Up in Mabel's Room

Why use a door when crawling through a window is so much sneakier. In fact, this movie must hold the all-time record of Hollywood crawl-throughs. But more than that, the movie's still pretty darn funny, a bedroom farce that I'll bet packed wartime theatres everywhere. After all, what better way to escape the grimness than this kind of whirlwind nonsense.

So, Gary (O'Keefe) better retrieve that autographed undergarment from ornery Mabel (Patrick) before wifey Geraldine (Reynolds) finds out, otherwise he's headed for divorce court. But then there're two other married couples in the same house and somehow their pairings keep getting mixed-up in funny fashion. Worse for Gary, his bug-eyed helper, Boris (Auer), is no help at all, while everything he does just digs poor Gary in deeper. Good thing there's always a bed to hide under when a window isn't handy, otherwise Gary's goose would have been served up long ago.

Veteran director Dwan keeps things rolling in expert fashion. However, I couldn't help wondering if today's audiences would even know what a slip is since girls traded in dresses for pants years ago. And, to think, all that fuss over whose name is on the slip. But never mind, it's just a gimmick to get the madcap ball rolling.

Anyhow, the movie's still a lot of light-hearted fun, with an expert cast and a lot of snappy one-liners. I especially like the very last scene where Boris finds out more than one person can cuss in Russian and from the unlikeliest sources. All in all, the movie is still an engaging delight despite the changing mores.