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The problem with this movie is that it keeps only the original premise of the play (Home and Beauty, 1918) by Somerset Maugham--that a man who has been presumed dead returns home to find his wife has remarried. In the play the comedy derived from the fact that neither husband wanted the wife and each kept trying to out-noble the other and step aside. (The wife is very pretty and charming, but each husband has been married to her long enough to discover that she is selfish and vain.) At the end of the play the wife married a third man, who did not know her well enough to know her true character. In a movie, however, one could hardly have a heroine whom both male leads disowned, so one is left only with the clumsy and repetitious jokes of one woman, two husbands, and which one will she pick.

Vicky Lowndes (Jean Arthur) leads a normal life with her husband of less than a year. Hank (Melvyn Douglas) does his best to avoid the subject of Vicky's previous husband, his best friend Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray). However, when Bill comes back from the dead via a boat from the island he'd been shipwrecked on, the happy Lowndeses become a strange threesome. It is up to Vicky to choose which husband she prefers, but it isn't as simple as it sounds. She can't very well hurt the man she loves in order to be with the other man she loves.

Each cast member is adept at screwball comedy, which is what this film essentially is. However, there is a deeper vein too. Because both men are likable, it is suspenseful waiting for Vicky to choose a husband. This predicament triggers an emotional response as well. Arthur is reminiscent of Irene Dunne in her teamings with Cary Grant, but slightly funnier. Douglas and MacMurray couldn't be more different from each other, so that adds a new spin on the situation.

This movie is very much like My Favorite Wife starring Dunne and the incomplete Something's Got to Give starring Marilyn Monroe, but this film gives the wife two husbands, not the other way around. It is interesting to see how she handles the situation and how the men schmooze themselves silly to get into her good graces. In this way, it is quite a bit funnier.

Over at RKO Studios where My Favorite Wife was being done Columbia was working on Too Many Husbands, a reverse of the same plot premise. That is a presumed dead husband showing up unexpectedly and inconveniently and complicating poor Jean Arthur's life. Of course when your husbands are Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas that's a choice any girl would love being stuck with.

Too Many Husbands as a history going back to a W.Somerset Maugham play and before that to Tennyson's Enoch Arden. In this version Arthur has married her late husband's publishing partner in their firm Melvyn Douglas. But like Irene Dunne who spent several years on her tropical island in My Favorite Wife, Fred MacMurray is only there for a few months. Douglas however convinced he was really dead got him declared so in order that he may marry Arthur.

So now what to do? After all kinds of methods tried the decision is really kind of taken out of their hands. Will the loser bow out gracefully? One never knows in these things.

Jean Arthur was a mainstay over at Columbia Pictures, but her leading men MacMurray and Douglas were borrowed from Paramount and MGM respectively. And instead of a live in mother Arthur has a doting father in Harry Davenport living with her who just wishes things would go back to normal with one man in her life. Presiding over it all is Douglas's butler Melville Cooper whose facial expressions are a throwback to silent era days. But they're all he needs to get his point across.

A remake of this with a military and show business background was done in 1955 called Three For The Show. Even with Betty Grable, Jack Lemmon, and Gower Champion around it's decidedly inferior to this.

Too Many Husbands even got some Oscar recognition with a nomination for Best Sound Recording. Fans of the three leads should be pleased.

When I first heard the premise;a spouse declared dead comes back home after months alone on an island , only to find his beloved wife has re-entered marital bliss with his best friend, I thought 'it'll be interesting to see if they come anywhere near the brilliance of "My Favorite Wife"' And I also presumed this had to be a rather blatant rip-off of the Cary Grant-Irene Dunne classic released ,incidentally, in the same year. Boy was I wrong! For starters this appears to have been released months earlier and the screenplay,comic timing,and acting are easily in the same league as the best of the so-called 'screwball comedies'. When Jean Arthur is "on" there is no actress who can beat her and she looks about as good in this rarely shown film as she ever has . Fred MacMurry and Melvyn Douglas hold up their end, but the surprise, for me, was good old Harry Davenport who gets many lines , many chances to display bravado mugging and line readings, and never fails. This is a Jean Arthur film that needs immediate release on the DVD market!!

I've just discovered this lighthearted film today on tv and must admit it has all the fine elements that make for a good stage play -- plenty of sure-fire dialogue, continual momentum to the story (never a dull moment), and light touches of original music. There are some hilarious moments so downright comical it made me burst out laughing. Just accept it as one more comedy of that era and you'll enjoy it nicely without having to make comparisons or look for weaknesses. Harry Davenport as the father adds his wisdom where he can. I feel all the actors had a good romp in this movie and I liked the repartee amongst them very much. Not sure precisely how it ended so will need to see it again some day. It's a fun movie indeed.