उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

Although the film shows hundreds of American female military personnel stationed in Germany after World War II, apparently few were interested in the local men. According to Howard Hawks's "I Was a Male War Bride," only the male soldiers wed Europeans, and the military bureaucracy and red tape were stacked against American women marrying European men. With that premise, an American Lieutenant, Ann Sheridan, falls for Frenchman Cary Grant, and the couple resort to extraordinary ploys to both comply with and circumvent the rules to marry and bring Grant to the U.S. as Sheridan's "bride." Although Grant is about as French as Big Ben and looks as feminine in drag as Sylvester Stallone, Cary is Cary and brings charm and charisma to his improbable role of Captain Henri Rochard. Tough and sexy Sheridan is better cast, but the sum of the two stars exceeds either apart. Cary and Ann have chemistry and work well together in a plot that could have easily fallen apart with a less skilled team of actors and director.

Grant plays the patient and suffering spouse, who must endlessly explain that he is married to an American soldier and entitled to shelter and transportation in a system that does not recognize his gender as compatible with his situation. Throughout, Grant's face and body language speak volumes about the frustration of dealing with bureaucracy and filling in forms in triplicate. Although at times Sheridan seems oblivious to the depth of Grant's problems, her performance is fine, and she convincingly captures the transition from an initial loathing of to an eventual attraction to Rochard. Shot on location in post-war Germany, the black-and-white photography captures the beauty of the countryside and the devastation of the cities with documentary like precision. Hawks keeps the proceedings well paced, and, while rarely laugh-out-loud funny, "I Was a Male War Bride" and its megawatt stars provide excellent entertainment.

I saw this movie years and years ago and always remembered the line, "Be quiet or people will think we smuggled in a cow." I was excited to see it on TCM. Alas, while it's good, it's not as hysterically funny as I thought it was going to be. Cary Grant plays a Frenchman with an English accent who winds up married to an American officer, played by Ann Sheridan. I loved their banter, especially in the beginning. Their wedding night is interrupted when she gets orders to ship out, and the problem becomes how to get her new husband home with her to America when all the spousal regulations seem to be for brides.

For me, the funniest scene took place while Grant is waiting for the bus with all the brides. Over a loudspeaker, a female officer informs the women about the new styles in the states and the way hair is worn. Grant's face is priceless while she's talking.

The movie is cute and notable for Grant dressing like a woman and looking very homely. Ann Sheridan is very good. The film is a little slow, but if you love Cary Grant, you should enjoy it.

In doing this film Howard Hawks was greatly influenced by his own Bringing Up Baby. Certainly Cary Grant had never been that henpecked on the screen since that classic film. And Ann Sheridan's WAC character was certainly based on Katharine Hepburn's in Bringing Up Baby. I wouldn't be surprised if this film wasn't originally offered to Hepburn.

I Was a Male War Bride divides neatly in two parts. In fact I'm convinced that a great deal was eliminated from the beginning because the film seems to start in the middle of the story. When it begins Sheridan, a member of the U.S. Women's Army Corps and Grant a French Army officer already know each other and well. Sheridan pushes Grant around the same way Hepburn did in Bringing Up Baby. After a whole lot of verbal banter with Sheridan taking the lead in it, they decide they're in love and want to be married.

But we're dealing with the army and there is a law about American soldiers taking foreign brides while on occupation duty. But no one had the foresight to realize that WACS may find husbands as well. The second half of the film are the frustrations in dealing with all the red tape.

It may seem ridiculous, but we're not only dealing with bureaucratic minds, but military bureaucratic minds. That mindset operates in every army on the planet. What's obvious to us, these folks can't or won't grasp.

Sheridan and Grant team well together. There are no other good secondary characters developed, most of the time it's Grant and Sheridan on the screen together. Sheridan does admirably as a Katharine Hepburn substitute.

You see I Was A Male War Bride and you can understand the military's opposition to gays in their ranks. They don't take to change easily and in fact do it worse than most segments of society.

