Lonely Wives

The strange connection between a passionate lawyer and a vaudeville impersonator leads to romantic complications for their LONELY WIVES.

Edward Everett Horton, that nervous fuss-budget who enlivened so many films as a top character actor during Hollywood's Golden Age, here gets a rare starring role and a chance to really flex his comedic muscles. Although it's a little difficult to think of Horton as a romantic idol--even a funny one--he certainly has the lovely ladies adoring him in this lively Pre-Code farce.

Providing double trouble, Horton plays the dual roles of a stern lawyer who ‘blooms' into a Don Juan every evening at 8 PM and the talented mimic who wishes to impersonate the lawyer on the stage. Add the lonely wives--Esther Ralston & Laura La Plante--and you're likely to get a merry marital mix-up.

Patsy Ruth Miller plays the lawyer's too flirtatious new secretary. Spencer Charters staggers through the role of the household's increasingly inebriated butler. Best of all is elderly Maude Eburne, an underappreciated actress with considerable comic skills, who tackles the role of Ms. Ralston's boisterous mother. Chubby Ms. Eburne easily holds her own with either Hortons and gets to utter the film's final, funniest line.

The title and advertising for this film are salacious in that laughable pre-Code way; "All hot and bothered...wild husbands on the loose," read one. The plot that sets up this early sex farce is awfully contrived; it has a guy showing up to a lawyer's office who looks identical to him (both men are played by Edward Everett Horton), allowing the lawyer to slip out and have some fun with a couple of women at the "Whoopee Club" 'til dawn, and then his wife to unexpectedly return from a vacation all rarin' to go with the stranger she assumes is her husband. "I bought a new lace nightie yesterday that's positively indecent - wait 'til you see it!" she says. Meanwhile, one of the women the lawyer has gone out with just happens to be the other guy's wife.

It's pretty damn silly and if you're looking for something sophisticated, skip this film (which I guess you could have guessed from the title). In addition, the quality of the print which survives is pretty poor, the cast (aside from Horton) lacks star power, and the aspects of the plot in the middle of the film that focus on the butler's confusion and the mother-in-law's delight over possibly getting a grandchild are overdone and quickly become tiring.

However, it does have its moments, starting with the sassy secretary (Patsy Ruth Miller) who likes strutting across the room to show her boss her "wiggle." There is an air of subversive desire in the film; the new client (Laura La Plante) who comes to the lawyer to ask about a divorce doesn't mind if her husband stays out at night, as long as she could always depend on him doing so, so that she could have some fun herself. When the lawyer plans to meet both her and his secretary later that night, she says "But wouldn't you be embarrassed with two girls?" and he replies "Two? And me feeling positively Oriental?" There are several more lines like this, and it's kind of fun seeing two Edward Everett Horton's on the screen at the same time. In the screwball mayhem towards the end, one of the film's better sequences, watch for the moment when he hurdles over his mother-in-law, who's fallen down during a chase up the staircase. The film could certainly have been better, but it was mildly amusing.

When sound pictures arrived in the late 1920s-early 30s audiences were so fascinated by the spectacle of actors talking that any number of stage plays were simply photographed more or less as they had played in front of live audiences. No better example than this talky, very silly French-style farce based on a comedy credited to the Hungarian producer A.H. Woods famous on Broadway for importing risqué European fare to New York. As stagey as the RKO film is, it gives us a wonderful opportunity to see one of the great farceurs, Edward Everett Horton, at his best in a dual role a few years before becoming second banana in numerous Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies. Here, he is matched for once by the performance of the delightful Canadian actress Maude Eburne as the mother-in-law, probably the best role she ever had in a long Hollywood career of much smaller parts.

For decades, a familiar and very stupid cliché has been used in movies and on TV--the identical stranger or identical cousin. While such things are 100% impossible and ridiculous, the idea has been used (and over-used) for years. I am usually annoyed by such productions, as these are not very similar folks but EXACTLY the same--which makes no sense at all. "Lonely Wives" is based on such a premise--and so it loses a few points for its dopiness.

Edward Everett Horton plays two people--Dickie Smith and a vaudeville performer, Mr. Zero. Zero is a professional impersonator and has managed to look, sound and behave exactly like Dickie. So, the two concoct a plan to have Zero pose as Smith but not surprisingly, lots of problems result--such as Dickie's wife apparently sleeping with Zero! While I admit that the film IS entertaining and a bit cheeky, the plot is silly fluff. But, in this case, it works a bit better than usual because I love Edward Everett Horton--he was a very funny character actor who had a chance to star in this farce. Not brilliant...but cute.

This film is based on the 1922 play, renamed "Who's Who" - a better title than "Lonely Wives" - that starred Charles Ruggles. While Ruggles would have been perfection as Smith/Zero, this film version is hilarious, due primarily to the inventive comedic performance of Horton. Also superb are the butler - a tippler who thinks he's going crazy - and Horton's guard dog mother-in-law. It's a pleasure to watch the adorable Ralston, La Plante, and Miller - 3 femme stars from the silent era who have featured roles - contribute so deftly to the merriment. As the plot thickens, the tempo speeds up so that the second half is a whirl of exits, entrances and misunderstandings. Surprisingly, but believably, all wrongs are righted in the end.

Even though this film from the Mill Creek comedy collection was a poor visual and audio transfer from a TV showing, it's amazing just how good this comedy is and how much I enjoyed it.