The Reluctant Bride

Tempean Films' twenty-fifth release in seven years was a change from their usual diet of crime films with by their standards a moderately ambitious attempt at 'sophisticated' Hollywood-style romantic comedy in which bespectacled bluestocking Virginia Bruce (and author of 'Birth Control of the Insects') gets involved with a gaggle of precocious kids and discards her glasses to fall into the arms of fellow ex-pat John Carroll. It however only hit cinemas after three years on the shelf and took yet another two years to reach America. (Seen today it has the additional interest of seeing John Gilbert's last wife sharing the screen with the future Captain Mainwaring.)

The two main characters were about 30 years too old for the parts they played and who would want to adopt the awful posh children? Bad casting all round and with Arthur Lowe's part being practically non speaking he couldn't save it.

A British film that, with the help of two American stars,(John Carroll, and Virginia Bruce) feels quite a bit like a typical lightweight but enjoyable American comedy of the 50's. The meet cute part is actually fairly serious for a comedy, His John's brother, and Virginia's sister are married, and have 4 children that they rarely see (In fact, John Carroll's character says he hasn't seen his brother in 15 years) so , when the couple appears to be lost on an exposition, John and Virginia, after his failed attempts at flirting with his then unbeknownst to him sister-in-law on a train, decide to do what's best for the children, and go along to get along. Of course, you can easily guess what will happen.... I like the fact that both of the American leads were in their mid to late 40's. It looks in fact to be Virginia's last starring role in a theatrical film. Too bad as she and John Carroll actually make a pretty good team. And to the reviewer above, Virginia Bruce was more than just known for being married to John Gilbert! She co-starred or coupled with in films, Gilbert (of course)Ricardo Cortez , Cagney, Walter Huston, Conrad Nagel,Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Chester Morris, Warren William, and Melvyn Douglas just to name a few. So she was NOT some flighty gal that just dated/married famous guys, but was a real actually A list MOVIE STAR!

To have one ageing American actor for the lead in a 1950s British feature film is normal but to have 2 is excessive.Particularly when they are both over the top and in their mid to late 40s.Neither were ever stars and Bruce's main claim to fame is as the last wife of John Gilbert.Little wonder that the film was not distributed in the USA till 1957.This is a rom-com with little rom and no com.There are also 3 grotesquely precocious children to put up with.Basically the plot is that an exploring couple get lost in the jungle and decide that their unwed relatives from America should look after their 4 children,there is a young child as well.the only enjoyment is seeing Arthur Lowe as a hen pecked husband.

John Carroll is a womanizing Texan wildcatter who's got a check for a million dollars. Virginia Bruce is a laboratory-bound entomologist who's got a dull colleague/fiance in Brian Oulton. What they share are a brother and a sister who are married, have three too-bright children, and have been missing on an African expedition for seven years. They're summoned to take charge of the children, and, of course, don't care for each other at all.

This is a rather dull and predictable romantic comedy as they deal with the children and come to realize at the last minute that they love each other. The jokes aren't about people, they're about non-existent stereotypes, and it's only the inevitablity of plots like this one that means they'll get together at the end of the movie; this is the sort of story which has me saying "I give them one month, and then Carroll is back out in the field dealing with rough men and sexy gold diggers, and she's back in the lab looking at bugs."

Miss Bruce would make one more movie in 1960 in a supporting role, then another twenty years later. Carroll would make two more movies over the next four years, then basically disappear from the big screen. Director Henry Cass would last another fourteen years and a similar number of movies, squarely in the B division. This one is simply and purely rote.