Double Wedding

Another William Powell/Myrna Loy pairing from the 1930's. Powell plays an eccentric artist who has convinced an 'about to be married' couple to invest in a film he wants to make w/them but standing in their way is Loy, the bride's sister, who is of the overly controlling sort who wants no part of his scheme. As always, the verbal & comedic fireworks are on full blast as soon as the bickering couple meet & somehow fall in love by film's end. The final scene's in Powell's motor-home rivals the famous Marx Brothers sequence from A Night of the Opera as friends & hanger-on's keep popping into the crammed space as the hilarity comes to a boil.

... with all of its chaotic slapstick, that and the fact that some of this film was shot shortly after Jean Harlow's sudden untimely death makes what probably would have been an 8/10 screwball comedy lose a star. William Powell was involved with Harlow and she and Myrna Loy had been close friends, so her death naturally cast a pall over the production.

It has a cute premise. Charlie Lodge (William Powell) is an avantgarde artist who lives in a trailer outside of a local nightspot - Spike's. He has made the acquaintance of Irene Agnew (Florence Rice) and her passive fiance Waldo Beaver (John Beal). It seems that Charlie has written a movie script and he has Irene and Waldo acting out the leads for him, although this entire matter just gets dropped about 15 minutes in. Irene and Waldo are very afraid of Irene's older sister Margit (Myrna Loy), as she would disapprove of the two - adults mind you - associating with and befriending Charlie.

When Margit does hear of it and goes to retrieve them, she walks in on Charlie reenacting a scene from his movie script where he passionately embraces Irene. Margit thinks it's a real embrace, but in a way it is. Irene has become smitten with Charlie as a result, and Margit goes to Charlie to tell him to stop seeing her sister. However, Charlie is actually smitten with Margit, and so he makes excuses to see her. Initially that excuse is a portrait he says he wants to paint of her, but like the movie script, that too gets dropped shortly thereafter. Charlie pushes things to the edge to get Waldo to show some spine to Irene so as to win her back, and also to get Margit to fall for him. How does this work out? Watch and find out.

If you appreciate the magic of Loy and Powell then I think you'll like this one too, but I've seen better from the pair made before this and I've seen better films starring them that were made afterwards.

A very funny, romantic movie. I enjoyed all the little creative pieces of "business" and lines such as "...you rang my gong." I enjoyed the treat of Sidney Toler as Keough.

I enjoyed the beautiful, wonderful cars of the 1930s, and the background scenes of beautiful, wonderful downtown Los Angeles of the '30s and into the 1950s. I was born there in 1934 and remember it well when it was a beautiful place to live. Ah, nostalgia!! This is what it really did look like then.

Powell is an artist, a free spirit who disrupts the well-made plans of Loy, who controls the lives of her kid sister (Rice) and the latter's fiancé with an iron fist. Like the dozen other teamings of Powell and Loy, it is fun to watch the two pros match wits. Beal is funny as Rice's milquetoast fiancé, whom Powell tries to make a man out of. Powell is an aspiring writer/director who coaches Beal and Rice in acting out a love story; unable to arouse passion out of Beal, Powell demonstrates by passionately kissing the lovely Rice, who falls in love with him. Of course, Powell falls in love with Rice's sister, Loy, setting the stage for comic situations.

A screwball romantic comedy...but somebody forgot to tighten the screws. Confusion reigns after a ne'er-do-well man becomes involved with both a would-be actress and her domineering, humorless sister. Funny cast (including the "Thin Man" couple, Myrna Loy and William Powell) have a high time with their eccentric characters and fast, witty dialogue, but the plot is extremely thin, taking everyone around in circles. Too bad this didn't have firmer handling, the potential was here for a comedy classic. Loy's continuous bad temper gets the biggest laughs, however the wild slapstick climax boasts some very amusing sight-gags. **1/2 from ****