Howard Hawks has fashioned many a film on his favorite subject of the war between men and women. But none has been more droll, in my estimation, than "I Was Male War Bride". The movie was filmed in actual French locations not long after the end of WWII. The plot revolves about the necessity for two officers, a Frenchman and an American WAC, to go on a mission together--after a disastrous first assignment, at least on a personal level. The adventures, mishaps, one-upsmanships, accidents and lodging-room mixups they have results in further infuriating the French officer, at the same time he is falling in love with his maddening partner. But the real problem for them begins when they decide to get married and go to the United States--and the only way it can be handled swiftly is if he is declared to be a "war bride". The Frenchman is admirably played despite his accent by Cary Grant; the female is the lovely Ann Sheridan, who proves herself to be adept at verbal comedy of the deadpan variety. Other seen to advantage in the film include Randy Stuart, Kenneth Tobey as a grumpy officer, and Marion Marshall. Editor James B. Clark and hairstylist Ben Nye were kept busy during this one; and Lyl;e Wheeler provided luminous images to accompany Cyril Mockridge's clever music. Henri Rochard's story is so real and so involving that the writers who worked on it were able to milk this slender premise for all it was worth. The climax as Grant manages to get to sail home to the US on a ship disguised as a female only adds to the overall sense of intelligence in charge and fun in the air. Not a great film, perhaps, but an important lesson in how to ground satirical comedy in reality, and reap the benefits of a situation .

I was wavering between awarding this movie a 7 or an 8, and have finally plunked for an 8 because a movie with Cary Grant in it has got to be truly horrible and an utter stinker to get anything below an 8.

This should make it pretty obvious what the best thing about this otherwise average film was. The chemistry between Grant and Sheridan is amusing but not engaging (not the way his verbal sparring with other co-stars like Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell just sparkle right off the screen); the plot is contrived and the romance between the two main characters--Henri and Catherine--isn't particularly believable. (Grant and Sheridan fail at what Gable and Colbert did so well in 'It Happened One Night': making it believable and real and sympathetic that two characters at absolute loggerheads *could* fall helplessly in love.)

This doesn't mean that the film is *bad*. The first half of the movie is mildly amusing, with the bickering between the two main characters as they take a motorcycle trip to their destination. But the best part of it probably comes when Henri and Catherine get married (three times!), with all its attendant problems. It is Grant's perfect comic timing and adorable mien that makes the blatantly "please laugh now" moments genuinely funny. The look of resignation, anger, or suppressed annoyance on Henri's face as he repeatedly asserts that he is "an alien spouse" under the Congressional War Brides Act must be seen to be believed. And I dare anyone *not* to laugh when Grant cross-dresses. That is probably the best part of the film.

An average film without Cary Grant, a better one for having him in it, but definitely an average (if not poor) Grant film. If you want to introduce a friend to the charms of Cary Grant or to screwball comedy, you're better off with Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. This one's probably for true Grant aficionados only.

As a fan of Cary Grant's work in such comedies as Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby, I was thoroughly disappointed by this movie.

It has a few shining, laugh out loud moments in the beginning and in the well known cross-dressing segment near the ending, but I found the middle to be long, slow and not very entertaining. The plot wasn't very interesting and Grant's adventures became repetitive and boring. Also, Grant isn't very convincing as a Frenchman, and I kept forgetting why he had trouble getting into the States in the first place. If you have trouble sitting through slow-moving movies, I would definitely not recommend this.

However, on the opposite side, there are a few funny moments, a cute romantic plot, and, of course, Cary Grant. See it if you wish, but be warned not to have too high of expectations.

Captain Henri Rochard is assigned to work with Lieutenant Catherine Gates on a very serious mission. Tho initial problems between the two are rife, it's not long before the two of them fall in love and hastily arrange to get married. However a ream of bureaucratic red tape ensures the couple can not be together and with Catherine set to go back to America, there may be only one option, Henri will have to invoke a War Brides Clause in army regulations, with some rather zany results.

I Was a Male War Bride is not even close to being a poor film, it has many moments of hilarity and contains a last twenty minutes to savour, it is however un-fulfilling as a comedy whole and sags on far too many occasions. How much of this is down to the chemistry of the leads and off camera illness problems is open for debate, for both Cary Grant {Rochard} and Ann Sheridan {Gates} both suffered ill health during the shoot, while director Howard Hawks himself was to succumb to being unwell at an inappropriate juncture. Tho Ava Gardner was originally wanted for the role of Gates {something i feel would have been excellent, if still wishing for a more comedic actress}, Hawks went for the more brisk acting of Sheridan, tho a fine actress, she seems wrong here, not quite coping with the comedy interplay with her leading man, almost missing the comedic beat as it were. Grant himself was said to have praised the picture quite often, but he does look weary and often appearing to be on auto pilot during the more laborious sequences.

