NR | 1h 30m | Drama, Comedy | 1937
Director Leo McCarey’s screwball comedy begins with a character’s tongue-in-cheek diagnosis of why some marriages end in divorce: “People are always imagining things. The road to Reno is paved with suspicions. First thing you know, they all end up in a divorce court.”
Seconds later, another character prescribes a solution, “There can’t be any doubt in marriage. The whole thing’s built on faith.”
A marriage built on trust is a somber note to start a screwball on, but it’s enough to make McCarey’s point before pandemonium prevails.
Misunderstanding, and the ensuing suspicion, leads an otherwise loving New Yorker couple Lucy (Irene Dunne) and Jerry Warriner (Cary Grant) to file for divorce. At root is Lucy’s apparent fling with dashing music teacher Armand Duvalle (Alexander D’Arcy).
Also stirring the pot is Jerry, admittedly relaxing at a local sports club, instead of being in Florida as he’d claimed to be. The “broad-minded” family court doesn’t waste time in granting the Warriners a divorce quicker than you can order takeout.
Of course, the judge allows the customary 90 days for them to reconsider before it becomes final. Even apart, Lucy and Jerry keep bumping into each other. That creates enough space for hilarity to enter. And stay put.
Jerry can’t hide his concern for Lucy any more than she can hide hers for him. But bruised egos demand that they flash their alleged mutual contempt to every man and his dog, including their own dog Mr. Smith (Skippy).
Supposedly exhilarated at his newfound freedom from Lucy, Jerry makes a show of romancing afresh: first, nightclub singer Dixie Belle Lee, then, aristocratic heiress Barbara Vance. Not to be left behind in the attractiveness sweepstakes, Lucy makes a show of romancing oil-industry businessman and rancher Dan Leeson (Ralph Bellamy).
Amid the Warriners’ displays of pretended independence, their painfully obvious interdependence pokes through. The truth? They’re so happy together that they unhesitatingly make each other miserable at the hint of parting. But how on earth to admit this to anyone, let alone to each other?
Nuptial Nuttiness
Gags aside, McCarey’s saying that it isn’t misunderstanding that triggers divorce, it’s a misunderstanding of marriage that does. When couples marry, they may imagine that their life together should be squabble-free and involve perfect compatibility. They’re likely to also imagine that their marriage is broken when squabbles or perfectly natural incompatibilities surface.McCarey’s point? Those who dodge a commitment to love are making peace with both pride and fear. But this truth is “awful” only in self-destructive pop culture circles; within homes, it’s salvific.
Lucy and Jerry are saying, even if laughingly, that faithfulness is nonnegotiable. But for every other flaw, they ought to be cutting each other slack. Unaware of how hysterical he sounds, Leeson speaks of the rooster and hen on his ranch; they fight often but make up just as often.
One bittersweet sequence shows the Warriners alone, as if learning that marriage isn’t like wine; you can’t keep opening a new bottle every time your glass feels flat.
Cecil Cunningham, as Lucy’s Aunty Patsy, and Esther Dale as Dan’s “maw” dish out some rib-tickling matronly advice. Broodingly, Patsy warns Lucy about the infamous “rebound,” which results from trying to get over one love by bouncing into another. It’s fine, except the rebound is rarely the real thing. Deadpan, Patsy drones on, “There’s the first bounce ... the second … and, well, look at me. You wind up like an old tennis ball.”
Instead of tying the proverbial knot with new partners, the Warriners end up tying themselves and their prospective partners in knots. They hide or get others to hide behind doors, fall off chairs, sing or dance, or wear someone else’s hat.
Lucy knows the comedy of errors that led Jerry to imagine that Armand’s oversized hat is his. Looking at himself in the mirror (the hat covering half his face), Jerry’s aghast and swivels to Lucy for reassurance that something’s off. Smilingly, she admits, “Maybe it is a little roomy.”
Despite their best efforts to undermine each other, Lucy’s and Jerry’s antics here will remind you of that Nat King Cole hit song “L-O-V-E”: “L is for the way you look at me/ O is for the only one I see …”
