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I'm tickled pink every time I watch this film. Charles Coburn plays a meddling businessman who invades the apartment of a young woman during WWII's Washington D.C. housing crisis. The trio cast including Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea is stellar. This is a doting film that takes its time with details, yet is warmly effective. The chemistry between Arthur and McCrea is heart pounding (especially the side walk scene!) The magic shared between them permeates the screen. (There's something about McCrea that makes a girl want to fall into his lap.) Coburn's antics as the sly matchmaker are hilarious. "The More the Merrier" is cleverly written and humorously acted. For classic film lovers, this one's a gem.

I watched this movie without seeing the credits and, immediately, I knew it had to have been directed by a master craftsman. Turns out the master craftsman was George Stevens. Every frame, every angle, every line of dialog is made significant, while retaining a sense of freshness and spontaneity. If you love Jacques Tati, or anything by Sidney Lumet, you will appreciate the precision choreography of The More the Merrier (the title of this movie is the only bad thing about it). Never mind the story-- if you are a movie buff you'll want to watch it like you're finding out how a Swiss watch is made. Even the pauses in the dialog, simple glances the actors give each other, are well-timed and even musical. Nothing seems left to chance... and yet, it's all seamless, fresh, and totally engaging. And Joel McCrea will steal your heart.

The first half-hour is a triumph of comedic architecture. The screen fairly crackles with madcap antics as Jean Arthur tries to keep an over-crowded national capital from crowding into her bedroom. Coburn may look unthreatening but he's expert at maneuvering. Just listen to him fast-talk his way into her kitchen, her bathroom, and "full speed ahead", where will it stop. Then there's McCrea—an eligible man in a city full of lonely women. He's a definite threat, and if things weren't crowded enough, Coburn has shoe-horned him into what's left. What's a girl to do, living with two men, and engaged to a third. Oh well, it is Washington DC and it is wartime, so stick to the house schedule, and things will work out. Maybe.

Of course, they do, but not the way Arthur thinks. No wonder an unheralded 66-year old actor gets an Oscar for his performance. Coburn steals the show with his amusing and crafty Benjamin Dingle. It seems he's always one step ahead of everyone else, whether arranging housing plans or tearing down romantic walls. It's also an Arthur showcase, proving again what an expert comedic actress she was, while McCrea blends in nicely as the handsome straight man. However, once the romantic phase takes over and Coburn fades, the crackle stretches out into the merely cute.

Sure, some of the material has lost some of the edge to changing mores. Do single, working women still worry about reputation. For that matter, do men. Nonetheless, that first half-hour remains a gem of timing, scripting and staging, unaffected by passing years. If there was a brighter comedic exercise during those terrible war years, I haven't seen it.

The scene with Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea on the steps of the apartment is more erotic than anything you will see in an "R" rated film today, or probably even an NC-17 film. The desire that they have for each other, and are barely suppressing, is overwhelming. And the lingerie she wears in the last scene is surprisingly suggestive for 1943. This whole film is an amazing piece of work. Much credit goes to legendary director George Stevens. Charles Coburn was always great, but who knew he had the comic chops he shows here? Jean Arthur's voice alone makes her one of sexiest actresses ever in films. She and Joel McCrea are both terribly underrated. This film deserves to be much better known than it is.

This movie, set in Washington, DC during the early years of the US' involvement in WWII, when DC was still a relatively small city, is sociologically fascinating: the back story is the housing shortage that occurred when everyone descended on the nation's capital in order to organize the country in preparation for war. But the real story is the incredible script, directing (George Stevens) and, most of all comedic acting by Joel McCrea (always the tall, handsome, slightly cynical straight man (whose straightness itself can be hilarious)), Jean Arthur (whose voice I could listen to forever), and, WOW, Charles Coburn as a flustered wealthy tycoon who plays cupid while trying to help solve the country's pressing problems. The comedy is relentless, absolute hilaritas, and it gets zanier by the minute. Very few weak spots in this relatively unknown comedy. Seeing this recently, and a couple of other McCrea comedies directed by Preston Sturges, you have to wonder why Cooper got all the glory while McCrea was frequently relegated to the second tier (despite major box office draws for more serious wartime work).