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"Practically Yours" has the right cast, director and studio to be a tremendous comedy. But this film doesn't work very well as a comedy. I don't know if the plot would work even with a good working over of the script. This movie came out in late 1944, with World War II raging around the globe. Many people had reports of loved ones killed or missing in action. So, right away, a comedy that touches on the status of servicemen in combat would be awfully touchy.

Six of the top 10 movies of the year were war-related films, and two of them were comedy musicals. But, they were for light-hearted entertainment and humor that had nothing to do with combat or war casualties. So, from the very start, this film had at least one strike against it. Still, it apparently did OK at the box office, with a U.S. take of $4.7 million on a budget of about $1.2 million. (Remember, this was 1944 and there were no actors in the world who earned millions for one film.) It came in 71st in ticket sales for the year.

My five stars for the film are just for the cast and the good job the leads did with some not very good roles they had. Fred MacMurray is Lt. Daniel Bellamy and Claudette Colbert is Peggy Martin. The supporting cast all did well, again with some shaky roles.

The plot is far-fetched to begin with - that a pilot's last words before diving his plane at an enemy ship would be about missing his dog, Peggy. Naturally, every living person who heard that thought he was talking about his sweetheart. Then, people back home presume it's Peggy Martin who just happened to work at the same company Bellamy did before the war. Only, she never thought he noticed her, and she didn't have any romantic leanings toward him.

Now, that might work in a screwball comedy, but not in a plot in which the male was thought to have been killed in action. And, then returns alive, having been blown into the sea when his plane exploded striking the ship. I don't know how Paramount made the film that showed this. It was supposedly captured on film by another plane.

This film has very little funny in it, so it's a scratch as a comedy.

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert did do well in 1944 - both were in big hit films for the year. MacMurray was in a crime drama with Barbara Stanwyck. "Double Indemnity" received seven Oscar nominations and finished the year second in box office receipts. He was in three other films as well that year, and one was a first-rate war-related comedy - "Standing Room Only," with Paulette Goddard. Colbert starred in a war-time home front movie, "Since You Went Away," that won one Oscar of nine nominations. It was the fourth money earner that year, at $14 million.

Except for MacMurray and Colbert fans, this film probably wouldn't appeal to many modern audiences.

Bellamy (Fred MacMurray) returns from action over the Pacific as a war hero and stays with Mr Meglin (Cecil Kellaway) for 2 weeks before he returns to war. However, the whole country believes that he is going to marry Peggy (Claudette Colbert) because of a transmission of what were seemingly his last words before he decided to sacrifice himself for his country. Needless to say, he didn't die and Peggy wasn't who his final message was for. It was for Piggy, his dog. Mr Meglin also has Peggy stay at his house so that she and Bellamy can be together. Do they fall for each other....?

It's a story of misunderstandings that is only worth watching if you like the main stars - MacMurray and Colbert. There are some tedious sequences, eg, the scene with the photographer and the scene in the bedroom with the judge. Unfortunately, the film doesn't redeem itself with any particularly good scenes. There is a funny scene at the end with Albert (Gil Lamb) but that's your lot. The stars are likable but the film just isn't very good.

When Fred MacMurray kamikazes his plan against a Japanese ship, his recorded last words seem to be about walking in the park with his girl Peggy. AThis is assumed to be Claudette Colbert's character; she tours making speeches about how she didn't know, buy war bonds. MacMurray is found, and reunited with his love, only to admit that he was speaking of his dog, Piggy. The two agree to keep up the pretense until his leave is over in a couple of weeks.

MacMurray is a wolf, but a moral one, and Miss Colbert is apple-cheeked and naive in the fifth of their seventh pairings. Gil Lamb is the dreary guy Colbert is scheduled to marry. Despite the occasional swipe at the media to build any story to match the current narrative, director Mitchell Leisen seems more interested in telling the story efficiently than playing it for comedy. Despite a fine cast that includes Cecil Kellaway, Robert Benchley and Rosemary Decamp, it turns into a rote and uninteresting romantic comedy; all of the humor seems to involve the lap dog.

Although unheralded and unidentified as a screen team Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert were teamed a lot in the 20s and 40s. They did five films together mostly for Paramount.

One of the lesser ones was Practically Yours which cast MacMurray as a war hero pilot who crashes his ship into a Japanese aircraft carrier. It was the kind of scene you normally find at the end of a film. His last transmission is recorded for posterity where he says goodbye to his dog Piggy. Only it's garbled and the world thinks it's Peggy. And Claudette Colbert who worked with him in civilian life thinks he means her.

The rest of the film involves these two keeping up appearances all for the war effort. It's a Liberty Valance like conundrum.

According to Charles Tranberg's biography of Fred MacMurray., Fred, Claudette, and director Mitchell Leisen didn't think much of the film. MacMurray thought he and Claudette were too old for the leads.

I think this could have used a lighter touch. The premise was there, someone like Preston Sturges could hav made another Hail The Conquering Hero from this.

I wonder if it was offered to Sturges?

It is hard to describe Practically Yours without giving too much of the plot away. As I am the fist to make comments I don't want to do that. Let's just say it is a mistaken identity romance / comedy between Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert, arising from a misunderstanding of Fred's words as he is flying possibly his last mission as a navy pilot.

Directed by Mitchell Leisen, it is not one of his, Fred's or Claudette's better efforts. I would largely blame the script for this - it is not funny, dramatic and ultimately believable enough. Claudette is too old for her role, and Fred is often unlikeable. But not as unlikeable as Gil Lamb who plays Claudette's suitor. Also it seems a lot of the movie is set indoors at night which somehow reduces any sparkle and lightness it might have.

There are however a couple of good moments. One that particularly stands out is in a cinema where Fred gets punched out for making critical remarks about a newsreel showing his own bravery. The scenes with Rosemary DeCamp, whose husband is away at war, are good as well.

Love to know what other people think...............