Another enjoyable screwball comedy from Hollywood's Golden Age, written by soon-to-be writer-director extraordinaire Preston Sturges and starring the always watchable Jean Arthur and the beginnings of Sturges' stock supporting cast. Edward Arnold gives his usual blustering performance as the Warren Buffet-type financier who sets off an unlikely chain of events when in a fit of pique he throws his wife's most recent expensive fur coat purchase out the window of their penthouse apartment right onto the head of ordinary average gal, Arthur, with a suitably every-woman type name of Mary Smith.
Coincidence follows coincidence and misunderstanding isn't far behind either as, suspected of being the rich old grandee's young mistress, she sees herself elevated to the executive suite of a swank hotel which needs a favour from Arnold's J B Ball character. At an automat where rather like buffet restaurants today, you pick, pay and collect your meal of choice, she encounter's Ball's son, slumming it in a day-job to prove his independence from his father. Played by a very young Ray Milland, unsurprisingly they become romantically entwined and from there the film rolls along uproariously to a happy ever after conclusion and a cheeky throwback in the final scene to the original catalyst for all the craziness that followed.
Likeable as it is I wouldn't put in the top-bracket of its type. There are few killer one-liners and much of the humour is of the slapstick variety, fine for the riotous automat scene but less so when it's repeated at the final denouement in Ball's office. Sturges' identifiable traits of overlapping dialogue, outrageous chance events and lots of physical humour are all present and correct but require more finessing than they get here. Arnold and Arthur are fine but Milland mugs and pratfalls too much. Director Mitchell Leisen does so with flair, keeping up with the fast-moving action, although for me there was probably too much of it in this particular movie.
