Merry Wives of Reno

I Tivo-ed this one because it features Margaret Lindsay -- I've liked her in all her movies, but they're aren't that many of them.

About a half-hour in, though, I was about to give up it -- it has a great cast, but you've seen them all playing the same parts in better movies.

Then, suddenly, one fleecy performer took this movie into her hooves and made it her own. Who was that talented sheep thespian who portrayed Eloise, the Hugh Herbert character's pet sheep?

I sheepishly admit that she won me over -- she had me "Baaaaaaaahhh." If Asta the terrier could make so many movies, why not Eloise?

So tune in, if only to enjoy perhaps the only screwball comedy with a Merino movie star.

Merry Wives of Reno (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Delightful gem from Warner about three couples (Guy Kibbee-Ruth Donnelly, Donald Woods-Margaret Lindsay, Glenda Farrell-Hugh Herbert) who keep running into each other, which just leads to one mistake after another and soon the three wives are in Reno trying to get divorces. At just 64-minutes this pre-code comedy flies by at a very quick pace and there are enough laughs here to make you wonder why it isn't better known. With a terrific cast of stock players from the studio, this picture really is the true definition of a gem and it's really too bad that it isn't better known with comedy fans. I think the best thing the film has going for it is the wonderful screenplay, which offers up some terrific situations and great comedy lines. Some of the best moments happen at the start of the film when Kibbee and Donnelly, a married couple for nineteen years, start to go after one another and throwing some terrific insults. This early sequence in their apartment really gets the film going and it really never slows down. There's some very funny bits between Woods and Lindsay as the "new" couple who get going in a lie and can't get out of it. The performers really do a wonderful job in their roles with Kibbee easily stealing the film as the drunk husband who wants nothing more than a divorce. I thought the actor did a fantastic job with his drunk scenes and his comic timing was right on the mark. Lindsay is also very good in her role of the wife who can't make her mind up on what she wants. The supporting cast also includes Frank McHugh, Roscoe Ates, Herbert Cavanaugh and Hattie McDaniel. MERRY WIVES OF RENO doesn't end as well as one would hope but with the terrific cast and great laughs it comes highly recommended.

Three couples head for Reno divorces and cause each other mischief along the way in this wild and witty comedy.

Donald Woods and Margaret Lindsay are the cute couple: As the picture opens, they are celebrating their first wedding anniversary. It's all lovey-dovey to start with but things quickly go wrong when her anniversary gift to him goes missing.

Their neighbors, Ruth Donnelly and Guy Kibbee, are the bickering couple: "In the 19 years I've been married to you," Kibbee complains as they sit down to eat, "I've never gotten a chance to find out whether you could cook or not. You've always started a quarrel before I got started eating."

Glenda Farrell and Hugh Herbert are the wacky couple. Herbert is a sheep fancier who takes a sheep named Eloise around with him everywhere, including their ritzy apartment; Farrell finds amusement other ways, such as inviting over handsome boat salesman Donald Woods, who mistakenly thinks he's there to sell her a boat.

The entire cast is excellent; perhaps best of all is Frank McHugh as a smooth-talking bellboy with many talents. The script is full of snappy dialog and a rather delightful disdain for anything remotely serious, although eventually the many divorce and infidelity jokes start to show the film's age—it aims at being naughty but seems a bit labored instead.

It's pretty much pure silliness, and very entertaining for those of us who love to see a great cast of character actors cutting loose.

Ruth Donnelly, a solid supporting actress in literally dozens of films, went to Hollywood when the Great Depression hit Broadway [where she was established as a young character woman (GOING UP et al.)and near where she had made a few silent films] with a plan to try movies for six months to a year. She came back to the East Coast some three decades later, figuring that her career was over ... and replaced Patsy Kelly in NO, NO, NANETTE on Broadway. Ruth was a true lady ... and one of the best friends anyone could have! I adored her. You haven't lived until you've sat next to Ruth during a special screening of THE MERRY WIVES OF RENO and listened to her asides about the film and the other actors in it. No bitchiness; that was not Ruth's style. But ... funny?! You know it! Guy Kibbee played her husband and Glenda Farrell was a co-star. Ruth, who had not seen the film (this screening was sometime in the '80s) since its initial release, could remember every scene and every moment. She was truly a remarkable talent, a remarkable lady, and a remarkable friend. I miss her greatly.

Like other Warner Brothers comedies of the early 30s, pacing and sarcasm make this film. Here, it's the wry take on why marriages succeed or fail that makes the movie so funny. Never mind love, communication, or fidelity. What makes or breaks a marriage is how willing you are to admit you're an idiot too. So funny and so true-- just thinking about the premise makes me laugh. The acting is very good, the script, with asides too funny and too numerous to trivialize out of context, is even better. There is a whole philosophy here, a whole view of life that dispenses with the psychobabble prominent even then in a storm of hastily delivered truths. Slapstick abounds, although the sophisticated wit is the best thing about this movie.