The film has many supporters, but i can't in my wildest dreams term this as a screwball comedy, perhaps i expect better from Grant and Hawks?, i mean after His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and to a lesser extent, Monkey Business, my expectation for this one was always likely to be high, and of course viewing Sheridan as a great dramatic actress was meaning i viewed this one with suspicion from the off. I honestly feel the last twenty minutes saves the picture from being very average, the script perks up, and naturally a bit of gender confusion always raises a titter, tho the sight of Grant in drag looks more akin to Frankenstein's monster than the boys from Some Like It Hot!. It's more than worth a watch and it has guaranteed laughs dotted throughout, it just falls some way short of being a comedy classic in this viewers humble opinion. 6/10

Howard Hawks proves once again why he is considered to be the director's director. The story is fairly simplistic, but with the help of brilliant actors and ingenious dialogue he turned it into a masterpiece and a classic. And it's a damn funny movie, too.

I expected an explanation how the limey Grant got to join the French army, until the credits rolled and forced me to realise that he was meant to be genuine, native French. The good thing here is that Grant never in the least tries to act French, which is probably a good idea as it would have proved to be annoying in the long run. He merely wears a képi.

The chemistry between Ann Sheridan and Cary Grant is amazing, and Ann is so damn sexy. I particularly enjoyed her role as a strong yet sensuous woman, who, in contrast with many other female roles of the time, comes across as plenty fresh and modern.

The movie is a light-hearted comedy for the first half, and then suddenly turns into an almost Kafkaian nightmare for the rest. Grant really shows us his thespic stuff when he's battling being turned into a woman for bureaucratic reasons.

I'm giving this only nine points because I want to leave me some room for improvement. But it's a brilliant and very enjoyable movie, which is sadly underrated.

I've always liked this movie despite it having one VERY serious short-coming. You see, some dimwit decided to cast Cary Grant as a French Soldier and, to put it bluntly, he sucks at imitating a Frenchman. If only the producers had watched the movie Suzy (completed more than a decade earlier), they could have seen how silly Grant looks when he plays a French person. He has no trace of a French accent. If he had sounded like Pepe LePew, it would have been a vast improvement! So, provided you can get past this (and I'm sure many CAN'T), you are left with an intelligent little comedy about what happens when an American servicewoman marries a French officer and tries to bring him back to the states. As you may have guessed, this did NOT happen very often as nearly all American troops who married abroad were men marrying local ladies. And, because this is NOT the norm, one bureaucratic snafu after another prevent them from the supposedly easy task of immigrating with his new bride to America. Particularly noteworthy is Grant when he poses as a WAC! Although he was a handsome man, he was one scary looking woman!!

This screwball comedy is not one of Howard Hawks best films but it is still very watchable. Grant is the focus of the film and carries it pretty much alone as much as his carrying hidden stuff in his suitcase.

While Grant did a lot of Comedy films of this nature, this one is the one where he is the center of this film. There are others where Grant is good too but since he is the center of this movie, it is his personal best.

The sexual tension presented in this film is very much the type of tension that existed in the late 1940's but has changed much since then. Still this film is very good and runs on TCM on occasion.

This movie is one of the best of the "screwball" comedies. Grant is funny without having to say anything. His body language and his facial expressions say it all. Ann Sheridan has an acerbic wit that steals scenes. She more than holds her own with Cary Grant. Typical of Howard Hawkes comedies, the female character is the stronger of the two. One thing that people want to watch for is who Grant's character is looking for: Oscar Schiendler. Don't know if its the same Schiendler that Spielberg made his movie about, but I found it interesting that that was who Rochard was searching for. I rate this film a 9. It has a good screwball script, its based on a true story, its funny, has mild sexual humor 1940's style and two very likable stars.

Funny and romantic occupation comedy shows the better side of Grant and Sheridan. He's forced to go through a series of humiliations (a la Bringing Up Baby) before and after marrying no-nonsense WAC Sheridan. In order to get on a ship with his wife he's even forced into a VERY unconvincing drag (remember, we're talking about Cary Grant here). Very nice photography and directing mask a patched-together story.

