Petticoat Fever

Dascom Dinsmore (Robert Montgomery) is a lonely telegraph operator in the frozen isolation of Eskimo Point, Labrador. He can't get a wife to live in such a remote place and it's been 2 years since he's seen a beautiful white woman. Sir James Felton (Reginald Owen) lands his plane in the snow with companion Irene Campion (Myrna Loy).

Dascom is not wrong. Myrna Loy is one beautiful white woman. I would do much of the same to keep her around. Only problem is that Dascom is all wrong. He shouldn't be trying for a proper Englishman. He should be a wild man of the north. In that way, he and Myrna Loy can have a clash of cultures comedy. I never got to the point of rooting for Dascom despite agreeing with him.

This diverting little comedy is refreshingly different from the standard rich boy-wolf chases girl comedies of the 30s. It's set in the Alaskan wilderness instead of of swanky night clubs and penthouses, the situations are set up to be amusing rather than hilarious, and it's played by Montgomery and Loy with a kind of knowing delicacy rather than wryness or zaniness.

An atypical screwball film with two charming stars, Petticoat Fever is a fun popcorn flick, but don't expect a snowbound My Man Godfrey or anything.

It takes place in the arctic- we're meant to believe Labrador, but I'm Canadian and can tell you that our winters DO NOT look like what the M-G-M backlot want you to believe. That's the main problem with this film- you can tell it's an arctic backlot, and no amount of suspending disbelief will change that.

Myrna Loy and Robert Montgomery are good in roles that seem to be a bit underwritten- but this was one of those "Churn 'em out weekly!" flicks that M-G-M were so good at in the 1920s, 30s and early 40s. Myrna Loy's character is a bit overly stupid, to the point of groaning, but she's a good enough actress that you can (mostly) ignore it.

The actors that played the respective fiancé(e)s of Loy and Montgomery were cardboard people, so that it wouldn't be a two person show. The casual casting of Asian people as Eskimos (their words, not mine) is a bit cringey, but I can live with it. I'm not that sensitive.

The plot is threadbare and the screenplay is sub-par- but Robert Montgomery looks very handsome in his furs (and later, his three-piece dinner jacket). It's nice to see Loy playing a single woman instead of the perfect wife/mother.

All in all, good escapist M-G-M fluff. You won't be wanting to beat your brains out by the end.

Robert Montgomery is a fine actor with an impressive range in both comedy and drama. His default settings would have seemed to make him a sort of good-looking, dapper chump, usually a funny one, and he could have sailed through a fine career as well-dressed arm-candy, but he was far too talented to fall into any such persona. In comedy, he was at his sharpest playing dryer, edgier funnymen who were in on the joke. "Petticoat Fever" gives him the funniest character I've seen him play, and he energizes this oddly claustrophobic and icebound screwball sleeper in a way that is purely masterful.

Montgomery is a sour, mumbling radio operator stuck in a frozen isolation that is slowly grinding his nerves until Myrna Loy and her fiancé, Reginald Owen, are stranded in his rustic cabin by airplane trouble. Screwball comedies usually move rapidly from place to place, but the fun here is in Montgomery's scheming and manipulation to keep Loy within reach. His sparring with her and especially with a wonderfully over-the-top Owen- who knew he could be this funny?- is a case of a fine script made special in performance. The dialogue is terrific at times, and the pacing is briskly fun, but Montgomery's face tells the story in every scene- he's a clown on a mission and he brings this one home with a bang. There isn't a wasted moment. "Petticoat Fever" deserves to grow a reputation.

The remoteness of a cabin in Labrador where Robert Montgomery sits at his wireless set with only some Eskimo retainers for company is not exactly the setting one would think of for drawing room comedy. But in Petticoat Fever Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy and the rest of the cast make it work.

Montgomery is not all he seems, he's a minor offshoot from a noble family in a kind of exile for some indiscreet behavior. You have to say though he does manage to live well. I mean when he does get some unexpected guests he does entertain well given his circumstances.

The guests are Myrna Loy and Reginald Owen and he's some London society bigwig. Their plane has crash landed and they're forced to stay with Montgomery for a bit. He's a most hospitable host and the usual happens with Bob and Myrna.

Things get sidetracked a bit Gloria Shotter shows up who is a woman who think she has an understanding with Montgomery, but these things do work out in these kind of films.

As the only conversation that Montgomery has listen to some of the understated lines that Otto Yamaoka has. That Japanese-American playing an Eskimo has some wit to him. Sadly I read he spent World War II interned and never did return to the screen post World War II.

Petticoat Fever is a very bright comedy that still hold up after over 80 years, I recommend it highly.