liscarkat

Awful but entertainingly so. To begin with, Alan Ladd was too old (or at least looked too old) to pull off the role of a dashing young knight. He was out of shape, pudgy, and his doughy face looks even worse when framed by his jousting helmet, which he wears in nearly every scene. He was not a physically graceful or athletic man, yet we have to see him running and leaping around endlessly, awkwardly. And as for that helmet, Ladd's and all the knights' helmets in the movie are apparently the result of a deranged costume designer out of control, with ridiculous appendages and raging birds, etc. No self-respecting knight would have appeared in one of those things, except maybe Sir Liberace.

Then there's the issue of Stonehenge. In one scene, a group of knights and soldiers are shown completely demolishing the famous monument. Every stone is toppled. The main reason I kept watching this stinker to the end was out of curiosity about how they were going to explain how Stonehenge came down to us with most of its components still standing. Would some other, more responsible knights go back and restore it, or what? Amazingly, the film never shows or mentions it again!

For a good knight movie from this period, give "The Black Knight" a pass and see "Ivanhoe", "Prince Valiant", or "The Court Jester" instead.

You have the number-one musical-producing studio and number-one musical star of all time, a worthy partner, a supporting cast of terrific character actors, a pair of great songwriters, top pros writing and directing, and yet the result of their collaboration is this lifeless waste of an hour and a half. This is Astaire's second-to-worst movie, better only than the dreadful "Yolanda and the Thief". The plot is uninteresting, and Fred's character is perhaps, this time, just a bit too much of a wastrel to be sympathetic. The special effects of the main couple floating and dancing in the air are too silly to watch without a little embarrassment, and the comedy gags don't work. One protracted dance number bringing to life the paintings of Courier and Ives (the Thomas Kinkades of the 19th century) goes on so long you almost forget what the movie was about. "The Belle of New York" is a genuine flop, without one memorable musical number, and no redeeming attribute other than Vera-Ellen's legs, which are finally shown off near the end.

"Too Many Husbands" impressed me as the best of the three main versions of this plot (the others being "My Favorite Wife" and "Move Over Darling"). Only in "Too Many Husbands" did I get a distinct sense of the terrible dilemma faced by the spouse who has to make a choice. This is because in this version alone are the two competing spouses portrayed as equally worthy, charming, and attractive by actors who were close to one another in those qualities, as well as in their respective levels of stardom at the time the film was made. In both "My Favorite Wife" and "Move Over Darling", it is quite clear, from the portrayal of one of the competing spouses and from the casting of a lesser star in the role, whom we are supposed to be rooting for. Not so in "Too Many Husbands". Douglas and MacMurray are very near equals in star power and in the way their characters are written and portrayed. Unlike the other two films, this results in as real a conflict for the viewer as it does for Jean Arthur's character. Unfortunately, it also results in the movie's weakest point--the ending (or lack of one). The dilemma was apparently so strong that the film makers themselves were unable to decide. After having Arthur's character seemingly make her choice, they tacked on a rather strange ambiguous ending suggesting that the "losing" husband might still have a chance. The effect is a non-ending that suggests the film makers couldn't make up their minds, so they just turned off the camera.