Incredibly weak wartime farce. Army Captain Cary Grant and his sweetheart, Lieutenant Ann Sheridan, get married overseas, but they soon discover they cannot return to the States together because of his French citizenship. The solution? Dress the captain up as a woman and take advantage of the Immigration of War Brides Act! Slight stuff, with a screenplay seemingly written around the title (and the commercially comic idea of placing a peculiarly butch and graceless Grant in drag). Howard Hawks directed, with none of his usual skill (he's graceless, too). Supporting cast (including Marion Marshall and Bill Neff) is colorless. *1/2 from ****

One of the most undervalued screwball comedies... I think this picture is equal to classics like "It Happened One Night","Bringing Up Baby" or "My Man Godfrey".In this movie Ann Sheridan has the rare opportunity to show that she's not just a great dramatic actress but also has a impressive comedian talent - neither Katharine Hepburn nor Carole Lombard would have made it better.Cary Grant acts also quite good,but he has no chance against Ann with her sharp-tongued,dry commentaries...The dialogues and the action are very funny,I even laugh about it when I see that feature the 10th time...part of the plot is nonsense,of course,but there are also some sarcastic digs on the bureaucratic system. If you like screwball comedies,this movie is a MUST!!!

This feels unlike any comedy Howard Hawks had made up to this point. It feels, well, it feels typical. It's definitely not bad, but the screwball antics of Bringing Up Baby and Ball of Fire are well gone. What we have instead is a slow-building post-war comedy starring Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan that looks like A Foreign Affair, relying on star power and charm to get the laughs. It works, especially on the back end, but I can't help but feel a slight sense of letdown in the wake of the raucous times I had from his earlier comedies.

Cary Grant plays the French Captain Henri Rochard. Notably, Grant makes absolutely no effort to affect a French accent, even in his handful of lines where he speaks French. Would this story have worked if they had changed Rochard to Richard and made him English instead of French? Anyway, he's on the tail end of his military career in post-war Germany, performing some small tasks for his command with the help of female American officers, namely Ann Sheridan's Lieutenant Catherine Gates. They have an acrimonious relationship with tales of light physical abuse from both sides. Their first scene together is Rochard dropping off some of her laundry in the most tawdry way possible, walking up to her desk in her shared office and dropping each item (including bloomers) onto her desk, listing them individually, creating the impression that they slept together (which is obviously not true). They get assigned one final mission together, to find a lens grinder in a small German town, and they're off.

It's a mission built on misadventure beginning with the fact that they cannot get a car since the motor pool has them all assigned out, but they can take a motorcycle and sidecar since Catherine is licensed to drive a motorcycle, though Rochard is not. Here we get the first sense of the gender reversals that will end up dominating the final section of the film. She drives the motorcycle while Henri sits meekly in the sidecar, first being left behind because the two aren't even connected with him unable to do anything about it. Their mission goes sideways early and often, first when their access to the road is shut off due to a search for a criminal. To get around that, they pack the motorcycle into a small rowboat and row down the river before nearly falling over a waterfall, barely escaping in time. They then get thoroughly lost in the countryside, unable to even find the road, until late at night. Finding the road, but not knowing where they are, Henri climbs a poll to read a sign, only to discover that it says wet paint and he has white paint all down his uniform as it rains. It all comes to a head when Henri walks into the black market to find the lens grinder, and Catherine laughs while he gets arrested by the local authorities.

All of this comes to convince the two that their antagonism is rooted in love, and in an amusing scene where Henri accidentally drives away in the sidecar without Catherine ending in a haystack, the two come to the conclusion out loud to each other. This first hour isn't the most efficient storytelling Hawks has ever had, but it's effective setup for what will dominate the second half of the film: the Kafkaesque process of the two getting married in the eyes of the US Army, the German government, and the Roman Catholic Church followed by the ordeal they have to spend their first night together.

The forms the Army requires for a servicewoman to marry an alien must be done in quadruplicate as well as signed as the commanding general. The papers get lost because a male friend of Catherine's wants her to take some time to reconsider marrying the Frenchman. They have to go through three separate ceremonies after getting their civil marriage license, one with the German civil authority, the next with the Army chaplain, and finally with Henri's parish priest. Once that laborious process gets sorted out, it seems like all is well. They have leave for their honeymoon, Catherine has a new nightgown, and Henri is looking forward to his first night with his wife. That is, until orders come that Catherine must report immediately to go to port to sail back home.

