Meet the Stewarts

If Bill Holden had to choose a typical part that he was trying to avoid being cast as before Sunset Boulevard, chances are he would pick his role in Meet the Stewarts as exhibit A.

Holden used to call these his 'smiling jim' roles, the decent young married or newlywed that his dual studio masters, Paramount and Columbia would insist on casting him in.

The film is based on a series of short stories by Elizabeth Dunn based on the trials of a young married couple, Candy and Mike Stewart. What we have in this film is an episode of a half hour TV situation comedy stretched out to fill up a B feature film.

In fact Meet the Stewarts might very well have been the inspiration for Bewitched. Mike Stewart is a sober industrious young man who happens to fall in love with an air headed débutante, Candy. Remember the way Darren Stevens insisted that Samantha live on his salary without using any nose twitching magic? Holden is the same way about Dee, insisting that they live without any assistance from his in-laws.

Meet the Stewarts is not a horribly bad film, but you can see how desperate William Holden was to get away from these kind of parts.