irene Dunne
Although Cary Grant is justifiably remembered as a screen legend (indeed he is probably the most adept of any of his contemporaries at romantic comedy), it seems criminal that Irene Dunne is almost forgotten these days. This is the second and most lightweight of three very fruitful screen pairings they had during this period - the other two are the even more insane divorce farce, "The Awful Truth", from 1937 and 1941's child adoption tearjerker, "Penny Serenade". With her insinuating laugh and sophisticated but down-to-earth manner, she is a wonderful screwball heroine, even if she lacks the haughty glamour of Katharine Hepburn or the brazen beauty of Carole Lombard.

Here Dunne plays Ellen Wagstaff Arden returning home after seven years shipwrecked on a desert island. The problem is that her husband Nick has just gotten remarried to a high maintenance socialite named Bianca. Misunderstandings seem to multiply when it's disclosed that Ellen was not alone on the island and...

Click to Editorial Reviews