What is Henri supposed to do? His status as a French serviceman doesn't mean anything to the Army in terms of getting him to America, so he has to file as a war bride. The forms are all meant for a woman marrying a male servicemember, and that's the source of the comedy. He repeats several times the title to the original novel that inspired the film "I am an alien spouse of female military personnel enroute to the United States under Public Law 271 of the Congress." (I kind of wish they had kept that title for the film.) He gets shoved in with women on a bus, with some difficulty, then disallowed to sleep in the same building. No one will allow him to sleep anywhere, and when he finally arrives at the boat for America, the forms saying "Mrs. Rochard" keep the navy from allowing him on the boat at all, leading to the famous cross-dressing bit (roughly five minutes at the end of the movie).

It's a fairly broad comedy done well, mostly in its final half hour. The first two thirds could have been trimmed a bit to speed up the slower parts a bit, but otherwise I Was a Male War Bride was an amusing little diversion, a minor success in Hawks' career.

In post-WWII occupied Germany, French Army Captain Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) and American Lt. Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan) 'meet cute', and after the requisite bickering and misunderstandings, end up married with Grant as the titular spouse, which leads to numerous clashes with Army (and Navy) regulations. The film is quite funny in places (especially the first half, before the betrothal), with a clever, 'adult' script, and Grant and Sheridan's excellent comic timing and delivery. The second half drags a bit (pun unintended) but the final scenes, with Hollywood's debonair (and 6'2") leading man trying to pass himself off as a nurse is worth the wait. Much of comedy revolves around Army regulations and bureaucracy and likely resonated more in the post-war years than it does now, but a lot of it still works (Rochard deciphering the complex military acronyms on doors, including 'LADIES' is a great bit). There is a lot of physical comedy (with the stars doing some of their own stunts) and some extremely well made 'action' sequences (the scenes when the skiff approaches the waterfall are incredibly convincing). The entire cast is good and, as usual, Howard Hawks' direction is masterful. A lot of 'suspension of disbelief' is needed to accept Grant, who has one of the most recognisable voices in cinema, as a French officer. Apparently French actor Louis Jordon was considered for the part and it's interesting to speculate what the film would have been like with an injection of some real Gallic attitude. Like 'The Third Man' (1949) and "A Foreign Affair' (1948), the film includes a lot of post-war footage of devastated European cities, which I find very interesting.

Cary Grant is no Frenchman, so it was kind of funny watching him constantly called one in I Was a Male War Bride. It's one of those suspension of disbelief things that was pushed too far for me, and I was laughing every time he'd bring it up again. But the film is a comedy, so when they add one more goofy element to it, I find it hard to complain. Aside from the lack of a French accent, Cary Grant is absolutely perfect for this role because he is so great at playing exasperated. You feel every little but of his frustration and can't help chuckling as things continue to go wrong. The movie is separated into 2 big chunks, and I thought both of them worked, making the whole film a joy to watch. This kind of classic comedy always seems to work for me, and sure enough this was another winner in the genre.

I Was a Male War Bride isn't the greatest, though. It gets overly repetitive, particularly during the sequence where our protagonist tries to find a room for the night so he can sleep. It was one of those scenes where you could almost quote the lines for him by the end and the joke was run completely into the ground. I still cared about him and his story, I just wish they had more well-written jokes to fill in that section of the film. But the movie had earned so much good will from me up to that point, I can't say I was all that annoyed. I noticed it, but moved on and started laughing at the next thing he would do to try and spend a night with the woman he loves. Finally, the film takes a unique look at the way role reversal would work between the genders back in the days of WWII, which was an unexpected treat. There's not much more I can say about I Was a Male Bride, it's a fun film that kept me smiling and laughing throughout.

In this zany comedy, Frenchman Grant is designated as American Sheridan's "bride" by the Army so he can accompany her to America after marrying her. Although the whole film is quite enjoyable, the early parts are the best, featuring the witty banter between Grant and Sheridan, who claim to hate each other. The scene in the hotel where Grant gets locked in Sheridan's room is particularly funny. Hawks, one of the masters of screwball comedy, deftly manages the shenanigans. Other than not even attempting a French accent, Grant is perfectly cast as the hapless bride. Sheridan is marvelous as usual as the kind of woman any man would gladly do whatever it takes to get.

This is a strange one. Plenty of great laughs but in between a lot of nothing. The slapstick is well set up and works perfectly, especially the awning sequence in Sheridan's bedroom. However, the chemistry between Cary Grant and Anne Sheridan is pretty much non- existent, and Cary is unusually mean spirited in this film until the second half. I know they're supposed to hate each other and then fall in love but it seems like there's too much venom between these two to ever end up in marriage. Plus Sheridan's not that appealing. I wonder how the film would have played with a more dynamic actress, say Katherine Hepburn,Lauren Bacall or Jean Arthur.

