Guest Wife

This is one of those patented situation comedies that are repeatedly used in the movies or television. So and so has a job, and his boss is a believer in the sanctity of marriage. Somehow the boss learns that so and so is married, and has a nice marriage. When he gets an opportunity, the boss invites so and so and his wife to spend the weekend at his home...which panics so and so because he really is not married, but circumstances (ah, those perennial circumstances) have led to his having claimed he was married. Now his job and his future are on the line...what should he do?

Why, borrow the wife of his best friend, of course!

Variations appear everywhere: Christmas IN CONNECTICUT, for instance, has Barbara Stanwyck usurping the home of her friend Reginald Gardiner to impress her sanctimonious boss Sydney Greenstreet (who has another great "rounded" fat name - Alexander Yardley). On television a failed series in the middle 1960s was OCCASIONAL WIFE, which had an executive in a baby food company requiring a fake wife for the happiness of his employer. He uses his neighbor two floors beneath his apartment (the hero and heroin frequently have to meet on the fire escape of the apartment between theirs, leading to a running joke of the reaction of the man who owns that apartment. About the same time Jack Lemmon made his film GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM, where a married man has to help his neighbor (Romy Schneider) inherit her wealth by pretending he is her husband (Mike Connors). Connors reciprocates by pretending to be married to Lemmon's real wife Connie Stevens (leading to some complicated incidents of both men purposely making each other jealous -and almost driving neighbor Robert Q. Lewis crazy in the process).

Despite it's repetitive use it is not a bad plot, and in GUEST WIFE it was well handled. Here Ameche is a reporter for a newspaper - magazine chain, who has had to make up his marriage to make his copy more relevant. It has made Ameche a major news figure, and his boss (Charles Dingle, pleasantly using his pompous threatening characterization to comic use - and quite well) wants to meet the little woman, who behaved so bravely in the Far East. As Ameche has based her on Claudette Colbert (the wife of his best friend Dick Foran), he goes to Foran to get permission to borrow Claudette for a few hours (for dinner with Dingle). Foran is willing, but Colbert is tired of the number of times Ameche has somehow manipulated Foran into doing things for Ameche that were not in the interest of either Foran and Colbert.

But she goes along, until she finds that Dingle has become more plans for them in the coming weekend. Ameche, for fears for his job, willingly expands the time that Colbert is with him, but this slowly gets the formerly subservient Foran to resent his friend more and more. This leads to some nice pieces of comedy with hotel detective Grant Mitchell and with nosy neighbor Chester Clute. And Colbert, sensing an opportunity she won't miss, takes advantage of the situation to keep turning up the heat on a flustered Ameche. It turns out to be a nice little comedy, well worth viewing and even watching again.

I was surprised I'd never heard of "Guest Wife" when I found it on YouTube. After all, I adore classic Hollywood films and it stars a couple actors I really like, Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche. However, after seeing it, I can see why the film isn't more famous. It's not so much because it's bad...but it sure could have been a lot better considering the stars.

When the story begins, Chris Price (Dick Foran) tells his wife, Mary (Colbert), that an old friend of his is visiting and he wants to introduce them. However, when Joe (Ameche) arrives, he has a request...can he 'borrow' Mary as his wife! Let me explain. Joe is a bit of a jerk and isn't married nor has he ever been. He's a jerk because he's created a fictional wife in order to not only please his boss BUT to fenagle various presents for his 'wife' out of the boss! So, in order to not get caught, he wants to borrow Mary and pretend she's his wife! Any sane person would have said no....but then, there wouldn't have been a film! And, naturally, all sorts of complications ensue.

To say the plot is contrived is putting it mildly. In fact, it's pretty silly and hard to believe...and it's even harder to believe they didn't just call the whole thing off when things got too complicated. As a result, the film manages to be both pleasant and enjoyable...as well as dumb and hard to believe! And because my feelings are so mixed, I'd place this in the category of a 'time-passer'...worth seeing but also easy enough to skip.

Don Ameche steals the show in this black and white romantic comedy. Don Ameche is in wonderful form. He not only delivers his lines with perfection but his use of his eyes makes his character, Joe, come to life. This movie promises many laughs. Claudette Colbert also offers up a good performance as Mary, the wife that Joe borrows from his best friend Chris.

Guest Wife is directed by Sam Wood, written by Bruce Manning and John Klorer, and stars Claudette Colbert (Mary), Don Ameche (Joe) and Dick Foran (Chris). The story tells of a journalist, Joe, who claims to his boss that he is married because the company would like their employees to be as such, and Joe wants to take some vacation leave. But he happens to still be single. Something that's now a major problem since his boss requests the company of Joe and wife for the weekend! His pal Chris lends him his wife Mary so as to bluff his boss into agreement, however, things start to get complicated.

Obviously hampered by the strict censorship that existed at the time of its making, Guest Wife none the less is a cheeky little comedy that boasts fun acting and a safe and solid script.. Tho referred to as a screwball comedy in some quarters, I feel that doesn't quite do the film any favours. Yes the gags are breezy enough, but they are hardly of the whirlwind scattergun variety. The interplay between the wonderful Colbert and the charming Ameche is spot on, even if the heavy cloud of censorship tone downs stops the material from being fully realised into a classic comedy must see. There's an itch about just who we are supposed to root for since Chris is a nice guy and Mary clearly loves him, and of course Joe is a bit of a cad when one considers his deception. Yet we are in the company of Mary and Joe for the most part, which although it be a fake marriage, it's a nice coupling. So either way come the end some viewers will be left disappointed.

Safe and tidy, with the film as a whole more likely to leave you with a smile more than a beaming grin. 6.5/10

Guest Wife (Sam Wood, 1945) reunites the stars of the brilliant romantic comedy Midnight, as happily married Claudette Colbert ends up spending an inordinate amount of time posing as the wife of her husband's best friend (Don Ameche) in a bid to save the guy's job. It's OK, but the comic situations are often more stressful than funny, and the usually reliable Ameche is both cartoonish and flat. Still, Colbert does her best with the material, while character comedians Charles Dingle and Grant Mitchell work wonders in their supporting parts. Dozens of familiar faces crop up in small roles, including Irving Bacon, Harry Hayden and Chester Clute, playing a town gossip accused of voyeurism. The climactic sight gag is the best joke in the film.