Director: Richard Wallace
Year: 1942
Rating: 6.5
A comedy murder mystery that floats in gently on
the charms of Brian Aherne and Loretta Young. Perhaps a bit overly silly
at times but the chatter is fast and funny. Most of the time. Both of these
actors are mainly forgotten these days. Aherne was another one of those British
actors who brimmed over with class and quiet charm. He sort of got lost in
the mix of Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, Leslie Howard, Herbert Marshall, James
Mason, George Sanders, Tom Conway, David Niven and Ray Milland. Aherne was
married to Joan Fontaine at this time which gives him a win in my corner.
Young was a different story. She was a big star during her acting years but
if you look at her resume very few of her films jump out at you. Platinum
Blonde, The Crusades, Call of the Wild (when she had an affair with Gable
and got pregnant), The Farmer's Daughter (for which she won an Oscar) and
The Bishop's Wife (a Christmas regular) may be familiar to some. But from
1928 when she was fifteen to her last film in 1953 she was a leading lady
in every film. She was signed with Fox until 1938 when she bailed on them
and decided not to sign with another studio - but just to go it alone. A
radical step at the time. But her nickname was the Steel Butterfly and she
knew what she wanted. She was tired of being told what films to make and
often being very secondary to the male lead. This very much belies her film
image of this elegant delicate translucent creature with these large glistening
eyes that you feel like you could take a dip in. After she retired from film,
she went into TV - the Loretta Young Show which my mother was a fan
of. I watched one recently out of curiosity - she comes out to introduce
the show in this fabulous dress looking like nobility giving bread to the
peasants.
This is another attempt to cash in on The Thin Man from Columbia. A screwy
couple gets involved in a murder case and try and solve it because that is
what married folks do. Especially, if the murdered man was found in their
apartment. It is breezy and fun with a mystery there primarily for the two
actors to play off. Young was known to be very demanding of how she was photographed
and she has a few exquisite close ups of her face with the lighting just
perfect. In one scene she and hubby are talking and snuggling on the couch
having forgotten they have no window covering and a crowd gathers to watch
them. When they realize this they kiss and then kiss again to applause but
Young looks like she is lit from inside her. Stunning.
The two of them move into a basement apartment a few days before they are
suppose to. This causes consternation among their apartment neighbors who
all seem to be in on something but we don't know what. On their first night
they go out to dinner and come home to find a dead body the next day. The
cops led by Sidney Toler and Donald MacBride seem to suspect them though
the couple almost seems too silly and cute to have killed someone. But he
is a mystery writer of bad novels and thinks this is his chance to write
a good one. And so they investigate. They are both extremely likable here
and the chemistry between them is lovely. The only thing against this film
is a plot that makes little logical sense, but since that isn't really why
we are here it is easy to overlook. Also, on hand are Donald Costello as
the owner of the building, Gale "Spider Woman" Sondergaard and Cy Kendall
as the victim.
Up on YouTube in decent condition on the day of this writing. 6/12/2021
