My Favorite Wife (1940)

This classic screwball comedy was directed by Garson Kanin and co-written by Leo McCarey (Going My Way (1944)) who shared an Academy Award nomination for this Original Story with (husband & wife) Bella and Sam Spewack (their only nomination); the film’s B&W Art Direction and Roy Webb’s Score were also Oscar nominated.

Cary Grant stars as a man who has just convinced a judge (Granville Bates) that his first wife is dead lost at sea in a shipwreck so that he can marry another woman (Gail Patrick). However once they are he finds out that his original wife (Irene Dunne) is alive when she returns after spending 7 years on an island with another man (Randolph Scott) a fact which obviously upsets him. This above average comedy has Grant’s character then having to decide which is his “favorite” wife. Ann Shoemaker plays Grant’s mother; Donald MacBride plays a hotel clerk. Interesting side note is that actors Grant and Scott were (or had been) roommates sharing an eligible bachelor flat at the beach.

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