Day-Time Wife

We could even say sixteen going on twenty-six, but the ever gorgeous Linda Darnell, does look achingly sweet and innocent in minor 20th Century Fox comedy Day-Time Wife. Nevertheless she convincingly plays the sophisticated wife of well-off businessman Tyrone Power, married long enough for the cad to be already fooling around with his no-class floozy of a secretary (Wendy Barrie). Only the second picture for the teenage actress, young Linda gives a remarkable performance, especially since she has to more or less carry the movie, being on screen in practically every scene. She holds her own with great poise and verve in the presence of veteran actresses Barrie, Binnie Barns, Joan Davis, and Joan Valerie. Nor does she seem the least bit overawed by the formidable screen presences of dashing leading man Power and old smoothie Warren William. William, always fun to watch, has a field day as a lecherous architect whose secretary Linda becomes in hope of learning what makes men so attracted to their curvaceous dictation takers. But once you have seen Day-Time Wife, you will not be likely to remember any of the cast better than pretty, perky Miss Darnell.

This picture is not a screwball comedy, as some others have labeled it. Just isn't screwy enough, and lacks most of the typical elements of that type. See my review of Go West, Young Man (1936) for a definition of screwball comedy. Day Time-Wife is a species of a genre known as bedroom farce. Hopefully this term will not lead crude types out there to expect naked men and women chasing each other around beds. Bedroom farce is simply the Hollywood trade name for a comedy which involves married people having problems staying married. Day-Time Wife also falls into a category known in the trade as "white telephone movies". Back in those days only the most affluent had a telephones any color or style other than utilitarian black. Thus a white telephone movie is about rich guys and rich dolls hanging out in their plush apartments or palatial mansions, going out to swanky night clubs, sailing on their swell yachts, and gabbing on their white telephones.

Day-Time Wife is ably directed by Gregory Ratoff, who also directed Miss Darnell in her first picture Hotel For Women (1939), with the glossy black and white cinematography, plush sets, and swank costumes for which 20th Century Fox was famous during the halcyon days of the big studios. Editing is silky smooth, as in any big studio picture form this era. The story offers little in the way of originality, but no matter, there hasn't been a new story since 33 A. D. The script by Art Arthur and Robert Harari is reasonably subtle and intelligent for one of this genre, the dialog crisp, engaging, and witty. Day-Time Wife is an amusing little comedy, very funny, especially in the climatic segment. It is a pleasure to watch if only for the knockout production values and the charming cast, led by the very young, very beautiful and very talented Miss Linda Darnell.

A load of slick, smooth entertainment from Old Hollywood's Golden Era packed into an hour and twelve minutes.

Day-Time Wife starred Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell together for the first time, they went on to do two more films and much better ones, The Mark Of Zorro and Blood And Sand. Look very closely at Darnell she was only 16 at the time playing a relatively new bride with only two years of marriage under her belt. Back then Darnell's mother added a couple of years to her resume so she would be hired and it worked. In fact this was only Linda Darnell's second feature film all together.

The story involves the age old gambit of the spouse starting to suspect the husband is cheating on her. In this case Darnell has a candidate with the flirtatious Wendy Barrie who is Ty's secretary and would love to have him nail her. Darnell also has a confidante in the older much married Binnie Barnes who is functioning as Eve Arden here. She feeds Darnell's suspicions with a good wisecrack or three.

So Linda goes out in the working world and becomes a secretary to another man with a roving eye, Warren William. Of course that Power and William are business associates she doesn't know and finds out after she's taken the job. That's when the film gets interesting.

Joan Davis is in Day-Time Wife as the receptionist at William's office and she's somewhat subdued and a bit wasted here. Her zaniness was not all that in evidence.

Day-Time Wife will never make the list of best screwball comedies of the era nor of the top ten films of Tyrone Power or Linda Darnell. Still it's a pleasant and none too taxing diversion for the viewer.

1939 may have been the shiniest of Hollywood's Golden Years, but this gilded stinker should certainly keep us from getting too gassy about the whole thing.

Yes, the principals are pretty, and given that (if you can believe the biographical info) Darnell had barely entered puberty by the time she was outfitted in this ermine-lined straitjacket, she acquits herself fairly well (altho her girlish piping seems bizarre vis a vis the later, memorable alto of "Letter to Three Wives").

But if you ever needed proof that Tyrone Power was no Cary Grant, brother, stop here. His double-takes and eye-rolling are appalling and his comic timing non-existent. Power looks heroic in a dinner jacket, but otherwise he's just plain rotten here.

So is most of the dialogue. And the direction.

I suppose "Day-Time Wife" merits some historical attention as one more '30's "comedy of remarriage," but its essential feature is its mind-boggling stupidity.

Sixteen-year-old Linda Darnell has been married to Tyrone Power Jr. For two years and reports are that some of those business dinners he's been stuck on have been tete-a-tetes with his secretary. Wondering what this strange fascination secretaries hold on men is, Miss Darnell goes out and applies for a job as secretary to Warren William. When she admits to playing backgammon, he hires her and tries dating her as a relief from his wife. Of course, Power is trying to get a contract with William, and....

I have speculated that Preston Sturges had blackmail photographs of people high up in the Hays Office. This movie, although not as overt as the scripts Sturges typically got approved, doesn't hide its consideration of subject under as many as seven veils. It plays nicely off Williams' predatory boss characters in Warner Pre-Codes, and has nice small roles for Binnie Barnes, Wendy Barrie and Joan Davis. Power was said to hate roles like this, and I can't blame him. Playing whiny second banana to Miss Darnell can't have done much to satisfy his yearning to be an actor.

Just 7 reviews on this one by the time I'm writing this, with a couple of them being very very negative.

Bla, bla, bla... 1939 was the best year in Hollywood history (since when? who said that?) ... bla, bla, bla...Tyrone Power is terrible... bla, bla, bla... they should have casted Cary Grant.

NONSENSE. The script is fairly good (as long as someone has seen a couple of 1930's films more than just "Holiday" and "Bringing Up Baby") and Tyrone Power is quite descent and very funny.

Furthermore, someone who has watched just a few of the dozens of romantic - screwball comedies of that era, would have known that there were MANY other male leads besides Cary Grant, actors who gave as wonderful performances as C.G. gave in some of his films. They would also know that even though Cary Grant was magnificent, he also had done some VERY BAD movies through the 30's.

Finally, a request for the IMDb stuff. It's terribly unfair for a movie to have on it's main page a 100 word review with the title "Simply awful!". Especially when this review gives absolutely no reasons on why the movie is "awful". The fact that 22/26 people who have read the review, DISAPPROVED it, speaks for itself.