Occupied Germany seems an unlikely backdrop for comedy, but no sooner had Billy Wilder returned to Hollywood after completing the sardonic 'A Foreign Affair' than Howard Hawks arrived there with Cary Grant to make this breezy farce.

Despite the plot synopses Grant drags up only for about five minutes near the end (thank God), when he's even less convincing as a woman than he was as a Frenchman.

As his opposite number Anne Sheridan is an absolute delight.

Howard Hawks, Ann Sheridan and Cary Grant are all their best in this outrageously hilarious comedy about army regulations and red tape after the war. Hawks was always brilliant for comedies, he had done it before and would do it again, and Cary Grant was one of his specially chosen actors. I have never seen Ann Sheridan laughing so much in a film of hers. Here Sheridan and Grant make a perfect match for comedy, hating each other from the beginning, constantly abusing each other, as they are charged with a common mission, which through various crises bring them to understand that they have to marry, but that brings enormous complications, as Grant here is not an American. Here the fun starts with a roaring train of confusions, the only solution to which must be that he must take on the formal character of a war bride. There was some real story behind this, but the script writers managed to blow it up to a magnificent comedy, which Cary Grant could call his best one and which made even Ann Sheridan laugh her way all through. If you need some exhilaration, this is the film for you, and it's a particular treat for all those who can enjoy quick and witty dialog.

I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

Howard Hawks directing Cary Grant in a farce of a post-war comedy. It's hilarious at times, and always engaging as you'd expect. But then, you might also expect something even further over the top, which might have made this a classic rather than just a really funny fun film.

A reminder--this is the pairing that gave us "Bringing Up Baby" and "His Girl Friday," two of the funniest movies ever. Even "Monkey Business," three years later, had more zaniness to it, though clearly in third place among the four. "I Was a Male War Bride" is the up side to the film noir version of the American soldier in the late 1940s, and it plays into a lot of jokes that were probably hilarious at the time--like the absurd acronyms the military used and uses--but in 2011 it's the larger romance and brief cross-dressing that are the hooks.

If the other three Hawks-Grant comedies have the likes of Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe to give them longevity (and writers like Ben Hecht chipping in on that score), this one has the lesser known Ann Sheridan. As friendly, likable and every-day as she is meant to be (a little like Ginger Rogers in "Monkey Business"), she never quite lights up the screen. Or more importantly, lights up Cary Grant.

Don't worry, there are really funny parts--the motorcycle scenes in general, including on the boat--so watch this, definitely. Grant might not be his quirky or even romantic best, but he's still Cary Grant. And the writing is fun, the pace always fast. And then, when you're done, you'll want to remember the others in this group. And to round it out, you might discover the fifth collaboration--not a comedy--the moving and very well made "Only Angels Have Wings." Great stuff all around.

Brace yourself for what might be an unpopular opinion: this is a rare swing and a miss for Cary Grant and Howard Hawks, two artists near their peaks, both with great batting averages.

A strangely uncharming Grant and an oddly unsexy Ann Sheridan simply snipe at each other while paired on a dull military mission for nearly an hour, absent any real chemistry or laughs; eventually the two surprisingly unlikable characters seem to glance at their watches and realize it's time to fall in love and move on to the next thing.

The next thing is what I call a frustration comedy: a series of circumstances work to foil the characters at every turn. In this case, it's thick-headed U.S. Army bureaucracy that torments newlyweds Grant and Sheridan in a way that is unpleasant at best (and extremely grating for this viewer). For one extended sequence, Grant is denied a place to sleep in either army or civilian quarters, turned away from one place and then another and another, even officiously pulled from an improvised bed and sent into the night, simply because he is a "male bride". It's almost as much screwball fun as watching someone being put on hold by an automated phone service. (The Army must have HATED this damaging portrayal).

Once the wooden pair are married, the comic focus of the film shifts to flogging the joke spelled out in the title, and though it's the type of thing Grant usually did superbly- see "Bringing Up Baby", also with Hawks- it simply isn't funny here.

Well, even the great ones miss now and then, and fortunately Grant's, Hawk's, and Sheridan's fine legacies don't hang on this stumble.