My Favorite Wife
Director: Garson Kanin
Year Released: 1940
Rating: 2.0
Gimmick-heavy picture that feels like it's supposed to become screwball comedy (or at least 'come alive'), but remains restrained. Declared-dead-but-really-alive Irene Dunne returns from island to Cary Grant, who's marrying another woman (and after seven years it's about time). The movie tosses away the new wife as being a diversion, and never considers her feelings - she's mistreated and ignored, but it's okay, because according to one character 'she isn't that friendly' (perhaps her 'clinginess' to Grant is intended to alienate her from him and the audience). Randolph Scott's character shows up late and isn't much of a nemesis for Cary - his initial determinedness to win back Dunne diminishes quickly - although critic Edwin Jahiel may have been onto something in reading the Scott character as someone who 'doesn't like women' (gadfly Kenneth Anger included some odd photos of Grant and Scott in his one Hollywood Babylon II book).
