One of producer Hal B. Wallis' best films, this is a delightfully brittle comedy of manners with great production values including an A-1 cast (Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson. Eugene Palette, Hattie MacDaniel), smartly directed by Elliott Nugent, who played the Fonda role on Broadway. The James Thurber—Elliott Nugent stage play has been ingeniously opened out, though still retaining most of its smart talk. Fonda is superb, and receives excellent support from the entire cast, including – most unexpectedly – Don DeFore who has by far his best cinema moments here. True, he and Herbert Anderson seem a bit old for college kids, but who's worrying?
Review of The Male Animal
