Her Husband's Affairs

This somewhat black comedy is from the pen of Ben Hecht and may remind you a bit of his classic NOTHING SACRED although it's more in the tone of the Hepburn & Tracy films. Lucille Ball stars as a newlywed, newly retired from a successful career writing ad copy but now "just married" to her former co-worker Franchot Tone. Trouble is Tone was never quite the "ad man" his wife was and is hell bent to prove his worth to the company. When an eccentric scientist friend of his invents a new embalming fluid (to turn corpses into permanent glass statues!) he mentions as a side note, it can also be used for an "instant shave" on facial hair. Tone sees this use as his ticket to success and fortune and promotes it in a big time product premiere inviting dignities and the famous (including actor Larry Parks in a cameo as himself) to try the product. They all rave about it but the trouble is that it GROWS hair thicker and worse than before within 24 hours. The day after is a major fiasco for the corporation but it's Lucy to the rescue as she cleverly points out this "new" turn is perhaps an even bigger market - selling it to men bald or with thinning hair - and a new campaign starts much to her husband's irritation. (This particular plot twist the viewer can see miles away given supporting actor Edward Everett Horton is fitted with a very phony looking skull cap to play bald for the first several reels. You can see the edges lines of it on the small screen, can't imagine how obvious it was on the big screen). Determined to be back in the driver's seat, Franchot plots more behind the scene maneuvers which ends up having him on trial for the presumed murder of the professor.

The comedy is hit and miss but Lucy is always excellent and she looks a vision in some very attractive fashions. Tone is over the top at times but does well, the trouble is the brazen sexism of his character is more than a little unpleasant to latter-day viewers and likely to more than a few 1940's ones as well. There's also delicious irony with the movie's theme that Lucy is far more talented than he as "ad man" as the movie starts off with Tone twiddling with lots of unfunny shtick as he plots out his newest ad copy while that goes on for several minutes but Lucy merely raises her eyebrow in sleepy exhaustion as is far funnier showing - to no surprise of course - she's also his superior as a comic and an actor. Among the supporting cast Columbia character contractee Nana Bryant stands out as a socialite who can't help but take a discreet dip in the miracle product during it's premiere to rid herself of a touch of facial hair and lives to regret it.

"Her Husband's Affairs" is not a very good film. It also has an incredibly sexist message that must have ticked off many in the audience when they went to see this picture, as its underlying message is that wives should keep their mouths shut and let the man do all the thinking...even if he's wrong!!

The basic idea behind the film could have been great...but wasn't handled especially well...sexist message or not. Bill (Franchot Tone) is an advertising executive and his wife (Lucille Ball) often has great ideas. In the midst of making a very successful campaign for hats (thanks in large part to the wife) his goofy neighbor, a crackpot inventor, shows him his new invention. It seems this cream instantly cleans off whiskers. With no scientific testing to see if it really works AND if it has any negative side-effects, a multi-million dollar campaign is initiated....and only a day later do they learn that instead of removing hair, it creates lush hair overnight! There's more to the dopey invention than this...but by that point my patience was gone. I just wanted this incredibly bad film to end!! This is tough, however, as the film got progressively worse.

The bottom line is that this movie comes off like a very bad sitcom...very bad. The story goes everywhere...too many places. It also has lots of folks getting upset and acting like caricatures instead of real folks. Pretty dopey...as well as incredibly sexist.

There's a lot of the Lucy Ricardo personality in the wife LUCILLE BALL plays in HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS--only here the husband who gets exasperated with her brainstorms is FRANCHOT TONE. It starts out with an amusing idea about a scientist MIKHAIL RAHSUMNY whose embalming lotion can be used to remove beards without shaving. It does so very efficiently until several hours have passed--and then it grows abundant amounts of hair.

FRANCHOT TONE is an advertising man who thinks he's going to have some successful products to launch with the help of the mad scientist, except that most of the plans go haywire thanks to the manipulations of his scatterbrained wife. The plot fizzles out after the first half-hour or so and after that it just gets sillier until the courtroom ending when things finally get straightened out in time for a happy ending.

