Unexpected Uncle

Badly done romantic comedy. It's hard to say if it's badly directed or was butchered in the editing room. The 67-minute running time and choppy narrative point to the latter.

Charles Coburn is excellent as the mysterious "uncle" who breezes into the life of a shop girl (Anne Shirley) who's juts been fired. She's been saving up for a gown for a dance, so he buys the dress for her and off they go. They run into a runaway millionaire (James Craig) and his crowd at the dance. Shirley and Craig are immediately attracted to one another.

Eventually Craig has to go back home to run his business and he takes Shirley and Coburn with him. But he has no time for them. They movie into his mansion but never see him. After a few breakups and misunderstandings, every come out right.

The problem is that we never even know what his business is. This section seems to have been cut from the film. The censors may also have had something to say about the living arrangement of the unmarried couple. The bottom line is that neither Craig nor Shirley is very likable.

Coburn, on the other hand, plays the charming oldster (who has a passion for pitching horse shoes) with zest and humor. He also has a big secret. Co-stars include Ernest Truex as the man servant, Russell Gleason as the nerdy Tommy, Nora Cecil as the landlady as well as Astrid Allwyn, Jed Prouty, Jimmy Conlin, Renee Godfrey (who was married to the director), and Tom Dugan as the bus driver.

The film is notable for its overuse of rear projection (badly done) and incredibly cheesy outdoor sets in which most of the backgrounds are giant paintings.

Watch it for Coburn.

Charles Coburn takes the title role of this trifle of a romantic comedy and, with the exception of good supporting roles by Ernest Truex and Russell Gleason is the whole show. Certainly, James Craig and Anne Shirley as the juveniles, go through their roles competently, but there isn't much to them.

Charles Coburn: a fat, swag-bellied, slow moving con man, vaguely contemptuous of everyone, had a long career in Hollywood, peaking in the early 1940s in pieces like THE LADY EVE and THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (both produced in the same year as this picture) and THE MORE THE MERRIER, which this resembles in story structure. His presence makes this movie worthwhile.

An old man (Charles Coburn) sees a salesgirl (Anne Shirley) crying because she's been fired and steps in to help her get her job back. From there he poses as her uncle and helps her with her romantic problems with a wealthy playboy (James Craig). I adore Anne Shirley and Charles Coburn so I had high hopes for this little B romantic comedy. Both do well with the limited material. The problem is James Craig. He's one of those lesser leading men Hollywood tried to make happen in the '40s but they never quite caught on. Craig here seems to be going for some kind of cross between Clark Gable and Cary Grant. To say he misses the mark would be kind. He, both the actor and the character he plays, is hard to like. See it if you enjoy Coburn or Shirley as much as I do but keep expectations low.

Basically, because of its great writers (Delmer Daves and Noel Langley), two names who appear in unexpected places all through the forties, fifties and sixties. They were obviously trying to emulate the comedies of Preston Sturges with a mix of horse sense, common touch, slapstick and profound truths about the human condition and social classes in America. The result is a film that should be seen more often. A big Thank You to TCM (as usual) for unearthing this genuine masterpiece. Almost every line of the script is a well-crafted witticism that would do Oscar Wilde proud, delivered by a cast of experts. Of particular note is the fine development of James Craig's screen persona as a testosterone-laden Prince Charming.

Acc to IMDb, this 67 minute short was only the fourth project directed by Peter Godfrey. It came out JUST before Pearl Harbor, which probably didn't help. Anne Shirley, on the other hand, had been making films since 1922, as a little girl. Here, she plays Kathleen Brown, a Florida sales clerk who is helped out of a situation by a passer-by Seton Mansley (Charles Coburn). The two of them spend most of the film trying to decide if rich playboy Johnny (James Craig) is good husband material. Craig appears to have had a long, successful career, in spite of his odd voice...here it sounds like he's trying to speak without an accent; it comes out stilted, as if he's trying to disguise his voice or something. Viewers will know Coburn from "Lady Eve" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". He was always the cigar-puffing, large, older gentleman who got caught up in scrapes. This one turns into a fun caper, with airplanes, mansions, and country clubs. Quick little love story, with a lot packed in. Pretty light fare, but it all works. Story by Eric Hatch, who also wrote the novel from which "My Man Godfrey" was made.