Doppelhochzeit

A very funny, romantic movie. I enjoyed all the little creative pieces of "business" and lines such as "...you rang my gong." I enjoyed the treat of Sidney Toler as Keough.

I enjoyed the beautiful, wonderful cars of the 1930s, and the background scenes of beautiful, wonderful downtown Los Angeles of the '30s and into the 1950s. I was born there in 1934 and remember it well when it was a beautiful place to live. Ah, nostalgia!! This is what it really did look like then.

"Double Wedding" is an enjoyable, albeit dizzying comedy starring William Powell and Myrna Loy.

It's really a tribute to the cast that they were able to carry on in such a wacky movie despite being shut down for a time due to Jean Harlow's untimely death. Both Powell, who was involved with Harlow, and Loy, who was a friend of hers, took her death very hard.

Powell and Loy play polar opposites in this film. She is a complete control freak who has her life, her sister's life, and the life of her sister's fiancé, planned down to the millisecond. Along comes Powell, who lives in a trailer and hocks items when he needs money. Once he's in their lives, all bets are off, and chaos reigns supreme.

The cast is great but the whole thing kind of veers off focus from time to time. The writing isn't as strong as in some of the other screwball comedies of the era. But Powell is a treasure and teamed with Loy, even more so.

Another William Powell/Myrna Loy pairing from the 1930's. Powell plays an eccentric artist who has convinced an 'about to be married' couple to invest in a film he wants to make w/them but standing in their way is Loy, the bride's sister, who is of the overly controlling sort who wants no part of his scheme. As always, the verbal & comedic fireworks are on full blast as soon as the bickering couple meet & somehow fall in love by film's end. The final scene's in Powell's motor-home rivals the famous Marx Brothers sequence from A Night of the Opera as friends & hanger-on's keep popping into the crammed space as the hilarity comes to a boil.

Considering that this film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy, it's definitely worth seeing--as are all of their films together. Even their lesser films together are wonderful and worth seeing--so it's a natural that I watched "Double Wedding".

In this film, Powell plays the ultimate bohemian and Loy plays a lady who is incredibly controlling and anti-fun. The idea of these two getting together is pretty far-fetched! But, because this is a Hollywood film, you know that eventually the two will find love. However, how they get there and how much fun the film becomes is exactly why you should see the film.

It all begins with Powell teaching a young couple to act and they are discussing his latest screenplay. The three are fast friends and have fun planning on making a film together. HOWEVER, when the very controlling sister (Loy) finds out about this, she assumes the worst and demands Powell stop seeing her sister and her fiancé. Mostly this is because Powell isn't in her plan for the two--as Loy has decided the two will marry, where they will go on their honeymoon, etc.--and the two idiots allow this! Little does this compulsive planner and controller know that Powell has plans for her! Overall, this is yet another fun pairing of Powell and Loy. While the film is silly and contrived, it's also very entertaining and clever. The ending was insanely chaotic--like a Marx Brothers film--and a lot of fun.

For the most part Double Wedding is a standard rom-com about opposites attracting, with Myrna Loy and William Powell carrying most of the screenplay weight. But it's John Beal's delightfully clueless literal- minded suitor to Loy's sister (ably but forgettably played by Florence Rice) that makes this film work. Scenes he shares with Powell as a hopeless actor and would-be man of the world are laugh-out-loud funny. His style of understated flat-affect comedy wouldn't become popular until the Coen brothers. Powell and Loy are capable as always, and the sets and costumes have a high sheen, but this film is Beal's steal. There's lots of misunderstandings and misapprehensions, all of which don't add much to the genre, but it's an amusing way to spend a few hours in the company of experts.