My Favorite Wife (1940)

RKO Pictures

Director: Garson Kanin

Starring: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are teamed up once again in screwball comedy as they play a loving couple separated into two detached relationships due to extraordinary circumstances. This madcap picture takes its stars all over a gambit of emotions from relief and passion, to jealousy and deceit, and back again in a romantic comedy that brings with it its great share of laughs.

My Favorite Wife is a screwball comedy about a woman who returns home years after being declared dead after an accident to find her husband with a new wife and their complications of getting back together. Seven years after his wife disappeared at sea, Nick Arden (Cary Grant) has his wife Ellen (Irene Dunne) declared legally dead so that he may marry Bianca (Gail Patrick). However Ellen returns home with the story she was shipwrecked on an island for the past several years. Ellen intercepts Nick on his honeymoon, who is overjoyed by Ellen’s returned, but bothered to break the news to Bianca knowing he has to break bad news to his new, demanding wife. Nick becomes somewhat of a bumbling buffoon as he tries to juggle these two women in his life. A wrench is through into the happiness of Ellen’s  return when Nick discovers Ellen shared her time on the island with a handsome, virile man named Stephan (Randolf Scott) making Nick extremely jealous. Jealousy turns to playful revenge antics between Nick and Ellen, but things turn out all right as they finally admit that they are only in love with each other.

It is an interesting plot of “what if…” concerning the loss of a significant other for a prolonged period of time only to unexpectedly return mixed into a zany comedy where the individuals juggle the other aspects of their lives that entered in while separated. The story makes for creative off-the-wall situation for laughter, buried within it several plays on words and sexually suggestive material that would make a religious mother blush. Filled with jealousy and revenge, the comedy makes for a wonderful 90 minutes of entertainment.

Cary Grant had quietly become the king of the romantic screwball comedy through his career, while Irene Dunne had made the successful transition from gifted musical star to comedienne. The two stars would appear made for a movie such as this. Both played wickedly charming characters that were smart, but could be scatterbrained as well. Irene Dunne plays the heart of the picture, while Cary Grant is the energy and butt of nearly every joke as he becomes increasingly haunted by the need to tell his new spouse that his deceased wife is not indeed dead, and the jealous emotions he has for his wife learning she had spent the last seven years with another man by circumstance.

Randolph Scott plays the handsome man that makes Cary Grant jealous.

To opposite of Grant and Dunne characters are Gail Patrick and Randolph Scott as the “others” in their relationship. Scott was the strapping, masculine individual that haunts Nick’s thoughts as the man that might steal his beloved Ellen from him. His character of Stephan is reminiscent of Johnny Weissmuller and his appearance as Tarzan in the very popular film series of the 1930s and 40s. Weissmuller as a famed athlete, actor, and sex symbol would be a prevalent figure to base the rival character on. Scott was a good friend of Cary Grant’s and was in fact his roommate at the time as the two bachelors lived in a Malibu apartment together. Scott’s credits were usually westerns, but during this period he was making his way into contemporary comedies and dramas in Hollywood. Gail Patrick was a beautiful actress that played very well the face of the romantic rival of many leading ladie in many pictures, and here does no different. Patrick plays Bianca, the self-absorbed new bride of Nick who from the beginning is fixed to be upset with her new husband who begins to act suspicious only to realize his first wife had returned from the supposed grave.

The plot of My Favorite Wife comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden” which shares the tale of a man lost at sea only to return to find his wife remarried. It’s a story told and retold many times over in various films, but what made this picture different was that it was the wife that was lost at sea and returned home. As tribute to the original inspiration was that the use of the last named Arden.

Originally the feature was to reunite director Leo McCarey with stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne who worked together on box office success The Awful Truth. Due to a car accident McCarey had to be replaced by Garison Kanin, a stage and film director whose credits were not as vast, but produced a fine product for the studio. McCarey remained partially within the creative process of the picture as he aided in the editing process of the final feature.

The film was a financial success for RKO and made a decent profit. Aside from box office numbers, the picture was a critical triumph landing three Academy Award nominations, including Best Story, Best Score, and Best Art Direction, the later undoubtedly for the beautiful hotel set inspired by the stunning rustic resorts in Yosemite National Park.

This feature would inspire a remake in 1962 that would be more famous for not being completed. Something’s Got to Give was an adaption that had Marilyn Monroe playing the role Ellen, but professional issues bothered the production, putting it in a holding pattern, which became indefinite with the sudden passing of the star actress at 36 years old.

It would continue to be difficult for later filmmakers to attempt remaking My Favorite Wife as this film remains a very well received motion picture through the decades. The film’s two stars would pair up one more time in the 1941 George Stevens’ film Penny Serenade, although it would be more of a melodrama instead of a comedy in the likes of The Awful Truth or My Favorite Wife.

Grant and Dunne’s chemistry is wonderful for the feature and continues to entertain as a screwball comedy. Though not a movie with much depth, the film is still one viewers can continue to enjoy over and over again for a long time to come.