My Favorite Wife

I agree that Move Over Darling is a very good remake of My Favorite Wife, but Doris Day and James Garner, much as I like them, cannot reach the level of sophistication of Grant/Dunne. Randolph Scott does nothing to detract from the picture. Certainly no more than Chuck Connors does in the same role in Move Over Darling. The courtroom scenes with Grant and Granville Bates as the judge are superior, and Donald McBride as the hotel clerk is exceptional. Cary Grant's facial expression on the elevator when he first sees Dunne after 7 years is so memorable that I can still remember it 35 years after first seeing it. If you are a Grant fan, you have to see this movie.

This is not my favourite screwball comedy of all time or anything, but I did really enjoy it. It is compared to The Awful Truth, and I will say I do prefer The Awful Truth, and while people may find this blasphemous I preferred 1963's Move Over Darling too. Where the film doesn't quite succeed is that it felt a little too short, the film's end takes a little too long and felt misplaced and there are some moments in the middle where the film drags a bit. However, it looks good, is well directed, is well scored, while the story is great, the screenplay a lot of fun and the performances from Irene Dunne, Gail Patrick and especially Cary Grant are fun. In terms of casting, the only weak link is Randolph Scott, not that he was terrible or anything but he is very underused seeing his role feels I agree more of a cameo than a fully-fleshed out character. So overall, good but not great, worth seeing for Grant. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

Cary Grant makes this the best of the numerous versions of the script -- later attempted as SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE (Marilyn Monroe's last film) and remade as MOVE OVER, DARLING. Just the expressions Grant has on his face make this worth watching. It's a delightful look at him in a classic comic predicament -- a man who thinks his first wife is dead discovers on his honeymoon night with his second wife that wife #1 is still amongst the living. The next complication: she has spent 7 years with another man -- and Grant gets to do his best as the jealous husband. This is just plain funny.

After his shipwrecked wife is declared dead and he takes on a new wife, Grant's first wife resurfaces, rescued after seven years on an island. This reteaming of Grant and Dunne after their success with "The Awful Truth" is pretty funny for the most part, as Grant tries to solve the problem of one wife too many while dealing with jealousy after learning that Dunne had a male companion (Scott) on that island. The only complaint is that the laughs stop in the last quarter of the movie, which is rather uninteresting as the focus shifts from comedy to romance. Bates, who is hilarious as a flustered judge, died in July 1940 but managed to act in 12 films released that year!