![The Awful Truth (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71tTv5OHQIL._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
This is often compared to "The Awful Truth", which also starred Grant and Dunne and it shouldn't be. It never attempts to mimic the screwball comedy of that movie. They are both very good comedies and deserve to be judged on their own merits and not compared with the other film.
Irene Dunne is great as Ellen Wagstaff; the supposedly dead wife of Cary Grant. She had been shipwrecked while on an expedition seven years earlier. The family dog greets her upon her return, but her two children think she is a stranger. They believe their mother to be dead and she can't find the words to tell them that she is their mother.
She discovers that her husband, Nick (Cary Grant) has just been married to Bianca (Gail Patrick), and they are on their honeymoon (at the same place he and Ellen went when the got married). They are checking in when he first sees Ellen; after escorting his new bride to their room he returns to the front desk to get a room for Ellen. Nick spends the remainder of the honeymoon going from room to room. Donald McBride is very good as the hotel clerk who tries to accommodate his guests and at the same time show his moral indignation with the "musical room" situation of Grant's character and his wife(s). This sets the tone for future scenes in which one of the spouses is trying to hide something from the other, and Grant's trying to keep Bianca in the dark even after an insurance agent shows up threatening to have him arrested for fraud. (One of the movie's biggest flaws is that Patrick's character is never fully developed thus leaving out potentially funny scenes that may have allowed the movie to stand on its own merit and not compared to the earlier film).
While he still loves Ellen he is unsure what to do or what to say or whom to say it to. In a way he's afraid of his snooty, high-strung new bride. Ellen attempts to tease him about remarrying saying "I can't turn my back on you for a second", which makes Nick feel guilty. His guilt turns to suspicions when he finds she has neglected to mention that she was on the island with a man.
When he confronts her, she tries to pass off a short, balding shoe clerk (Chester Clute), as her island companion, Stephen. She's unaware that he's already seen the tall, athletic Stephen (Randolph Scott), at the Pacific Club. When Ellen says she can live without either of them she finds herself going for an unexpected swim. Nick's then shows his jealousy by delivering some of the movies funniest one-liners aimed at the dumb-as-dirt Stephen.
Another performance worth mentioning is that of Granville Bates as the cantankerous and somewhat bemused judge trying who tries to sort the whole mess out.
We always know that Grant and Dunne will wind up together at then end but it fun watching them get there.
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- Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2009
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2004
Top reviews from other countries
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Ana NavarroReviewed in Mexico on September 30, 2020
Fallas en imagen y no muy divertida
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FilmfreakReviewed in Germany on February 24, 2010
Klasse Komödie,mit Top Besetzung.
