Haunted Honeymoon

A titled amateur detective & his mystery-writing bride spend a BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON when a murdered corpse is discovered in their new Devonshire home.

Beginning with its first release in 1938 and for several years thereafter, MGM maintained a sister studio in England. In this way she could take advantage of the wealth of British acting talent available, and also get around the UK restriction on the import of foreign films. American stars were often sent over to take the top roles, an increasingly dicey maneuver as the Atlantic became dangerous with Nazi U-boats. BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON (called HAUNTED HONEYMOON in the USA) was one of those films.

BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, while not unpleasant to look at, is not without its flaws. The mystery isn't all that enthralling, but the main difficulty seems to lie in Robert Montgomery's portrayal of Lord Peter Wimsey. It just doesn't click. This very fine actor made a career from playing suave, sophisticated characters, which Lord Peter should be, but you can never for a moment forget that this is only Robert Montgomery playing a role; nor for an instant do you believe that this is Lord Peter come to life. And the American accent surely doesn't help, either.

The lovely Constance Cummings, as Lady Harriet, suffers much the same fate.

A fine gaggle of British actors, including Robert Newton, Leslie Banks & Googie Withers, appear in supporting roles. But the real joy in watching this film is reveling in the rare opportunity to see the marvelous old actor Sir Seymour Hicks, who portrays Bunter the butler. Sir Seymour (1871-1949) had been one of the great actor-managers & dramatists of the turn of the century. With his plumy voice & broad, impish face, he easily steals scene after scene with his stagy intonations & mannerisms.

It would take the passage of several decades & the arrival of a completely new medium - television - before Dorothy L. Sayer's hero received superlative interpretations from actors Ian Carmichael & Edward Petherbridge.

Constance and Robert have a great deal of fun with this film although he is not my perfect idea of Lord Wimsey although he has a certain ironic charm. Hot on the heels of the great Night Must Fall, he lets his hair down here to ham it up a bit, but the locals are a match for anyone and everyone. This shows the British idea of eccentricity at its bizarre best.

Only Hollywood would cast a very American actor as a member of the British aristocracy...but here they cast Robert Montgomery (with his very nice AMERICAN accent) to play Lord Peter Wimsey! With that huge strike against it, can "Busman's Honeymoon" be any good?

When the film begins, Lord Peter Wimsey is about to marry Harriet (Constance Cummings). To surprise her, he's bought her childhood home which has been owned by a horrible sort of rotter, Mr. Noakes (Roy Emerton). Peter doesn't know that Noakes is a total jerk who owes everyone and is a nasty piece of work. When the couple come to take possession of the home, Noakes is no where to be found. Eventually his body is discovered and this challenges the couple, as they both promised to retire and Peter is supposed to stop his sleuthing ways and she is to stop writing murder mysteries. Wanna make a bet as to whether or not they keep this promise?

Despite terrible casting, the film works reasonably well...mostly because MGM had a great knack at making good looking movies. An interesting plot.

The story, I mean. This picture takes forever to get underway, as it isn't until 20 minutes in that a crime is committed. Then ensues a lot of dialogue and alternate plot development, and then 30 minutes later, the body is discovered. That leaves less than 25 minutes to track down the murderer.

I did not read the book so I cannot comment on the pale comparison between the book and the film, or the unsuitability of Robert Montgomery as Lord Peter Wimsey. I can say that I am never disappointed by Montgomery's presence in a movie, and here he was dapper and sophisticated as always - although perhaps slightly out of place with an American accent.

I enjoyed the banter between Montgomery and Constance Cummings, the staid and stuffy presence of Seymour Hicks and the threatening appearance of Roy Emerton. The solution to the murder seemed slapped together and almost an afterthought, and the whole mood of the picture seemed as though it couldn't decide if it was a romantic comedy or a murder mystery. I have to say, though, that the whole picture had a very agreeable cachet about it that worked for me.

I thought the overall effect was delightful, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, warts and all. If you are a Robt. Montgomery fan or an aficionado of peculiar murder stories, this picture is for you. And there is plenty of 'down' time to go to the fridge. It aired on TCM the other morning.

As the other comments make clear, this is not a bad film. One of MGM's British-made films, it has several good moments, and lots of good performances. Its problem is that it makes the ultimately wrong decision to play down the mystery elements in favour of the romantic comedy. It could have been a marvellous comedy thriller, but instead looks more like a pale imitation of the great romantic screwballs of the thirties, or the fag end of the cycle. Montgomery and Cummings' opening scene reminds one of William Powell and Myrna Loy opening Christmas presents in The Thin Man, or indeed Montgomery's own opening scene with Carole Lombard in Mr and Mrs Smith. The two beautiful, funny, talented people sail brilliantly and wittily through life, with their perfect marriage (explicitly announced to be so), not taking themselves too seriously, not afraid to take a pratfall now and then ... you know the drill. And, of course, we as viewers are supposed to assume that Robert Montgomery and Constance Cummings, by extension, are also such wonderful beings.

So the picture is actually an hour old before we get going with the murder. We have had the clues front-loaded, interspersed with the comedy and romance, whereas in the book Wimsey pieces together the clues from his interrogations. The solution of the mystery ends up as a total afterthought, Montgomery casually piecing together the fiendish plot, and the film sloppily omits to give us any actual proof that that was how the crime was done.

And, to coin a phrase, why oh why oh why did anyone think that suave New Yorker Montgomery could be Lord Peter Wimsey, whose archetypal English "silly ass" manner concealed a brilliant brain? Ian Carmichael was much nearer the mark in the 70s TV series. Montgomery is a very pleasing screen presence, but an English nobleman he is not.

As usual it is the character actors that steal the scenes. Leslie Banks, in my humble, could do very little wrong, and doesn't here. Joan Kemp-Welch is excellent in what could be the very tedious role of Aggie Twitterton. Robert Newton gives an early eye-rolling performance complete with dodgy West country accent. Frank Pettingell is on good form, especially in the chimney sweeping scene, where he divests himself of a seemingly infinite number of sweaters. Googie Withers is great as the sexy barmaid. Roy Emerton is always good value. But the real star of the show, as other comments have also pointed out, is the old actor-manager Seymour Hicks, showing the youngsters how it is done.

So, much to please, much too long, more thrills needed.