User Reviews

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne catch each other in a white lie and the quarrel leads to a marriage breakup. The only bone of contention is that there's a dog who is a family pet that they both love. They go to court and Dunne with a bit of trickery wins the custody battle.

This is one of those comedies where the people can't live with each other or without each other and both are too stubborn to admit it. Cary gets himself involved with society debutante Marguerite Churchill and Irene takes up with mother fixated oil millionaire Ralph Bellamy.

Any fan of old Hollywood films can tell you how this one will end. My favorite bit is when Irene crashes the Churchill household with Cary there and pretends to be his drunken floozy of a sister.

Leo McCarey won an Oscar for Best Director and Irene and Bellamy were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. McCarey keeps the laughs coming and takes advantage of the talents of all his players, Irene's voice and Cary's gift for physical comedy.

And as for Mr. Smith the little terrier who finds out he's not all that Cary and Irene have in common. Well he's one lucky little fellow to be in a classic comedy like this.

Cary Grant reportedly had little faith in this film, and wanted to quit the project, but it came to garner six Oscar nominations and earned the Best Director statuette for director Leo McCarey.

Thanks to McCarey, "The Awful Truth" is a comedy gem. With a running time of only 1.5 hours, it is packed with funniness. This is due in large part to McCarey's sense of comedy, his ability to retain control over the editing process, and the way he improved the script throughout filming. Also, it certainly didn't hurt that he had worked with Laurel and Hardy, whose physical style of humor translates well on Cary Grant. For another example of his comedy chops, check out "Ruggles of Red Gap".

Grant plays Jerry Warriner, husband to Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne). They have a breezy, free-wheeling marriage that heads for divorce when they suspect each other of indiscretions. They go to court to determine custody of the dog, Mr. Smith (Skippy, who most viewers will recognize as Asta in "The Thin Man") then go their separate ways. Except they somehow keep bumping into each other.

Despite Grant's misgivings about the production, he is his usual, charming self. Dunne is delightful in return. In one scene, she pretends to be Jerry's uncultured sister as a means of embarrassing him before a genteel assemblage. Watching the two of them together is like watching a master class in comedy---under the expert tutelage of Mr. McCarey, of course.

Ralph Bellamy plays an Oklahoma oilman and rancher who has the expressive personality of a cowboy in a drawing room. Alexander D'Arcy plays Armand, Lucy's suggestively suave vocal instructor. And Cecil Cunningham is Lucys' Aunt Patsy, who tries to help the couple steer a sensible course through the stormy waters of matrimonial disunion. Bellamy and Dunne received Oscar nominations.

This movie is exquisitely directed and acted. The "fourth wall" is gone; the movie rides so high and smart that we as audience can be subtly acknowledged throughout and made complicit in the production, while we continue to believe in the characters and care about what happens to them.

Much of the important dialogue is "throw-away" dialogue, in a sense. It's clear to the hearing, but lines are often spoken by the characters to themselves, for their own (and our) amusement, or delivered in very deftly choreographed "simultaneity," each speaker maintaining an independent point of view in rapid-fire repartee. Implications are understated. We are expected to expect the unexpected, to listen to every line.

The plot is composed like a piece of music. Each scene takes moment from the time-line established by the impending day and hour and minute at which a husband (Cary Grant) and wife (Irene Dunne) become legally divorced, and the movie ends at precisely the stroke of midnight which marks that moment. They clearly want each other back, but will they cleave together or cleave apart as the clock strikes midnight?

One extended "movement" of the movie lets Cary Grant charmingly undermine his wife's new relationship. In corresponding scenes later, Irene Dunne brilliantly plays a dumb floozie, pretending to be the husband's sister and demolishing in one evening his reputation and his prospects for marriage in respectable society. In these later scenes, in another of the movie's nice compositional touches, she does a reprise of a hoochie musical number performed earlier by a girlfriend of her husband's, and then falls into her husband's arms, apparently drunk. He gestures for her to look back and say goodnight to the horrified guests (and to us) as they do a wonderful little wobbly dance out the door, having burned their bridges behind them.

