Tuesday, December 22, 2009

TOO MANY HUSBANDS (1940)

[Update 07/25/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Released two months before MY FAVORITE WIFE this movie is pretty much the same story, but it's the husband instead of the wife getting shipwrecked. Also, the timeline is different and, ahh, who cares? Anyway, Fred MacMurray is the unfortunate shipwreck victim who comes home a year later to find that his wife has married his best friend, Melvyn Douglas. Instead of just saying "Deuces!" and finding the closest divorce lawyer, both husbands whimper and fuss like little children and beg Jean Arthur to pick him as her rightful husband.

As pathetic as that is it's kinda amusing and I was shocked at how much sexual innuendo made it past the censors. I swear to Satan at one point Jean Arthur was saying she wanted some double penetration!!! I'm serious!  MacMurray and Douglas bicker constantly and do stuff like jump over chairs to impress Arthur. It's all just crazy yelling, with no real substance.

Comparing it to other screwball comedies of the day, it's just OK and I really can't recommend it. Unless you're a Arthur and/or MacMurray fan, who I think both did very well considering the script was a mess.