My Favorite Wife (1940)

Written by CinemaSerf on June 23, 2022

Whilst it has it's moments; this is really quite a jaded comedy romance. Cary Grant ("Nick") has just married "Bianca" (Gail Patrick) when his previous, presumed dead, wife "Ellen" (Irene Dunne) who went missing seven years earlier in a shipwreck turns up alive and kicking. To add to the rather convoluted storyline, "Ellen" has been stuck all this time on a desert island with Randolph Scott ("Stephen") and as you can imagine loads of confusion ensues now as they all try to decide who actually wants to be married to whom! Grant is his usual, affable, self but the others didn't really do it for me - except, maybe Granville Bates as the hopelessly indecisive judge "Bryson". I'm afraid that I found the story really quite thin - the one joke has some legs, but they tire midway through and the whole thing just becomes too contrived.