Kisses for Breakfast

This is an "A" script with a "B" cast. Except for Jerome Cowan, Lee Patrick and Una O'Connor, the cast is not worthy of the material which is quite witty. I can imagine Jimmy Stewart, Rosiland Russell and Carole Lombard in the major parts. Then it would have been a classic.

Under two identities, one while suffering from amnesia Dennis Morgan marries two different women, Shirley Ross while himself and her cousin Jane Wyatt who Morgan meets while he's got amnesia. The circumstances for this bizarre occurrence I'll leave unsaid but it's both tragic and hilarious at the same time. Ross in fact thinks he's dead and is ready to marry stodgy Jerome Cowan.

When Wyatt gets an invitation to her cousin's wedding you can imagine how unsettling this all is. Especially since Morgan does not know who he is.

I'm in agreement that of course someone like Cary Grant or William Powell could have handled this better than Dennis Morgan, but Morgan does OK with it. Jerome Cowan is also all right in what would be the Ralph Bellamy role. Best in the film is Una O'Connor who gets all her information and advice for living from ye old Ouija Board. There's a bit role for young Cornel Wilde in Kisses For Breakfast.

A nice comedy from Warner Brothers B picture unit.

This is an insanely implausible and stupid concoction about a guy marrying one woman, getting amnesia, then marrying her cousin. Dennis Morgan and Jane Wyatt, certainly serviceable performers, are at their worst here -- thanks mainly to the idiotic script and perversely inane dialogue. But the real showstoppers are Jerome Cowan and Shirley Ross, who manage to hambone their ways through this like it was dollar-ninety-eight night at the dinner theatre. Worse performances in a film from a major studio I don't recall ever seeing. The wonderful Willie Best and Louise Beavers are called upon to do some unfortunate (even for the time) racial comedy, and the ever-reliable Lee Patrick gets to be arch for no reason and to spout one of the more wince-causing racial jokes. This one's a waste of time, unless it's to catch Cornel Wilde in a brief and very early appearance as a sort of heavy. Embarrassing on almost all counts.

That dreadful casting error is only one of many. Cowan was a good character actor and perfectly adequate as a lead in mysteries. But his comic timing, at least based on this horrible mess, did not exist. He also looks terrible, with a very noticeable double chin.

Shirley Ross is exceptionally unappealing as the first of two women Dennis Morgan marries. She overacts and is generally thoroughly disagreeable.

Morgan is shown in a lot of beefcake shots. And he was a handsome man. He's fine here, though I personally could do without his singing.

Jane Wyaatt is pretty and sweet as Ross's Southern cousin, whom he marries while he has amnesia.

One of the few amusing bits is a bum's looking at a billboard and giving Morgan, who has no memory of who he is, the name F.H.A. Homes. (He is later called Happy.) One of the very least appealing is the shower that first makes Wyatt and Morgan, later Ross, appear in blackface.

This comedy is too wacky to merit much consideration, and I don't mean wacky in a screwball sense. While it is interesting to see Jane Wyman and Dennis Morgan in their roles, any romance is undermined by the unevenness and inanity of the dialogue. A case of inadvertent bigamy could be, and has been, a premise that promises comedy, but only if it feels like some of the characters have some real feelings involved. In "Kisses for Breakfast," there is no real conflict because there are no real emotions on the line.

Una O'Connor and Jerome Cowan are enjoyable as the maid and the perpetual suitor, adding the only humor with their rubber-faced reactions.

And it is curious to see the depiction of plantation life that is irrelevant to the story.

But there are much better films to see than this hapless "comedy".