John Loves Mary

Patricia Neal in her screen debut is "Mary" and she loves "John," played by Ronald Reagan in this lightweight comedy, "John Loves Mary." She expects him home from service any day and wants the moment when he sees her to be just right, with "Someone to Watch Over Me" playing. But things are never that easy. Not with fellow serviceman Jack Carson involved. Jack did save his life once. Therefore, Ronnie felt indebted to him. But an attempt to help Jack out with his love life backfires on Ronald and he and Patricia have to wait to get married due to him being married to Jack's foreign girlfriend to bring her into the country. But it seems that upon meeting Jack, he learns that, despite the fact that Jack couldn't live without her, he had married someone else since then. What a pickle! Ronnie is trying to keep all this from Patricia and her politician father, played Edward Arnold. I saw this almost twenty years ago and I thought I had memories of liking it. But upon seeing it recently, I found this to be too stagy, due to its play origins, too silly, and a little annoying at times. One would probably like this for the people in it, but the situations feel forced to me and I really didn't find it to be that funny. In fact, afterwards I felt that it wasted the stars and it was all a to-do over nothing, despite the affable dispositions of Ronnie and company.