Demasiados maridos

This delightful comedy falls just short of being one of the classic screwball comedies of the era. It's a story of a woman whose husband disappears in a boating accident and is presumed to be dead. The woman then marries her late husband's business partner. When the first husband turns up alive after a year on a desert island, the woman has two legal husbands. The plot evolves around the woman's decision about which husband to keep. Jean Arthur is a delight, as always, and McMurray and Douglas could hardly be better.

It's a stage-bound film, however, clearly a filmed version of a play. There are really only six characters, including the butler. Columbia didn't want to spend much money on the production. In one scene, upstairs in the woman's family home, you can twice see the set walls shake when doors are shut. Still, the movie is great fun and should not be missed by serious students of film.

Fred MacMurray is the long lost husband who returns to the scene to find that his wife, Jean Arthur is married to new husband, Melvyn Douglas. Arthur's character must choose which husband to keep. The viewer is compelled to want both men to win Arthur's hand; they are both charming. The plot is simple but the fun, witty dialog and situations that develop are very entertaining. I loved MacMurray and Douglas' tails and top hats. The ball gowns were lovely to look at. It's amusing to watch the dancing style in the party scene; lively, silly and fun. A fine, light movie to enjoy with popcorn and the family or champagne with a friend.

The problem with this movie is that it keeps only the original premise of the play (Home and Beauty, 1918) by Somerset Maugham--that a man who has been presumed dead returns home to find his wife has remarried. In the play the comedy derived from the fact that neither husband wanted the wife and each kept trying to out-noble the other and step aside. (The wife is very pretty and charming, but each husband has been married to her long enough to discover that she is selfish and vain.) At the end of the play the wife married a third man, who did not know her well enough to know her true character. In a movie, however, one could hardly have a heroine whom both male leads disowned, so one is left only with the clumsy and repetitious jokes of one woman, two husbands, and which one will she pick.

Vicky Lowndes (Jean Arthur) leads a normal life with her husband of less than a year. Hank (Melvyn Douglas) does his best to avoid the subject of Vicky's previous husband, his best friend Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray). However, when Bill comes back from the dead via a boat from the island he'd been shipwrecked on, the happy Lowndeses become a strange threesome. It is up to Vicky to choose which husband she prefers, but it isn't as simple as it sounds. She can't very well hurt the man she loves in order to be with the other man she loves.

Each cast member is adept at screwball comedy, which is what this film essentially is. However, there is a deeper vein too. Because both men are likable, it is suspenseful waiting for Vicky to choose a husband. This predicament triggers an emotional response as well. Arthur is reminiscent of Irene Dunne in her teamings with Cary Grant, but slightly funnier. Douglas and MacMurray couldn't be more different from each other, so that adds a new spin on the situation.

This movie is very much like My Favorite Wife starring Dunne and the incomplete Something's Got to Give starring Marilyn Monroe, but this film gives the wife two husbands, not the other way around. It is interesting to see how she handles the situation and how the men schmooze themselves silly to get into her good graces. In this way, it is quite a bit funnier.

I've just discovered this lighthearted film today on tv and must admit it has all the fine elements that make for a good stage play -- plenty of sure-fire dialogue, continual momentum to the story (never a dull moment), and light touches of original music. There are some hilarious moments so downright comical it made me burst out laughing. Just accept it as one more comedy of that era and you'll enjoy it nicely without having to make comparisons or look for weaknesses. Harry Davenport as the father adds his wisdom where he can. I feel all the actors had a good romp in this movie and I liked the repartee amongst them very much. Not sure precisely how it ended so will need to see it again some day. It's a fun movie indeed.