Pas un mot à ma femme

A fun Nat Perrin script gives some big laughs to Si Jenks. A gold mine of experienced talent is found under Cabanne's direction. Wonderful to see Una in the uno role. Guy Kibbee carries the action and stars in this. Mix together co-conspirators Thurston Hall, Lynne Overman, Big Boy Williams, William Demarest and numerous others in a convention of characters sucked into the caper. You get a unique chemistry of clever dialogue. Not dated, this is immersed in a modern culture of fraudulent phone sales which has only grown since 1937. This turns into a Western for a few minutes and ends with marital bliss. Lucille Ball and Hattie McDaniel are also involved. If you ever rooted for Una to get a lead role where she defers to no one, this is for you.

The busiest players in the Hollywood Studio era had to be the character actors. I don't think any of them rested at all. A whole gang of them got to work here in Don't Tell the Wife and with no star to steal scenes from they practiced their scene stealing monkeyshines on each other.

Guy Kibbee writes a financial column and a group of conmen Thurston Hall, Guinn Williams, Lynne Overman, and William Demarest have decided he's the perfect gullible dupe in which to hide their nefarious scheme involving a gold mine. They also need some seed money for their enterprise and a related con involves Lynne Overman convincing wife Una Merkel that the scheme is on the up and up. Kibbee is also used as a patsy for that.

That's as far as I'm going to go, but if you watch this picture and see all these wonderful players do their shtick, you almost might forget the plot here.

There was one star here however and one Academy Award winner. Hattie McDaniel is down in the cast list as, what else, a maid. And in a small role as the secretary to the schemers was Lucille Ball who became a bigger name than any of them. But that was in the distant future.

Don't Tell the Wife (1937)

** (out of 4)

An all-star cast of character actors are wasted in this rather flat comedy. A con man gets released from prison and decides to head back into the stock fraud racket but his ex-partner is now married and his wife (Una Merkel) refuses to let him "invest" any money unless they can show proof that this new business deal is legit. They hire a dimwitted magazine writer (Guy Kibbee) to pretend to be a wizard at stocks but he ends up causing more trouble than anything. DON'T TELL THE WIFE has a decent idea but sadly it never comes together due in large part to some poor pacing from director Christy Cabanne but also a very weak screenplay that frankly just doesn't contain anything funny. It's a real shame that the screenplay is so disappointing because we're treated to a very good cast. Kibbee really can't add too much to the film as he's playing the same type of dimwitted character that he had countless times by this point in his career. The actor is always charming to watch but his character is really letdown by the script. Merkel is also wasted in her supporting role as is Lynne Overman as her husband and Thurston Hall as the con man. Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams plays his typical dumb thug and we also get Lucille Ball in a small part as well as Hattie McDaniel in a brief bit and we also have Wilfred Lucas in a very brief bit. DON'T TELL THE WIFE remains mildly entertaining thanks to the wonderful cast but there's just no getting around the fact that for a comedy there just aren't any laughs.

Thurston Hall gets out of prison and back to selling gold mines in a boiler room. He's got a new wrinkle to avoid going to prison: he's got a mine. Is there gold in it, asks one of his crew? He has no idea.

They tap Lynne Overman for the start-up capital, but his wife, Una Merkel, wants to know who's backing the operation. One of the Wall Street Winthrops, he claims; so they track down clownish Guy Kibbee, whose name happens to be Winthrop, to serve as the nominal head of the firm.

There's a fine selection of comics in this movie directed by Christy Cabanne, including 'Big Boy' Williams, William Demarest, Lucille Ball, and Si Jenks. Cabanne has the reputation of being one of the worst directors ever to grind film, but given a decent budget, he proved that false, and here's the proof. It's very funny.

When Winthorp gets out of jail, he meets up with the gang (Big Boy Williams and William Demarest) and quickly starts planning his next caper, selling shares in a phony mine. Lynne Overman is Steven, who might also be interested, but his loud bossy wife (Una Merkel) runs the roost. and Lucy is the secretary of the phony mine company. not much of a part, really. it's all okay. kind of choppy, as they try to stay one step ahead of the law. William Demarest was always Great, and Una Merkel steals the show. Not bad, but not anyone's best work. Directed by Christy Cabanne, who had started out with D.W. Griffith, but never achieved that kind of greatness. fun to finally see this one, since they hardly ever show it. early Lucy.