I found the opening few scenes of the movie unlikable, but with the entrance of Irene Dunne, the movie gets us on board. There's so much great understated visual and verbal double entendre (in the best sense) that I want to go back and see if there's more that I missed. In one scene, Cary Grant has brought to Irene Dunne's new fiancé the paperwork on a coal mine the divorcing couple still own. Interrupted by a visitor while advising the fiancé on where it would good to sink a shaft (har!), he explains that he and the fiancé (brilliantly played by Ralph Bellamy as a very successful bumpkin businessman) are transacting a business deal. The movie moves along briskly and doesn't play up the point, but we catch, for a fraction of a second, Irene Dunne squirming as she finds herself looking like the business transaction in question. The movie moves through moments like this quickly, with high respect for our intelligence and our capacity to get in on the joke.

Nothing in this movie makes sense, and it really doesn't matter. It succeeds with its self-assured anarchy and the charm of its stars.

Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy and especially Irene Dunne are in top form. Dunne has been often overlooked for her comic talents. The contrast of her well-bred demeanor and inner wickedness is a delight -- such as when she does a burlesque dance for a parlor of society snobs. She always appears to be on the edge of laughter at the antics of Grant and the buffoonery of Bellamy. A wonderful nonsensical scene is of the musically skilled Dunne at the piano trying to sing "Home on the Range" with the hopelessly off-key Bellamy.

Grant is in the period of his career where he's not afraid of self-parody. He's at his best when he takes nobody and nothing seriously, and he's especially funny at tormenting the slow-witted Bellamy. And Bellamy is so good at playing dumb, you have to wonder if perhaps he's not really in on the joke. (Grant and Bellamy basically repeat their roles, with the same success, in "His Girl Friday," another first-rate comedy).

"The Awful Truth" is the masterpiece of Leo McCarey. There's really nothing else quite like it.

They really don't make 'em like this any more. I mean, really. Sure, dialog in films since the '60s, and certainly the '70s, has tended to become more naturalistic and the acting less stylized and 'stagey' than in the old days, but somewhere along the way, amidst all the gains in technology and (sometimes) realism, we lost something. One of the things we lost, I think, was the ability to write, direct, and act pieces such as this. I don't know exactly why this is so but, excellent as many of Hollywood's current actors are, I am not sure that something like this could be pulled off as well today. For one, I think that today's writers and directors, even some of the better ones, tend to cater to a greater degree to the lowest common denominator; compounding that, I'd assert that even with advances in educational resources, technology, and the fabric of society (civil rights, etc, though like these others such facets of American society have been greatly eroded of late), the lowest common denominator today is lower than it was in 1937.

Regardless, this film is a gem from start to finish, in every way. Even the dog, that weird-looking little beast that shows up again in "Bringing Up Baby," is a sterling actor; indeed, he's better in his role and more convincing a thespian than many of today's so-called stars. The writing is incredible. Like the way the film's structured, the dialog is clever (I understand that much of it was improvised, testament to the quality of actors involved working with an already great script) and the themes and situations are ones that transcend time, no matter how long ago the '30s might seem to most of us. It's madcap but it's not too much, and there are many points during which I think the filmmakers were pushing the boundaries to see just how far they could go in that heavily-restricted age of film. Obscene or vulgar language and the like can be funny in the right context (or, obviously, reinforce or suggest other emotions) but there may be some truth also in that old saying to the effect that yelling obscenities, or just pouring them forth as part of normal dialog, indicates a lack of anything more erudite to say. In there, I think, you also find part of the key to what made this older comedies so perfect and so timeless; innuendo, no matter how obscure (even if it goes over many heads) is almost always far more interesting and humorous than a full-frontal attack on the senses. Of course, the makers of these old films had little choice but sometimes out of necessity comes a level of genius and craftsmanship that surpasses by far what might have been the more unfettered route to telling the story.

Have I mentioned that the dialog is great? Check this example out:

Lucy : Well, I mean, if you didn't feel that way you do, things wouldn't be the way they are, would they? I mean, things could be the same if things were different.

Jerry : But things are the way you made them.

Lucy : Oh, no. No, things are the way you THINK I made them. I didn't make them that way at all. Things are just the same as they always were, only, you're the same as you were, too, so I guess things will never be the same again.

Magic.

