You Can't Fool Your Wife

Strictly a B-film programmer, YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE would have more accurately been titled YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR HUSBAND, because it's the hubby who has the wool pulled over his eyes by a plan that backfires when his wife attempts to disguise herself as a Latin beauty.

It's one of those light-hearted romantic comedies with a screwball touch that LUCILLE BALL got to do during her RKO days. And fortunately, although he has a rather thankless role, JAMES ELLISON has good chemistry with her and is a bit less bland than usual in a role that reveals he had a flair for this kind of romp.

EMMA DUNN has the kind of mother role that was a forerunner of the parts THELMA RITTER would play in the '50s--quick with the sarcastic one-liners that have her treating her son-in-law like a bum. ROBERT COOTE has a fine time as a gentleman who comes up with the scheme to save Ellison's marriage.

It spins its tale in just a little over an hour and ends up with a rather bittersweet ending on a false note, and much too abruptly.

Andrew and Clara Hinklin (James Ellison and Lucille Ball) are an old married couple. While they aren't chronologically old, their marriage is routine and Andrew is a mousy man with little excitement in his life....and he likes it that way. However, when the boss drafts him into entertaining an important client, his life changes dramatically. Andrew arrives home....late and drunk. The next night, he arrives very late as well...but sober. While he tries to explain it to Clara, she is having none of this and doesn't believe him. It's made much worse by her mother, who lives with them, as she keeps throwing gasoline on the fire and does whatever she can to keep the two apart. Instead of tossing 'mother' out on her ear, Andrew leaves and stays away from home for a few days.

In the meantime, Clara is having second thoughts and decides she needs to fight to keep her man...and a makeover is in order as a start. Unfortunately, both Mr. and Mrs. Hinklin don't realize that another woman will show up at the same costume party they both attend....and with her mask on, she is the spitting image of Clara!

This is a very unusual film because I have never seen Lucille Ball less attractive and plain...and this was necessary for the plot but must have posed a challenge for her. Most actresses DON'T want to be plain or dowdy! But here she seems to take to the role and it works. In her other persona (with a mask), however, she's less convincing...and sports a very strange accent. A but more subtlety and some dialect coaching would have helped....though the movie still is modestly enjoyable despite this. Overall, a film that started off very well and sort of lost its way when Ball decided on the alter ego.

The beginning of "You Can't Fool your Wife" shows us Clara and Andrew Hinklin's yearbook photos, and their wedding, where the Chaplain advises the groom "You might as well make up your mind from the start - You Can't Win!" We see that time passes, and they are having their fifth anniversary, and thats when the trouble starts. In one of Lucy's first lead roles, we see the typical husband and wife misunderstandings and mistaken identity that would become usual fare for Lucy and Ricky fifteen years later in "I Love Lucy". When this film was made, Lucy had been in movies for about seven years, but mostly uncredited, deleted, or minor roles. Lucille Ball and James Ellison had worked together in "Next Time I Marry" in 1938. Robert Coote is the client Mr. Battincourt, who gets Andrew into all sorts of trouble at home. Emma Dunn is the blustering, interfering mother in law, stirring up the pot. The cast list on IMDb shows Charles Lane, scenes deleted, which is a shame, since he was a great character actor from the 1930s and 1940s. The sound effects play a role here... the toaster and the rocking chair add the only comedy in the first half of the film. Virginia Vale plays a supporting role "Sally". Vale has an interesting bio on IMDb - she had won a contest to come to Hollywood, but it appears she retired from movies at the ripe old age of 25 and didn't appear in films after 1945? In the plot, Battincourt cooks up a scheme that may or may not get Hinklin out of all his troubles... and all neatly wrapped up in a 68 minute RKO shortie. The whole way through the film, it borders on being a comedy, but no-one cracks jokes or falls down - it's a situational low-key comedy that's really more of a love story. This one does NOT appear to be a remake of the 1923 film of the same name.

Fans that have only seen Lucy in screwball comedy roles may be surprised that she was a very fine actress and can handle drama with great pathos. This film sort of tries to be a screwball comedy, popular in that era, but fails due to a choppy pacing, erratic editing and direction. It's occasionally feeble script doesn't help yet this is still an entertaining film for fans of Lucille Ball. Watch this film and you'll root for Lucy, wishing she had a better film success as you see her real talent in one of her first leading roles.

This RKO second feature stars Lucille Ball and James Ellison, starts out amusingly -- particularly the scene where Ellison is hung over and the toaster is very noisy -- but ends in very predictable fashion. The leads can't hold this fluff together: Ball is unconvincing and Ellison is too montonous. Robert Coote, in support, is excellent.