Summing up: Below average vehicle for Lucy five years before she made her big splash on TV as an even more troublesome wife in America's most beloved situation comedy I LOVE LUCY. Some laughs but the jokes wear thin long before the conclusion.

Trivia note: LARRY PARKS has a bit part as himself in a scene where various big shots gather to try the new product.

HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS (Columbia, 1947), directed by S. Sylvan Simon, may sound like a melodrama involving a wife discovering her husband's extra marital affairs, but in fact, turns out to be a comedy about the advertising business. Starring Lucille Ball in her first movie for Columbia since her comedy short appearance opposite The Three Stooges in THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS (1934), HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS may not be the best comedy ever produced, but a step in the right direction for someone like Ball best known for comedy. After many years for RKO Radio and MGM where her career ranged from musicals, comedy and dramas, HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS offers Ball, a few years before her iconic television series of "I Love Lucy" (CBS, 1951-1957), in a sort of role best suited for her comedic talents. Cast opposite Franchot Tone as her business-minded husband, much of the story with familiar overtones, appears more like an extended television episode minus a laugh track and applause.

The story introduces William Weldon (Franchot Tone), an advertising man working for Winterbottom Enterprises spending more time thinking up slogans for his campaign than with his attractive wife, Margaret (Lucille Ball). Professor Emil Glinka (Mikhail Rasummy) is his scientist partner who comes up with crazy scheme inventions as a magic hat placed on the head that nobody feels, shaving cream that removes hair without the use of a razor, hair growing tonic for bald-headed men, embalming fluid that converts people into glass, and a forever flower, all that seem to eventually backfire. William's problem is his wife, who steps into his business affairs where she gets the credit for its success instead of him. Problems arise when William is later put on trial for a proposed murder with Margaret stepping in his defense, and making matters worse for him. Featured in the cast are Edward Everett Horton (J. B. Cruikshank); Gene Lockhart (Peter Winterbottom); Nana Bryant (Mrs. Winterbottom); Pierre Watkin, Charles Trowbridge, and Larry Parks, following his success from Columbia's own blockbuster hit, THE JOLSON STORY (1946) appearing as himself.

While this comedy could have been a similar plot used for any one of the 28 "Blondie" movies at that time starring Penny Singleton (Blondie) and Arthur Lake (Dagwood Bumstead), interestingly, HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS includes "Blondie" regulars as Jonathan Hale, notable for playing Mr. J. C. Dithers, as Governor Fox, and Jack Rice in a smaller role. With the wife stepping in for her husband's business affairs quite common theme in both movies and television, Lucille Ball is the right candidate, and the sole reason for fans of her future television series to consider viewing this obscure 84 minute time filler.

Formerly available on video cassette, HER HUSBAND'S AFFAIRS has had some cable television viewing such as Cinemax for example, but better chances of finding it on Turner Classic Movies where it's been broadcast since it's humble beginnings of 1994. (**1/2)

Lucy had a bit part in Franchot Tone's "Moulin Rouge" ten years prior to this film, but this time she gets the female starring role up against Tone. Right from the beginning of "Her Husband's Affairs", we see that William Weldon (Tone) gets himself into jams, and wife Margaret (Lucy) has to get him out of them every time. William's boss JB, is the awesome Edward E. Horton, made up to look quite old and bald. (Viewers will recognize Horton's high, whining, voice from Fractured Fairy Tales and all those Fred Astaire films.) Our story seems to be an early version of the TV show "Bewitched", where hubby is an advertising man, and relies on the wife's quick thinking to save him. When one of the products they are involved with causes a major crisis, they must figure out a solution quickly before the newspapers get there to take pictures. Lucy had been getting starring roles for a few years now, and she does just fine in this lightweight one. The second half of the picture takes place in a courtroom, and feels like an episode of I Love Lucy (Oh Fred!)...Gene Lockhart is here as Mr. Winterbottom. Also look for a 13 year old Dwayne Hickman (played in his own show "Dobie Gillis") in the laboratory scene. Directed by Sylvan Simon, who died at age 41, just a couple years after this project. No big surprises here, but we get a fun, early look at Lucy being Lucy just a couple years before her TV show.