Man-Proof

It starts out as a bubbly comedy and quickly sinks into "women's picture" banality, with Loy inexplicably pining over stolid Walter P., who is marrying Rosalind Russell (her la-di-dah accent is intolerable), while Franchot Tone is making drunken quips on the sidelines. The tone is all over the place, now breezy, now soap-opera, and poor Myrna Loy looks miserable throughout -- she must have known how negligible this script is. The characters' alliances shift scene by scene, without explanation, and the happy-ending fadeout wouldn't convince a five-year-old. The four leads are pros and almost always interesting to watch, but this one is so MGM-fake and dramatically underpowered that it plays like a prehistoric episode of "One Life to Live."

Based on the casting that included Myra Loy and Rosalind Russell, I decided to watch this movie. Some reviews are unkind so I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it as much as I did. And I watch a lot of the thirties and forties movies. My impressions...

• It evolved from a comedy into a more serious theme of troubled relationships. Uneven but still interesting.

• I had to check out the date of the movie to verify that it was not pre-code film because the storyline became more 'adult' as it moved along, until the ending.

• I enjoyed Franchot Tone, who I was not that familiar with. Definitely want to see him in some other films.

• Some call the dialog stilted but I found myself listening closely to it because there was a lot of thought in the words spoken.

Bottom line - there are mixed reviews but I found this film to be well worth the time spent.

"Man-Proof" is one of those films that the studios just ground out week after week. There's nothing particularly special about it unless you count Myrna Loy, who is always special. Here she plays a young woman, Mimi, from new money - her mother (Nana Bryant) is a popular romance novelist -- who's jilted by her boyfriend Alan (Walter Pidgeon). He dumps her unceremoniously to marry Elizabeth (Rosalind Russell), who has lots more money. A family friend, Jimmy (Franchot Tone) who seems to love Mimi himself, thinks he's a jerk and is just as glad.

After the wedding, Mimi, Alan, and Elizabeth bury the hatchet, and Mimi and Alan decide to be friends. After an evening at the fights while Elizabeth is home sick, Mimi decides that she wants Alan back.

This is pretty predictable stuff, overwritten with heavy dialogue. I will say this - Rosalind Russell wears the most atrocious-looking wedding veil I've ever seen. It seems to be held up on either side of the head by wires and resembles the flying nun's habit, and it looks like it's made of cellophane. Actually it's some sort of silk but it's hideous. Worth a look if you want to chuckle.

Pidgeon and Loy are good; Franchot Tone doesn't have much to do but wisecrack. Loy is beautiful as usual. Not much to recommend this.

I got chewed out for asking this over on the Classic Movie Board, but why oh why did Myrna take this dreck? Unlike her other MGM women peers, Myrna went straight from "Oriential" villaness to vamp to good-time girl to wife and mother. In the process, she rarely got the chance to do the witty, champagne romantic comedies given to Joan Crawford or Norma Shearer at MGM, or even Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur at other studios. Her few stabs at it were, regrettably, very, very lackluster, as it seems the studio just didn't know what to do with Myrna if she wasn't portraying William Powell's sly wife or Clark Gable's ultra-feminine love interest (on that note, I recently watched Myrna in the pre-code "Penthouse" and she was an absolute DOLL. Her character was a call-girl, but Myrna was so witty and breezy and sexy; wish she could have kept some of that).

Man-Proof is one of those lackluster films given to Myrna when she wasn't paired with Clark or William or Robert Montgomery. Here she plays Mimi, who is in love with Alan (a stodgy Walter Pidgeon), and is the sparring partner of Jimmy (Franchot Tone). Alan breaks Mimi's heart by eloping with the wealthy Elizabeth (Rosalind Russell in her annoying "lady Mary" voice)--who in turn bizarrely invites Mimi to be her bridesmaid. Elizabeth wears this horrible wedding gown that looks like some sort of Medieval wimple and gown--and is completely serious! The film begins innocently enough, but it peaks during Myrna's wonderful drunk scene at the reception, where she'd struggled to hold it together as everyone gossiped about her being jilted.

After this scene, it seems as though the writer(s) just threw at the plot. One of the culprits is probably the Production Code, since adultery was not to be condoned, so the scandal of Alan and Mimi's meetings is muted and getting around the subject was even more awkward than Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery's escapades in "Forsaking All Others." Jimmy spends the majority of the film drunk and dully witty, which is supposed to hide his true feelings, but comes across as obnoxious in scene after scene of his drunk nonchalance. However, the main culprit is the complete and utter lack of character motivation. Mimi we get, Jimmy somewhat, but Alan and Elizabeth not at all. As I watched the film I kept asking: why did Elizabeth invite Mimi to be her bridesmaid? Why did she condone Alan running around town with Mimi? What did Alan want from Mimi after his marriage? Who were they? And after Alan returns to the oh-so understanding Elizabeth, I still didn't understand the characters.

Needless to say, the only charm to this film is Myrna Loy. The script isn't at all good, and the direction was faulty, but Myrna and Franchot tried. Track this down only if you have a hankering to view Myrna's filmography.

I noticed from the IMDB cast list of the film that Rita Johnson and Ruth Hussey's scenes are deleted from the film. Perhaps this explains why the movie seems to have no proper beginning that explains the characters' motivations. At the beginning of the print I saw, Myrna Loy's character is heartbroken over losing Walter Pidgeon's character to Rosalind Russell's. However, it's not clear why she likes Walter Pidgeon's character, though. For me, Franchot Tone's character comes off as much more likeable, but maybe that's Franchot Tone--who usually seemed charming in films. It's hard not to enjoy a film with such great actors as those in this film, but if this film was edited, it's hard to see why. The version I saw (not sure if there's another one) was only about 1 hour and ten minutes long so it couldn't have been too long unless it was meant to be a B-picture, but why make a B-picture with an A-list cast? Anyway, I think fans of Rosalind Russell and Franchot Tone will like it more than Myrna Loy or Walter Pidgeon fans will since both Myrna and Walter play rather dislikable characters, although both do a fine job of making them believable. But Rosalind Russell and Franchot Tone have less screen time, so even their fans may be disappointed in this film.