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NY lawyer John Mason (James Stewart) is newly married to Jane (Carole Lombard) despite the disapproval of his mother. They are supposed to take a honeymoon cruise to Europe but his nearly-deaf boss Judge Doolittle implies taking a big case away from him. Doolittle promotes co-worker Carter as partner over him. The couple has a boy and they struggle to make ends meet.

The pairing of Stewart and Lombard is very promising. In the end, this lacks a structure for the drama. It's more like a run-on sentence of a family drama. It also doesn't help to be missing the courtship. It needs a meet-cute and a good relationship progression. It feels like a laundry list of melodramas rather than a good flowing plot. Their difficult marriage leaves any chemistry with the leads in a precarious position. At its core, I find it hard to feel the love sometimes. Their individual screen presence is undeniable but this movie fails to capitalize on them.

As a whole, this movie doesn't work at all. Different parts of the story jump around here and there and fail to form a cohesive piece -- the result of a poorly written script. For instance, halfway into the movie and you still get no idea of where it is all going. You get a vague sense that Johnny's (Jimmy Stewart) inability to support his family and the consequent strain on his relationship with his wife is part of the main plot, only to be completely thrown off by a new development in the story, which doesn't fit into the first portion of the film at all. It's almost like watching two different stories at the same time.

Despite this serious flaw, the film is "saved," so to speak, by its superb cast. Both Charles Coburn and Lucille Watson give their typical character portrayals. Jimmy Stewart gives his usual touching performance that is so well-known to film-goers. Meanwhile, Carole Lombard tries a hand at a dramatic role -- and succeeds. As a wife, she is charmingly believable, and as a mother, simply shines. Thus the unfortunate film is held together -- albeit weakly -- by the performance of the cast. Otherwise there isn't much that would convince one to keep watching. However, it may be worth your time if your main object is to enjoy the performance of either Jimmy Stewart or Carole Lombard, or both.

I can't understand the harsh reviews that this film has received from other IMDb users! I really enjoyed this film, despite the disappointing ending. I don't know if this is because I am a very big fan of both James Stewart and Carole Lombard, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. I especially recommend it to you if you enjoyed 'Penny Serenade (1941)' with Irene Dunn and Cary Grant as they are very similar in plot.

Without the charm and ability Lombard and Stewart, I believe Made for Each Other could have been extremely ill-fated and boring. However, they manage to bring life, charm and make their characters very genuine. Made for Each Other is about a couple (played extremely well by Carole Lombard and James Stewart as always) who meet, fall in love and get married quickly, seem simply made for each other... but when certain problems arise - disapproving in-laws, job stress, financial challenges and illness, their love really takes the test.

It is only the ending that lets the film down. Not only is it bizarre but it is extremely unrealistic too. I can understand why it was written - to give an added sense of drama for the finale, to keep the reader glued to the screen, but it seemed very unnecessary.

Other than that, I found it an absolute pleasure watching Carole Lombard and James Stewart fit so perfectly into a melodrama which many of us can relate to. Perhaps it is for 'die-hard fans' only, but I do recommend it to those who are not familiar with their work. I found it very interesting, charming and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny - a great balance of comedy and drama. I can't understand the dismal reviews for this film - I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Wonderful melodrama.

I am a huge fan of both Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard. However, attempting to get through a viewing of "Made for Each Other" made me cringe. The dialogue was superficial, the characters lifeless, and the situations drab and depressing. It seemed that the movie was going for a realistic portrayal of a couple in their first years of matrimony, but it failed miserably in this attempt. Although Stewart and Lombard are both talented actors, at no point during the picture did I ever really *CARE* about what happened to John and Jane Mason. Not only was the script flat and uninventive, but it never really showed what would make the couple fall in love in the first place. Furthermore, the "dramatic" turn of events toward the end of the movie were so cliched, they would easily lend themselves toward derisive laughter rather than tears. Frankly, this wouldn't even make a good "movie of the week."

Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard make an incredibly appealing couple, one whose everyday middle-class joys and sorrows you like sharing. That's all there is to the movie, pretty much, Jimmy and Carole get married, have a baby, deal with in-laws, money troubles, changes in their relationship, all the things everyone does. It's the opposite of an Action Flick, here domestic sorrows like pay cuts and not having a baby sitter on New Year's Eve are treated as seriously as real people treat them, and the movie is well made enough that you care. Who couldn't care about such nice, funny, sensitive people? For much of its length, it's a better "Penny Serenade".

The place where it falls apart is the ending, which is a ludicrously inappropriate melodrama about flying medicine in from thousands of miles away in a storm, it just doesn't belong in the same movie. But, I like the story behind it: Like a character in the movie, producer David Selznick's brother Myron (a power agent) was taken seriously ill, and was basically given up for dead. A doctor said that the only thing that could save him was a rare/experimental drug that wasn't available in LA, it had to be flown in from the east coast in terrible weather. The Selznick family sweated for hours, trying to keep in touch with a heroic pilot who was risking his life to save a stranger. When the pilot landed safely and Myron was saved, David Selznick the workaholic producer said "This it too good to waste on Myron. Let's put it in a picture!" I just wish he'd waited for a better place to use it.