I started watching old movies like these, after two or more decades of mostly viewing movies from the '70s and later, when a few viewings of Sergio Leone films got me interested in that director's influences and from there I went to Kurosawa, back to his idol John Ford, and then Howard Hawks and John Huston and so on, starting to re-explore offerings by Bogart, Cary Grant, and others, including some classic films that I don't think I've ever seen ("Gunga Din," for example). Right now I'm in the midst of a major Cary Grant kick -- the man was brilliant on film and was one who could crack the audience up with a single facial expression or slay 'em with a deft one-liner -- and so this film more than satisfies. It's also the film that really catapulted him into the big time once and for all. Irene Dunn is easily his equal in the sparring on screen (she's incredible in this film,and gets to wear some far-out, glamorous clothes and funky li'l hats) and, indeed, all involved are tremendous in their roles. Cecil Cunningham for example, as Aunt Patsy, has few lines but almost all of them are real zingers. It's a perfect blend of slapstick, farce, and deeper insight kept moving along relentlessly, but digestibly, by a highly professional cast and a director at the top of his game.

I've actually heard people disdain older movies because they're in back-and-white (and even, for that matter, newer movies shot monochrome). They're missing out on a vast legacy of brilliant storytelling and film-making from around the world: not just treasures from Hollywood's most golden Golden Age but wonders like Russia's "Ivan's Childhood," "Yojimbo," and so many more as well as movies made in Hollywood as late as the '60s and '70s that intentionally used monochrome (Frankenheimer's "Seconds" and, of course, "Psycho" and many other masterpieces). Besides, the expert cinematographers who shot many such films, both through careful use of light and filters and through the vivid clarity of their work, actually manage to suggest color where none is present.

This one's loaded with color, and fun, and it really is a film that stands up today as it always will. Thank goodness we have such archival materials as videotape and digitized discs that not only ensure the preservation of such treasures but allow us to call them up whenever we wish to be really entertained.

The Awful Truth certainly isn't awful, but I don't see it as one of the best comedies of the 1930s. Leo McCarey does handle the material very well and the two leads are good but the overall story is weak in many spots. Still, I enjoyed if only for Cary Grant's performance.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest actors in cinema history, Grant started out in silly little screwballs such as this and Bringing Up Baby and you can clearly see his comedic side taking full effect. Grant was wonderful with facial expressions and delivering the fast-paced, sizzling dialogue. Here he does both with fine class. Irene Dunne also is charming and very lovely to look at, but I felt the supporting actors were rather weak and couldn't match the sophistication of Grant and Dunne. Still, this film is rather funny in some parts and Grant elevates the material to more than it is. See it if only for him.

When I was a little child, my mother used to tell me again and again the main scenes of this irresistible comedy, and we laughed our asses off. Much later, I had the good fortune to see it myself, at an oldies-goldies TV re-run, and it amused me like nuts.

Today, as a movie professional, I can safely state that it's an instance of PURE COMEDY: bright humor, pointed satire, a healthy dose of absurd, deliciously foolish, a fast-paced rhythm that makes the 90 minutes seem barely 9 seconds! You see it again and again, and wish for it never to come to an end! THIS, ladies and gentleman, is the stuff of real comedy - not all the Apatow and Seltzer moronic obscenities! Platinum class vintage!

Nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Screenplay) and a huge box office hit when originally released, THE AWFUL TRUTH is a screamingly hysterical marital comedy that hasn't lost one iota of its punch in the seven decades since it's release. Irene Dunne is amazing in a layered performance that is both subtly affecting and side-splittingly funny - sometimes within the same scene! The scene in which Dunne masquerades as Grant's floozy, night club dwelling sister is one of the brightest highlights in film comedy history. Dunne received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her inspired work in this film, which endures as a reminder of why she was one of Hollywood's top actress during the thirties and forties.

After flirting with success in SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), SYLVIA SCARLETT (1935), and TOPPER (1937), Cary Grant finally became a bonafide superstar with his performance in THE AWFUL TRUTH. Grant was an absolute master when it came to delivering one liners, and the prowess that he displays in the film's many moments of physical comedy is nothing short of phenomenal. Exceptional performances are also delivered by the rest of the cast (including Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nominee Ralph Bellamy), but the film's real scene stealer is the incredible canine performer Asta as Mr. Smith, which is easily the best performance by a dog ever! Leo McCarey won a much-deserved Academy Award for his frenetic direction of what is surely one of the all-time greatest comedies.

Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, "superstars" of their era, don't quite have the chemistry that Grant had with other of his co-stars, like Rosalind Russell in "My Girl Friday." But this is an interesting if predictable example of the Screwball Comedy era. and, as in "My Girl Friday," Ralph Bellamy is the foil for the out-of-love, then back-in-love pair.

Ms. Dunne's stardom has largely been forgotten, unlike Grant's, and few contemporary film-goers are likely to remember Leo McCarey, the director. But Dunne is delightful and McCarey was a successful director, though out of his element here.

The problem, in addition to feeble chemistry between the leading stars, is that "The Awful Truth" leans much too heavily on slapstick to qualify as a sterling exemplar of the genre. The dialog and the pace of the movie are a little off and Bellamy isn't at all convincing in his role as the rich Oklahoma businessman with the meddling Mama who wants to take Dunne away from Grant and Manhattan to Oklahoma City. Furthermore, Grant is asked to try much too hard to supply the physical side on which the laughs depend.

The movie makes for a pleasant 90 minutes and is worth seeing, if only as a window on Ms. Dunne's considerable talent. But it doesn't belong in the Screwball Comedy pantheon.

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a pair of world-weary socialites who, almost on a whim, decide to divorce. It is insinuated that Grant really has had an affair, but the end of his rope is when his wife wanders in, in front of all of their friends, after having spent the night in an inn with a man when their car broke down the previous night. It really DID break down. What's good for the goose is not good for the gander. His pride is wounded, but so is her honor wounded when he won't just believe her.

It's a screwball comedy, but it's also a love story, an interrogation of the institution of marriage, and a celebration of the human character in all its warped perfection. All of McCarey's main characters (Jerry, Lucy, Aunt Patsy, Leeson, Duvalle, and even Dixie Belle) are graced with sympathetic human qualities. The director isn't chasing an easy laugh at the expense of a cheap foil, but rather inviting us to recognize (and laugh at) our own peculiarities in the eccentricities of these characters.

But in spite of their pride, it is fate, and Ralph Bellamy and even Mr. Smith the dog that make them both realize that the awful truth is that they need one another. And how this film end is most unconventional for a production code era film.

This film is about "the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades." That's pretty much all you need to know.

The comedy of this film is incredible, with some subtle physical comedy combined with some verbal jabs. It's not as physical as Buster Keaton or as barbed as Groucho Marx, but it's a light, fun comedy that can be appreciated by just about anyone. This is an example of "screwball comedy", which originated with Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing". Many people may not realize the humor of Shakespeare, but this film would prove them wrong.

What I found somewhat surprising was the lightness this film had with approaching divorce and the couple's subsequent romantic hook-ups. While there is no outright sexual material in it, the topic of divorce would seem taboo and then the way multiple dates are being held by a couple that is still legally married. I'm certainly not offended, just a tad surprised.

There are screwball romantic comedies with lots of chemistry, snappy dialogue and tight pacing. Preston Sturgess usually had something to do with them, such as with "Sullivan's Travels" and "Dinner at Eight" and anything with William Powell and Myrna Loy exemplified the genre.

"The Awful Truth" ain't one of those films. The casting is serviceable, although Cary Grant (who has done this exact role 6,000 times before) isn't at his most sparkling here. The real faults are the script, which is long on clichés and short on actual wit, and the pacing which is uncomfortably long and with long passages of little or nothing going on. The story telegraphs every plot turn miles in advance, leaving the viewer with nothing but waiting for the inevitable to take place. I wanted to like it but I spent most of the film just waiting for it to end.

I grudgingly watched this movie at my fiancé's request. But I really enjoyed it wholeheartedly and I laughed out loud at least a dozen time. In addition to being very clever and funny, the story was interesting and heartwarming. Cary Grant player Jerry Warriner, am man to whom we are introduced while he is in a tanning bed to help provide the alibi that he was on vacation in Florida. We never find out what he was 'really' doing but it was probably naughty. He returns home to an empty house early in the morning. He doesn't know where his wife is and then she returns in a full evening gown with a handsome "continental" man. It sounds dramatic, but its actually very very funny. I enjoyed seeing the double entendres and the innuendos that they were forced (by convention) to use in 1937. I am going to buy this movie and watch it repeatedly, just as I watch "The Apartment" and "Some Like it Hot"

Irene Dunne is luminous in what critic Andrew Sarris called one of the finest comic creations in film history. Dunne and Grant (this film launched him as a huge star) play a couple who hastily divorce and then alternately take turns trying to win each other back. Ralph Bellamy has the Ralph Bellamy role and plays it perfectly. This was the first of three great pairings between Dunne and Grant (My Favorite Wife and Penny Serenade being the others).

Dunne is THE great overlooked movie star - primarily because so many of her films were remade with the originals being taken out of circulation by the film studio (e. g. Show Boat, The Awful Truth, My Favorite Wife, Anna and the King of Siam, Cimarron, Back Street, Magnificent Obsession, Roberta, Love Affair among others). She was nominated for 5 Academy Awards for Best Actress (2 comedies- TAT, Theodora Goes Wild, a western - Cimarron, a character role - I Remember Mama, and a romance - Love Affair) but never won. I can only imagine that politics played a part in her not getting a special lifetime achievement Oscar later in her life (she was a strong Republican), after all Ralph Bellamy himself got one and his film career paled next to Dunne's.

Watch Theodora Goes Wild for another great Dunne Screwball performance.

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play an unhappily married couple who divorce only to discover they were happier married. Naturally they won't admit it...

You can probably guess the rest (the story is ages old), but this movie is fantastic! The acting is great--Dunne and Grant are in top form and work beautifully together. The script is hilarious with many great lines and moves VERY quickly. Director Leo McCarey won a well-deserved Oscar for this--a rare occasion for a director winning for a comedy. He keeps it moving and large chunks of the plot are explained by images and not clumsy exposition. Also Cecil Cunningham adds strong support as Aunt Patsy--her expressions are priceless and she nails her lines. Mr. Smith played by Asta is a dog who steals every scenes he's in. Ralph Bellamy is stuck with the impossible "good guy" role. He's fine but given nothing to do.

I've seen it at least seven times and I still laugh out loud each and every time. A definite must-see. There are many great lines but my favorite is--"Here's your diploma"

When a director says that he won an Oscar for the wrong film, one should take him seriously, as Leo McCarey did when he won the Best Director award for 'The Awful Truth'. He should have won for 'Make Way for Tomorrow', a far superior story, but perhaps too downbeat for a Hollywood trying to maintain a cheery attitude during the Great Depression.

Nevertheless, 'The Awful Truth' is a fun romp through a marriage undergoing a period of strain. Cary Grant plays a husband who appears to be dallying on the side (although not explicitly confirmed). Irene Dunne plays his wife, who may or may not be dallying on her side with her voice teacher (Alexander D'Arcy). They become suspicious of each other, and decide to get a divorce. Before the divorce becomes final, they decide to punish each other by dating others. The funniest parts come as they each find themselves with companions that are completely unsuitable and gradually figure it out.

Cary Grant shows his growing mastery of the sardonic humor combined with sensitivity that culminated in his performance in 'The Philadelphia Story'. Irene Dunne provides some masterful comedy touches, particularly at the end of recital which Grant butts in on, and delivers a come-hither look in another scene that is priceless. Cecil Cunningham dishes out some biting humor on romantic relationships as Dunne's aunt. Ralph Bellamy plays the role of the mama's boy bumpkin well, and Joyce Compton provides a Marilyn Monroe moment 20 years ahead of it's time.

This is a favorite film, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne at their absolute goofy best as a divorced couple who can't admit they still love one another. The comedy is flawless, the dialogue witty, the chemistry great between the two stars.

Cary Grant is handsome, sophisticated, but not above the occasional pratfall. And Dunne is fantastic as his wife. Her ultimate comedy scene comes in the home of Grant's high-class fiancée. Dunne enters, pretending to be his sister. She's total trash. She performs "Gone With the Wind" a tawdry nightclub act shown earlier in the film, where the gimmick is that the "wind" blows up the woman's dress Then she screams, "DON'T ANYBODY LEAVE THE ROOM. I CAN'T FIND MY PURSE." She's hilarious.

One of the top films of the '30s. I think it's a riot.

Leo McCarey must have been a great, fun guy to know. His anarchic, improvisational sense of humour comes across brilliantly in this lovely, joyful movie.

Despite their apparent concerns about McCarey's unstructured style of film making, Carey Grant and Irene Dunne come across as the perfect, imperfect couple and the film really works.

Although considered by some as the ultimate screwball comedy, whilst I found this very enjoyable, I can't say I found it super funny. Columbia's Harry Cohen however had all bases covered comedy wise by also having Frank Capra in his stable as well. Comedy is a very personal thing, personality, I think Capra had the edge over McCarey but if you're a Capra fan you should still enjoy this.

