Ti amo ancora

William Powell & Myrna Loy team up in a non-Thin Man romantic comedy involving amnesia & oil schemes set in a Pennsylvania town. Powell, returning from a holiday cruise, tries to rescue a drunk who's fallen overboard & finds he's lost his memory after someone conks him over the noggin w/an oar. That in his past life he was a drinking cheat & conman while in the present is a paragon of a clean life adds much mirth to his situation when he finds he needs to convince his wife (who has a new beau in her life & is demanding a divorce) to re-fall in love w/him. Zany, inspired & handled w/the same verve he brought to 4 Thin Man pictures, W.S. Van Dyke II (who would tragically commit suicide 3 years later) worked wonders w/this pair of actors. Look for Alfafa from the Little Rascals in a small part as a cub scout. Sublime.

Seems to me that in the course of his career, WILLIAM POWELL has been in many a movie as an amnesia victim--but here, it's strictly for laughs. He and Myrna Loy (at her most attractive) are paired again as a romantic couple with their usual share of misunderstandings and shenanigans. It has the flavor of a Nick and Nora flick--without Astor.

The story is a series of misunderstandings and comic situations all set up by the fact that Powell is struggling to remember who he was--and meanwhile rediscovers his wife and loves her very much even though she is threatening to leave him. None of it makes much sense and all of it is played strictly for laughs and romantic charm.

Working with very thin material, Loy and Powell do it again. Proof that their box-office chemistry was no fluke. If you enjoy this one, try LOVE CRAZY with an even crazier approach to the amnesia angle and even more amusing.

After saving a life, William Powell becomes the victim of amnesia in "I Love You Again," a 1940 film also starring Frank McHugh and Edmund Lowe - this having the distinction of two Philo Vances, Lowe and Powell, in the cast.

Powell plays a cheapskate named Larry Wilson. While on a cruise ship, he jumps into the ocean to save "Doc" Ryan (McHugh) and suffers a head injury. When he wakes up, he has become his former self, a con artist named George and has no memory of the respectable, conservative, stingy life he has been living for some years. Off the ship, he discovers that his lovely wife (Loy) can't wait to get rid of him - or so she thinks, until she realizes that "Larry" is a changed man - for the better.

Powell is out and out hilarious in this film. For such a distinguished looking man, he has provided this writer with almost as many laugh out loud moments as the Marx Brothers. One of his best scenes is when his wife refuses to dance with him, so he dances by himself. Another occurs when, as a boy scout troop leader, he is asked to continue with the deer-tracking techniques he was teaching before leaving town. Of course, he has no memory of any such thing and, as a reporter follows him, he falls into holes, crawls around the brush, and gets stuck in a couple of traps.

The pairing of Powell and Loy is magical. She looks particularly beautiful in this film and her confusion regarding her changed husband and sadness over her marriage is quite touching.

Highly recommended.

It's 1940 on a trans-Atlantic ship. Stodgy cheapskate businessman Larry Wilson (William Powell) falls off the boat while trying to rescue drunken Doc Ryan (Frank McHugh) going overboard. He wakes up and remembers only up to 1931. He's actually a con man named George Carey. Arriving in New York, he's met by his wife Kay (Myrna Loy) who wants a divorce to marry another man. He sees an opportunity to steal with his new found con partner Doc pretending to be his real doctor. Most of the money turns out to be locked away in a community chest account.

The pairing of Powell and Loy strikes again. Their chemistry is as good as ever despite the change in premise. The quirky premise has loads of fun. It does get a bit muddy. It needs a flashback scene in 1931 when he first transformed. Overall, this is a good piece of screwball comedy. It would be nice to have a bit more physical farce to match the premise.

When the movie going public demands you back 14 times you know that something is being done right by both the studio and the players involved.

William Powell and Myrna Loy hit a real career high point in this film with a rather original plot gimmick. The amnesia gimmick is stood on its head in this film.

Powell and Loy are married and he's on a business trip involving an ocean voyage. Powell is something of a stuffed shirt when we meet him on the ship. When a drunken Frank McHugh falls overboard, Powell dives in to rescue him and in the process gets himself knocked out.

When he comes to, like in Random Harvest, he discovers his former identity which is that of a confidence man and as it turns out McHugh also is a full time grifter.

Unlike Ronald Colman who spent the whole of Random Harvest searching for his lost years, Powell has his identity there. Returning to his town with his new found friend McHugh, he finds wife Loy together with the fact he's a person of some means. But he also finds out that Loy was planning to get rid of him.

Powell together with McHugh and former associate Edmund Lowe try to work an elaborate con game on the town. At the same time Powell is falling for the woman he married and embarks on a campaign to win her back. Those two agenda items come into conflict.

Bill and Myrna are at their best in I Love You Again. Two highlight scenes for me are Powell's cooing courtship of Loy and his trip through the woods in his Boy Ranger uniform with his Boy Ranger troop. This must have been the same outfit that Jimmy Stewart was trying to get a summer camp for in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The goings on are similar to what Powell went through fishing in Libeled Lady.

I Love You Again is movie comedy at its very best. Don't miss it if TCM runs it again.