Thursday, October 1, 2009

The Bride Comes Home (1936) Film Review - Cinecon 45 Screening

Plot Summary - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD - - Screwball comedy love triangle. Grown-up wealthy girl Jeannette (Claudette Colbert) has to go to work 'cause her daddy's out of money. Her friend Jack (Robert Young) has just inherited three and a half million dollars and decides to start up a magazine - "The Man" ("for the working man") - with his brooding bodyguard Cyrus (Fred MacMurray) - hired for the last two years to finish all the fights that Jack starts. With a major crush on attractive Jeannette, Jack hires her to be Cyrus' assistant on the magazine. Cyrus thinks of her as just a rich society girl taking a job on a lark - so he treats her rough by giving her time-waster idiot tasks to complete, like counting names in the phone book. When he finds out she actually needs the job to eat - he feels bad, but the damage is done - she hates him. Well, in the way of all filmland - since she hates him, you just know they'll end up a couple. And so it is - despite all their bickering, they soon declare their love for each other. With plans to be married the next afternoon, she arrives at his bachelor apartment in the morning to find it a big, cluttered up, dirty mess. While she's cleaning up, Cyrus arrives early with the Minister (who is on a very tight time schedule) - but she's all dirtied up in housecleaning attire, won't marry him until she gets cleaned up, and a huge fight breaks out cancelling the marriage plans. Friend Jack steps in to lay claim to his longtime love - and, catching her on the rebound, she is convinced into marrying him. Now follows a wild race, screwball finale - with Cyril and Jeannette's dad racing on motorcycle to get out-of-town and to the home of the Justice of the Peace before Jeannette ends up married to the wrong fellow. Luckily Jeannette and Jack are in the process of being married by the slowest, most long-winded Justice of the Peace on record.

Review - With Claudette Colbert in the lead, it would be hard for this to not be a pretty good film - especially when you add on Robert Young and Fred MacMurray as her co-stars. The film is a nicely done romantic comedy with a bit of the screwball to it - - it is, oddly, a rarely seen film. One thing I must say though, I grew up on Fred MacMurray and Robert Young as father figure types being a young sitcom fan who spent lots of time watching old shows like "Father Knows Best" and "My Three Sons" - so it's still kinda hard for me to see these guys as romantic lead figures! The Justice of the Peace is amusingly played by Edgar Kennedy - and yes, he does his famous slow-burn in this. Rating - 8/10 stars

No comments: