Lost Honeymoon

Lost Honeymoon which was produced by the short lived Eagle-Lion studio is a somewhat silly comedy about a man who married while he was having a bout of amnesia. He went back to America where he is now a successful architect and set to marry the boss's daughter.

But the wife he married in wartime Great Britain has died and her best friend has taken the two small mementos of the short lived marriage. And the friend has forged the passport in the name of the deceased wife. That can and does raise the eyebrows of immigration officials.

Franchot Tone is the lucky man about to find out he's a proud father of twins and Ann Richards plays the woman pretending to be his wife. This sad to say is just plain bizarre. Why not just get a passport and take them over yourself? The premise of this comedy is just plain silly.

Frances Rafferty is the boss's daughter and Clarence Kolb her choleric father. Tom Conway chips in with a rather droll performance as Tone's doctor and best friend who takes an interest in Richards himself.

It strikes me but this whole plot premise was done in a most serious vein and much better in Random Harvest.

Though Franchot Tone does not ever wear a tuxedo, he almost does but not quite, he does spend a great deal of the last 10 minutes of the film being chased by cops driving an automobile in his pajamas.

A really fine group of players in roles type cast for them can't really raise Lost Honeymoon above the mediocre.

From a social point of view, the setup of this is quite interesting as it lightheartedly shows the post war problem of kids left behind by their forces dads returning to the USA. Some criticise it for being a ridiculous setup but the lead character is actually just trying to get a better life by taking advantage of the situation. How many people were desperate to escape ruined Britain at that time? Passport to Pimlico dealt with exactly the same problem but in a much superior way. This film's setup is a bit silly but then lots are.

This is an average comedy in the end but it's played well by the actors and isn't a waste of time at all.

Despite the presence of Franchot Tone and Ton Conway, "Lost Honeymoon" is a truly dreadful film--with a stupid premise and amazingly bad writing. It made me cringe and I pray that you read this review and think twice about seeing this turkey.

When the film begins, you learn that a British lady has died and her twin children are being kept by her landlady. However, there IS a father--some American named John Gray. So, an amazingly stupid lady (Ann Richards) decides she's going to go to the States to find the man--a guy who married the now dead lady while was stationed in Britain during the war. However, instead of going about this is a sane manner, she decides to tell the Red Cross that she IS the dead woman and gets them to pay for her voyage with the two children. Once she's in America, she seems to automatically know that THE John Gray she wants is the one played by Tone--even though it's a relatively common name and he might not be the one. So, despite having no hard evidence, she strikes like a blitzkrieg--not caring what sort of repercussions there might be.

Now if this isn't bad enough (and amazingly contrived), it turns out that this Gray might just be the one. However (uggh, this is bad writing), he doesn't know if he is or isn't because he had a head injury and six weeks of his life are missing. During that time he MIGHT have gotten married and fathered the kids--but he doesn't know! Later (in yet another badly written twist), he learns that the woman pretending to be his wife is a liar...and he now is in love with her and must have her!!!

The bottom line is that none of this film makes sense. It's built on one dopey premise after another and the movie is one of the most contrived and silly films I've ever seen. The end result is impossible to believe, quite stupid and really a waste of decent actors. Not worth your bothering with this one.

Ann Richards' friend and the mother of twins has just died. Apparently she was married to Franchot Tone during the War. Meanwhile, Tone is back in the US, about to marry Frances Rafferty. This will be explained by Tom Conway, Tone's best friend and doctor, as amnesia. Miss Richards, masquerading as the dead woman, comes to the US and says she is his wife, and these are your children. Complications ensue in a plot that becomes so fragmented that Tone has to wake Conway every night to explain what's going on.

There are some good lines in this movie written by Joseph Fields. Clarence Kolb seems to have more than his fair share of them, but perhaps Kolb, trouper that he is, is simply better at speaking them. Tone adopts an expression of satisfied stupidity that reminds me of Stan Laurel as time goes on, and Miss Richards speaks her lines as simply as possible, probably in an effort not to be held responsible. This is an Eagle-Lion production, produced by Arthur Krim and his crew as they worked at taking what had been PRC, and making it respectable. It seems to have been very early in the process.

Leigh Jason is so unknown to me that I even entertained the possibility that he might be a she (no doubt because of that great actress and beauty, Vivian!)

Anyway, no biggie! It set me on the right ramp to launch LOST HONEYMOON, which opens with the news of the passing of a mother of twins in England, with the husband living in the USA. A close friend (Richards) of the deceased decides that the father must live up to his responsibilities in regard to the children and she impersonates the deceased by using her passport (back in 1947 that was far more possible than today, and even today it is still done to forge your identity, so no dent on reality there!)

At a frenzied pace the spectator learns that good old Franchot is about to marry beautiful Rafferty, completely amnesic about the fact that he had already tied the knot in England some years earlier. That sets in motion a series of funny developments with Franchot in good form, ably assisted by good friend Conway who himself is interested in Richards, who seems deeply moved by Franchot who is betrothed to Rafferty, with her rich dad in tow...

I watched a poor copy that did not permit rating cinematographic quality, but the script by Joseph Fields deserves plaudits for sharp zingers, twists and turns.

I loved it right to the clever ending. 8/10.