There's Always a Woman

Comparisons with the Thin Man are inevitable. But if Bill Reardon (Douglas) can be taken as Nick Charles' slick, well-composed brother, Sally Reardon (Blondell) can only be taken as Nora Charles' rowdy, very distant cousin. It's Blondell as Blondell, sassy, madcap, and irresistible. Still, how funny you find her many pratfalls may depend on comedic taste. The humor here is much broader than the dry, sarcastic wit of Powell and Loy. Also, unlike the Charles's who work as a team, the Reardons often work at head-butting cross-purposes, even if they do get results.

Here Sally goes to work for mystery woman Lola Fraser (Astor), and ends up involved in a murder. Bill ends up working the same case but as a police detective. Seems as though he'll have to arrest Sally if she doesn't change her headstrong ways—fat chance. As a whodunit, the movie only partially succeeds since screen time is mainly taken up with Sally's shenanigans. Still, things do move along briskly, while Blondell maintains the energy level. No, they're not the understated Nick and Nora, but the movie's generally entertaining enough.

Party mystery, part screwball comedy There's Always A Woman features Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell as a man who opened a private detective agency and his ever helpful wife.

Douglas had worked for the DA's office as an investigator and felt he was in a career rut so he opened a private agency. As clients haven't been flocking to his office he's ready to go back to work for DA Thurston Hall, But Blondell says she wants to keep the agency open just in case.

No sooner does Douglas get his job back than in walks a client Mary Astor. She plunks down 3 century notes.which pays a lot of back rent and she wants Frances Drake who has been carrying on with husband Lester Matthews.

She does some surveillance in a madcap sort of way at a nightclub. The next day Matthews is shot to death and Robert Paige who had made some threats at him is arrested.

Douglas gets the investigation at the DA's office and Blondell keeps going on her investigation. She's from the Lucy Ricardo school of criminology and will have an awful lot of 'splaining' to do eventually.

Three years later Mary Astor and Jerome Cowan who plays a gambler in There's Always A Woman would be part of the immortal cast of The Maltese Falcon. And ironically in this film both would have the same function.

Columbia might have made more of these had its stars not been tied to other studios. But Blondell was with Warner Brothers and Douglas with MGM. The two had a good chemistry and Blondell is a hoot.

A good combination of genres is There's Always A Woman.

The Quick Pitch: Husband, who works for the DA, and wife, who is secretly running her husband's old detective agency, compete to see who can solve a murder.

As my rating indicates, I generally enjoyed There's Always a Woman. It's no Thin Man, as it's often compared and as Columbia Pictures had hoped it would be, but the movie is decent enough entertainment. The mystery may not be much, but this kind of light-hearted, who-done-it is never deep on plot. The film looks good and moves at a good pace. The direction is snappy with very little in the way downtime. Joan Blondell really shines as Sally Reardon. She's cute, funny, and sassy. She dominates the screen anytime she appears. Co-star Melvyn Douglas is good in his own right and makes a good straight man for Blondell, but he can't compete with her screen presence. There are a variety of other solid actors in the supporting cast, most notably Mary Astor, in what is pretty much the same role she played a few years later in The Maltese Falcon.

The thing that bothered me the most about There's Always a Woman was the casual depiction of spousal abuse. Maybe attitudes have changed since 1938, but I don't enjoy seeing a woman having her hair pulled or being hit by her husband. It didn't come off as funny or playful, just mean. Without those moments, I would have definitely rated There's Always a Woman higher.

6/10

Despite thin comedy material, JOAN BLONDELL and MELVYN DOUGLAS give their all to the interplay between the detective husband and snoopy wife routine in this fast-moving comedy/mystery. Douglas is a detective badly in need of clients when MARY ASTOR pops into his office while he's away and tells her story to Blondell about keeping tabs on an unfaithful husband.

MARY ASTOR, JEROME COWAN and ROBERT PAIGE are the chief suspects when the man is killed, but the accent throughout is on comedy rather than solution of the crime. What matters is that the comedy is breezy and stylish in the Blondell/Douglas manner with both of them at the top of their form. Revelaton of the murderer comes as no big surprise.

Trivia note: RITA HAYWORTH has a fleeting moment as a secretary, unbilled in the credits. Blink and you may miss her one line and quick exit.

Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas are Bill and Sally Reardon in "There's Always a Woman," a 1938 screwball comedy. Douglas is a former detective with the D.A.'s office who has opened his own office. However, there are no clients after a few months, so he returns to the D.A. Sally, his wife, is supposed to close the office, but when a Mrs. Fraser (Mary Astor) enters, Sally passes herself as a detective and gets the case - plus a retainer. It then becomes a competition between husband and wife to see which one will solve the case, which becomes more complicated, involving murder and blackmail.

It's hard not to love Joan Blondell is just about anything, and she's excellent in this. She and Douglas make a good team, though in the sequel, it's Virginia Bruce who steps into her role.

The script is witty, and the acting is excellent from all involved. This is no "Thin Man" - there were a few of these husband-wife detective movies that came out after the success of "The Thin Man" - in fact, one try at a series featuring Joel Sloane, a rare book dealer, and his wife, Garda, starred Melvyn Douglas in 1938. None quite measured up, but often these films were entertaining. "There's Always a Woman" is definitely a good one.