The Bride Comes Home

There is not much to work with but other comedies from this era still seem to make it work on charisma alone. No charisma here. Fred Macmurray was often cast in boorish overbearing and alpha male characters and here he is particularly unappealing. Colbert is silly and the usually delightful Young is befuddled as to what he is doing in this unfunny farce. Watch Bride for Sale instead.

"You're wrecking your life with logic," says Claudette Colbert's father William Collier in the romantic comedy The Bride Comes Home. If you agree with that sentiment, you'll like this movie. If, like me, that statement gets under your skin and makes you never want to be friends with whoever said it, you won't like this movie.

The beautiful Claudette has an admirer in Robert Young, but because he's too nice, supportive, and faithful, she doesn't return his feelings. He gives her a job even though she's wholly unqualified, and when her new boss Fred MacMurray criticizes her and tries to make her working environment so awful she'll quit, she falls for him. The movie is not unique, as you can find the same message in The Ugly Truth, made 75 years later. If someone drives you crazy and you argue with him constantly and you have nothing in common, but you're physically attracted to him, pick him over everyone else. Fred and Claudette are obviously unsuited, and Bob is a dream. He promises never to argue with her, and when he keeps his word, she whines and says, "Why won't you argue? Why won't you do anything besides grin and sing?"

"The Bride Comes Home" is a comedy romance by Paramount with three top stars of the day. Fred MacMurray and Robert Young form a love triangle with Claudette Colbert. While there are plenty of barbs and funny lines, the plot is very thin.

MacMurray's Cy Anderson is a tough guy who has been a bodyguard for a rich playboy until he comes of age to inherit a family estate of $3.5 million. That would be about $18 million in 2018. Cy finishes all the squabbles that Robert Young's often tipsy Jack Bristow gets into with fisticuffs. In doing so, he becomes a hard-nosed cynic who is rough around the edges.

But, Colbert's Jeanette Desmereau falls for him early on. Most of the movie is a chase with fights and squabbles, and the intermittent making up. The thin plot soon wears quite thin. It's mostly a film that fans of the great early entertainers will enjoy, but just once.

Here are some favorite lines from the film. For more dialog, see the Quotes section under this IMDb Web page of the movie

Jeanette, "I guess this is the only chance I have to tell you that I think you're a mean, stupid, illiterate, overgrown, hog-faced, mule-eared idiot."

Cy Anderson, "Can't you see what's happening? Will you get your watermelon head out of this?" The Judge, "Sooo, I'm a watermelon head, am I?"

Cy Anderson, "I suppose you're knee deep in beauty prizes?" Alfred Desmereau, "At least I don't break into a house as though I were raiding an opium den. And greet the butler by calling him a liar."

Henry, "Emmy. Hey, Emmy. Come on down here. There's another pair of those uh, whatchamacallits from Chicago."

I watched in amazement (and admiration) as three talented stars gave their all to breathe life into Claude Binyon's amateurish script. The dialog in this love-triangle lacks that special ingredient that made screwball comedy such a delight. Elisabeth Holding, who wrote the story, had better luck with such noir classics as the excellent Reckless Moment (1949). There is nothing clever or ingratiating about this movie and I'm amazed that it got any further than the garbage can. Colbert offers her usual pep. MacMurray is excellent and not bad on the eye. Robert Young tries too, but ends up being just plain irritating. I've never seen a Colbert film that I didn't want to watch twice. Now I have.