The Moon's Our Home

Pleasant enough but fairly run-of-the-mill screwball comedy. The chemistry between Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda is fine, and there's some funny moments here and there, but the film just feels lifeless and enervated somehow. Too many far-fetched things happen, and nothing really leads you from one scene to the next. All the elements are there for a classic except for a believable and memorable story. A bit of a slog to get through, but nice to check out just the once.

Cherry (Margaret Sullavan) is a spoilt brat of an actress who is summoned to New York by her grandmother Lucy (Henrietta Crosman) so that Horace (Charles Butterworth) can propose to her once more. However, Cherry is still not interested in Horace. Cherry meets famous author Anthony (Henry Fonda) by chance and neither recognize each other. They fall in love and arrange to stay at a secluded inn together under assumed names. Love is in the air and they get married but they still both don't know of the other's true identity. Can love prevail when the truth is uncovered.....?......I bet you can guess the answer... This is a film of misunderstandings but there isn't quite enough of a storyline. Henry Fonda has a plump face which is weird, Margaret Sullavan's histrionics are irritatingly childlike at times and Charles Butterworth delivers his lines like a bad actor. There are a couple of funny moments but not many. The film just managed to keep my interest - it just wasn't very interesting.

It's interesting to note that the two leads both married several times in real life including to each other between 1931 and 1933 and Sullavan was divorced from one husband in March, 1936 and married another in December of that same year, the year, in fact, that this movie was shot. Be that as it may this is a very typical 'screwball' comedy which means, as we know, that it is charming, zany, and romantic in equal measures and fields a mandatory supporting casts culled from the pick of 'character' actors then working or, to put it another way, the best in the business. The plot is also up to snuff, a 'meet-cute' leading to misunderstandings that have around eight reels to resolve themselves. Must-see.