'The Awful Truth' just came out on DVD and what a treat! I'd never seen it before. It's sort of a first draft of 'My Favorite Wife' (remade as 'Move Over Darling') and has all the patented screwball-romantic comedy-French farce elements of the 'Palm Beach Story' but in a less sophisticated form. Even though 'The Awful Truth' may have established a formula for all subsequent screwball comedies, let's face it, it's still rude and crude around the edges. But it probably was the 'There's something about Mary' of its time and Leo McCarey apparently got an Oscar for Best Director. Its gags and dialogue are at times so unexpected as to be termed "experimental". The movie is really all about the sexual tension between Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, married partners who wilfully dissolve their marriage over the husband's possible infidelity (barely alluded to) and his lack of confidence in his wife's virtue (a.k.a. jealousy). But this being 1937, sexuality has to be expressed in devious, contrived ways, including the occasional gratuitous slapstick. The Swiss clock ending is worth the price of admission in this respect. As is Cary Grant's date's obscene nightclub performance and his martial arts irruption into a society afternoon recital where his wife (Dunne) is singing an Italian aria that none of Grant's pratfalls can interrupt, except for one, memorable, epoch-making, anthology-ready second and a half towards the end that no other (singing) actress could have pulled off. What one has to remember, I guess, is that none of this nonsense had ever been attempted, seen or done on a screen before and it must have seemed terribly daring and innovative, thanks to the complicity and high spirits of a perfect cast, including Gee-shucks cowboy Ralph Bellamy, irrepressible faux-French charmer Alexander D'Arcy and worldly aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham). Irene Dunne, as usual, is a total original, and, by the way, Katharine Hepburn copied her comedy style and not the other way around (check your dates, guys).

Why is it considered to be one of the best comedies and even one of the best movies of all time is mystery to me, but it is undoubtedly great movie. A romantic comedy about a couple who, due to mutual distrust, submit a divorce request, and then sabotage new relationships to each other in every possible and impossible way. First hour is cute and slightly boring, but last 30 minutes are hilarious. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne have great mutual chemistry and movie won Oscar for directing.

7,5/10

The funniest comedy ever made. An older friend introduced me to "The Awful Truth" in the days before VCRs. I thought it so hilarious, I taped the dialogue on a tape recorder when it was shown on local channels.

Of course, the most famous scene is the one in which Irene Dunne, still in love with husband Grant, appears at his society girl's family's estate. She pretends they are from a class these snobs would not accept. It is Dunne's finest ten minutes -- hilarious and it never grows old.

But the whole movie is funny. Cary Grant and his "continental mind." Grant thinking he is bursting in on a love nest, only to find himself in the middle of a sedate vocal recital. And Dunne, singing a Tosti song, watches him lovingly as he stumbles and executes pratfalls, ending her son with a laugh rather than the words of her song! Asta, even, is put to better use than he was in the delightful "Thin man" series. Here is their dog Mr. Smith.

Esther Dale never had a better role than as Ralph Bellamy's prudish and prurient mother. And Bellamy, as he played the wrong man so often in romantic comedies, is easy to take for granted. But he is delightful too.

Joyce Compton, in endless movies for a couple decades, is an absolute scream as Dixie Belle, the risqué nightclub performer with whom Grant takes up at around the time Dunne has taken up with deadly dull Bellamy.

Not only is this sequence funny but it is also touching: Don't we all, on the rebound, make choices that seem right but turn out catastrophic! I also like "Twentieth Century" and Bringing Up Baby." I do not like the smug "My Favorite Wife," also with Dunne and Grant" or the mean "Nothing Sacred." When it comes to screwball comedy, this is the one! It surely is one of the greatest of all American movies.

Leo McCarey directs this screwball marital comedy that stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a divorcing couple who secretly still love each other, so try desperately to thwart the other's romance: He to a "haughty" socialite(Molly Lamont), she to a "country bumpkin" oil magnate(Ralph Bellamy) He comes up with a scheme to visit their dog Mr. Smith, she tries to convince his fiancée that she is his scandalous sister. Guess what happens next. Oddly unappealing comedy has some laughs, but two obnoxious lead characters that aren't as wonderful as they think they are; stacks the deck by making their rivals look bad, which was grossly unfair. They really didn't seem that awful to me.