My Life with Caroline

My Life With Caroline had as its origins a play called The Parisian Life by Louis Verneuil and Georges Barr which did not do well on Broadway in its American debut. Still Ronald Colman and producer partner William Hawks saw something in it to make it the second of a two picture deal with RKO. The other film was Lucky Partners.

Colman was not happy with either film though he felt My Life With Caroline decidedly worse. If ever a film called for the Lubitsch touch My Life With Caroline is it. In his hands rather than Lewis Milestone's the film might have made it as a comedy.

The Citadel Film Series book The Films Of Ronald Colman says that leading lady Anna Lee acts a whole lot like Gracie Allen. If so than Colman has a George Burns moment at the beginning of the film. Gilbert Roland fresh from the Pampas has flipped for Lee and wants to take her back to Argentina, husband or not. Then Colman arrives on the scene and like Burns did regularly on his television show, Colman proceeds to break the fourth wall and tell Roland will not be the first or last to fall for wife Caroline, the girl just can't help it and Colman can't help but to put up with it. And as illustration Colman tells us about her last little flirtation with Reginald Gardiner and how that all ended up.

The debonair Ronald Colman is up to the task of carrying My Life With Caroline and he does bear the burden admirably. The problem is comedy should not be a burden.

Ronald Colman tells the audience about "My Life with Caroline" in this very light 1941 comedy that also stars Anna Lee and Reginald Gardner. The lovely Lee plays Caroline, the dizzy wife of Antony Mason (Colman). Apparently when Antony is away on business, Caroline becomes lonely, takes up with someone else, and plans to leave Antony, which she doesn't. The film starts with the very handsome Gilbert Roland planning to take Caroline as his bride and bring her back to Argentina. Caroline's father (Charles Winninger) reminds Roland that Caroline's husband might have something to say.

Turns out, Antony is already on the scene and, facing the camera, tells us about an early incident, this time involving Caroline and Reginald Gardner, and the subtle ways in which Antony managed to put a spanner in the works.

Very nice comedy with potential for more laughs in the hands of another director. Lewis Milestone directed, and this wasn't really his métier. It was great to see beautiful Anna Lee as a young woman - I knew her basically as Lila Quartermaine in General Hospital as an elderly woman. Colman is wonderful, and Gardner is appropriately pompous.

Good cast, but it needed a different kind of touch.

I thought that the posted average rating was somewhat low for this film so I reviewed the reviews. This is one of those films where many love it and many pan it. Anna Lee is great in her admittedly light role yet she's picked on presumably because one has not liked the film and Anna was not a well known star like Colman - she was well cast and did the role as it should be played. Almost all reviewers acknowledged that Colman was great. One critic complained that he could not see Colman's character falling in love with Lee's character - fair enough observation but irrelevant for a comedy - think of George Burns and Gracie (airhead) Allen - those inconsistencies are the comic devices that almost all comedies rely on. I thought it was very amusing except for the ending. For some reason, the writers thought they had to end with a plot twist that added no comedy whatsoever (any laugh after the twist was independent of the twist) and quite confusing. Perhaps the unfortunate choice of twist for the last few minutes of the film threw others off as well and one's impression of a film is often disproportionately affected by the ending. It was an entertaining 1930s-1940s-ish comedic farce, but if you don't like that style, you may not like it.

Abysmal Anna Lee and charmless Ronald Colman fail to summon enough vitality to get this sour screwball going from the outset in this laxly directed effort by Lewis Milestone. Lee is wide eyed gullible most of the way while Colman a smug understanding bore in this comedy romance that has neither.

Constantly on the road successful businessman Anthony Mason (Colman) has a wife with a wandering eye (Lee). Prone to falling in love while hubby is away a tolerant Mason employs an understanding that usually brings her back to earth and restores the marriage. This time it is a Latin lover but the nonchalant Mason seems far from threatened.

The limited Lee brings nothing but wide eyed confusion to the inane role of Caroline who seems to have the emotional maturity of a twelve year old. She seems committed to only her romantic delusions and completely out of touch with her fellow characters. Colman for his part looks distracted and uninvolved, his interplay with Lee patronizing more than intimate. The supporting cast offers none with a smarmy Reggie Gardner and a wheezing Charles Winninger unable to bring sly humor to surly character.

With a few exceptions (such as THE STORY OF MANKIND), Ronald Colman could have appeared in almost any film and made it worth watching. His smooth and apparently effortless performances made many mediocre films (such as this one) well worth seeing. As usual, he's THE reason to see this movie.

MY LIFE WITH CAROLINE has a pretty shallow and impossible to believe plot. His wife is an apparently brainless idiot (Anna Lee) and falls in love at the drop of a hat with other men who pay attention to her. He husband, Colman, is either completely cold and indifferent to her (leaving her alone for months at a time) or he is an ardent manipulator and suitor--a strange combination to say the least. None of this really makes sense and the characters seem....dumb. However, even though the plot is mindless, if you suspend belief you CAN find a fun and enjoyable film underneath it all. But, if you want your films to make sense or have some semblance of realism, then this one is best skipped.