A Noiva do Marido

I almost stretched and gave "Our Wife" five stars, because I can't think of any film that Melvyn Douglas or Charles Coburn are in that doesn't rate that high. But, then, the screenplay for this story is so weak (just short of terrible), that one can't in honesty give it much credit. Douglas was in some great comedies and most were at least very good. But this film hardly deserves the label, comedy. Likewise for Coburn's film output in some smashing comedies.

This is not the first film with a plot that was different and might have been quite good, with a quality screenplay. I notice this problem especially with Columbia Pictures around this period - from late 1930s into early 1940s when that studio was a second-tier movie producer. The major area that Columbia Pictures seemed to suffer in was screenplays. It often got top actors from the Big 5 studios, and sometimes it had very good films. But more often, those films were little better than mediocre, and sometimes almost duds.

This film was panned by critics - again, mostly for the terrible script. It had only $1.3 million at the domestic box office - around 180th for the year, so it was a financial flop too.

Douglas gives it his best shot, and Ruth Hussey is good as Professor Susan Drake. But Charles Coburn's part as Professor Drake is barely noticeable, and Ellen Drew's Babe Marvin isn't much. It's too bad - the talent was here for a good film, but with a stinker of a script, even great actors can't save a film. Seeing a film like this, one wonders what the studio people were thinking (or drinking?) when they read the script and watched this film being made.

Even die-hard fans of Douglas will be sorely pressed to keep watching this film after just the first 20 minutes. With so little humor, I scratched to find a couple of decent lines.

Professor Drake, "Right this very night, I'm so proud of you. I'd like to wake Tom up and give him a good thrashing for not being another girl like you."

Professor Susan Drake, "This is just as big a job as smashing a few atoms. After all, we only pass through this life once and any little kindness we can leave along the way should be left along the way."