On ne roule pas sa femme

Lighthearted and engaging. Special notice to actress Emma Dunn who plays Mother Fields, funny and gifted. Highly recommended!!! A chance to see a movie that is from the golden age of films. Lucille Ball plays 2 characters towards the end and is highly engaging.

This RKO second feature stars Lucille Ball and James Ellison, starts out amusingly -- particularly the scene where Ellison is hung over and the toaster is very noisy -- but ends in very predictable fashion. The leads can't hold this fluff together: Ball is unconvincing and Ellison is too montonous. Robert Coote, in support, is excellent.

If you're a Lucille Ball fan and want to see a bit of her dramatic range (even though this is a screwball comedy--kind of), this is a great little film that shows off more of her depth. I was incredibly impressed, being only familiar with her TV shows and comedy movies like Fancy Pants, Yours Mine, etc., and the pretty bad Desi/Lucy movies. It helps that this film is actually very well written--although it does, as the other commentator on this board points out, have a "sloppy" ending. Still, the dialogue is witty and intelligent, especially the lines slung by Ball's "mother," and Ball herself gets to do more than just character impressions--which she gets to do as well, and here you'll see the early Lucy Ricardo shining through in all her comedic glory.

Andrew Hinklin (James Ellison) and Clara Fields (Lucille Ball) graduate from college in 1935 and get married. Neither are social people and she's concerned about their stale marriage. It doesn't help that they're living with her bitter mother. He's a meek straight-laced accountant forced by his superiors to take out wild boss' son Battincourt from the London office. Clara is not happy with drunken Andrew. Battincourt has his own idea of helping.

This is an old comedy which isn't that funny. Humor is a fickle master and it doesn't always age well. The most fascinating aspect is a young Lucille Ball. She's in her late twenties here. This is one of her numerous B-movies before finally climbing to the top. Clara is a bit of a wet blanket but she gets to grow and Ball also gets to play doppelganger Mercedes Vasquez. I just can't get over how young she looks. She is so different here that it's hard to say that her future is inevitable. All I can say is that she has a compelling presence and a good range.

Strictly a B-film programmer, YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE would have more accurately been titled YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR HUSBAND, because it's the hubby who has the wool pulled over his eyes by a plan that backfires when his wife attempts to disguise herself as a Latin beauty.

It's one of those light-hearted romantic comedies with a screwball touch that LUCILLE BALL got to do during her RKO days. And fortunately, although he has a rather thankless role, JAMES ELLISON has good chemistry with her and is a bit less bland than usual in a role that reveals he had a flair for this kind of romp.

EMMA DUNN has the kind of mother role that was a forerunner of the parts THELMA RITTER would play in the '50s--quick with the sarcastic one-liners that have her treating her son-in-law like a bum. ROBERT COOTE has a fine time as a gentleman who comes up with the scheme to save Ellison's marriage.

It spins its tale in just a little over an hour and ends up with a rather bittersweet ending on a false note, and much too abruptly.