oscaralbert Review of My Favorite Wife

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Irene Dunne gives Katharine Hepburn her best shot . . .

[8/10 · 12 January 2018]

. . . aping each of Kate's trademark screwball comedy wry wriggles, shrugs, and grunts in a desperate effort to rope Cary Grant into pulling off another BRINGING UP BABY. Unfortunately, Randolph Scott is more of a Tarzan than a leopard, and Dunne's relationship to Grant during MY FAVORITE WIFE brings to mind one of Groucho's lines ("This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas"). Even though it runs less than 90 minutes, MY FAVORITE WIFE seems to be packed with at least half an hour of "padding," from the shoe salesman through the insurance investigator to the final interminable squeaks-in-the-attic scene. Though as a "chick flick" MY FAVORITE WIFE may merit a rating of "8" for its ability to make men look foolish, as a script it's a "6" at best. ADAM'S RIB this is not. While Mr. Scott's approach to getting into a High Society swimming pool merits a chuckle, the tagline's promise of "A Laff a Minute" makes one wonder if WIFE's distributor--RKO movie studio--went belly-up because of this sort of false advertising.