Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

morrison-dylan-fan Once I sorted out some movies for a friend,I decided to start catching up on films I had waiting to view. Finding Vivacious Lady a cheerful Rom-Com,I was pleased to spot another RKO creation from the genre,which led to me meeting my favourite wife!The plot:After his wife Ellen has been declared legally dead, Nick Arden gets married to Bianca Bates. Unknown to Nick,Ellen has actually been alive and living on an island with Stephen Burkett. Returning home,Ellen finds out that Nick has gone off on his honeymoon. Learning this,Ellen decides to give the happy couple a special honeymoon gift.View on the film:Taking over at the last minute when Leo McCarey got hurt in a car accident, (with McCarey's injuries making the comedy atmosphere desired on set difficult to retain) 27 year old director Garson Kanin enters the production with an impressive ease,as Kanin,editor Robert Wise (and un-credited editor McCarey) & cinematographer Rudolph Maté stylishly break the frame in two,so that the set-up and reaction to the punchlines are shown at the same time. Starting without a script in place, the writers never quite overcome the sown-together feel of the movie,but do weave a number of wonderful threads.Holding Nick and his two wives in the same hotel,the writers lock them in with sparkling Screwball Comedy dialogue which zips along Nick's very funny attempt to keep each wife unaware of the other. Introducing Bianca and Ellen to each other causes some of the one liners to lose their sparks to dry Drama,which gradually gets pushed aside by the playful rivalry between Nick and Burkett. Flatmates off-screen, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott both give terrific performances as Nick and Burkett,with Grant giving Nick shocked,slippery reactions to the sight of his "dead" wife",whilst Scott grabs the eyes of all the ladies,as a chiselled Burkett. Returning from the dead Irene Dunne gives a wickedly dead-pan performance as Ellen,whilst Gail Patrick hits the Screwball punchlines wide as Bianca,as Nick decides who his favourite wife is.

jimprideaux2 I thought the funniest scenes involved the judge, the front desk manager, the insurance agent and the Randolph Scott character.As someone else said Gail Patrick was more or less a prop - no personality good or bad. Irene Dunn couldn't make up her mind whether her character was in a comedy or a drama. Cary Grant thought he was in a home movie and enjoyed making faces at the camera.The main character just didn't behave as if they were in the situation they were supposed to be in -- wife lost at sea for years, husband not knowing what to do - really? Also, lets not tell the kids but just kinda bring them in as a joke.Little snappy dialogue and something off with the timing and delivery.Watching it I thought this was not the Cary Grant from His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace.

jc-osms I played this to myself on a long flight back from a winter sun holiday and the near 90 minutes it took up simply (pardon the pun) flew by. I love the screwball comedy "genre" and will be endeavouring this Christmas holiday to seek out as many examples as I can, but I doubt many of them will beat this Leo McCarey production directed by young hot-shot (at the time) Garson Kanin.The premise is as daffy as you would expect but boy do Cary Grant (at his effortless best) and one of his most supreme comic foils Irene Dunne run with it.I laughed out loud many times in the first thirty minutes and anxiously looked at my watch wondering where the story and laughs were going to come for the next 60 minutes but it just kicked on with Dunne's hilarious attempt to hoodwink Grant as to the hunkiness (or lack of same) of her seven year companion on their desert island and the easy introduction of Randolph Scott as the All-American athlete she actually hunkered down with.The timing of all concerned, particularly the leads of course, is near perfect throughout, the comedic situations hilarious (bookended by a courtroom scene with a great turn by Granville Bates as an incredulous judge - an idea so good that Peter Bogdanovich lifted it almost wholesale for his 1972 homage "What's Up Doc") and climaxing in a homage of its own to the one that started it all, the famous "Walls Of Jericho" scene in Gable & Goddard's "It Happened One Night" and of course its own Grant / Dunne predecessor "The Awful Truth".I keep coming back to Grant and Dunne as the keystones to the film's success. Both separately (Grant in his interplay with the hotel manager during extended avoidance of new, wholly undeserving bride Gail Patrick, perhaps the only actor in the film who fails to catch the arch mood of the piece) and Dunne (when she affects accents of contemporaries Hepburn and Davis to devastating comic effect) but especially together - these two play off each other to the manner born.Even the scenes with their kids don't grate, there's admirably little recourse to the use of traditional slapstick and the way this sex-farce pushes the envelope out at the censor (especially Grant's preening himself with women's clothing and that ending when you know he's about to become literally "Bad Santa") just takes the biscuit.A sheer delight, from start to finish.

jdeamara "My Favorite Wife," uses the formula, the stars and the director of the hugely successful "The Awful Truth," and tries to do it all over again. Unfortunately, this time, it falls flat, feeling like exactly what it is, a rehash of a much, much better film. Instead of trying to do something different, we get the same story, slightly changed but with the same gags and plot devices. In both, there is a married couple dealing with a separation. In both, the wife tries to hoodwink a female paramour by adopting a weird accent. In both, the wife tries to convince the husband that nothing happened with a male admirer. In "The Awful Truth," the first half of the film was concerned with the husband's jealousy over another man; the second half with the wife trying to get rid of the inconvenient other woman. In "My Favorite Wife," this plot structure is simply reversed, the other woman comes in the first half, the husband's jealousy in the second. This is about as original as "My Favorite Wife" gets. Children are also added this time around, unnecessarily, serving to make everything feel more domestic and boring. The film ends appropriately, in a sad attempt to recapture the magic at the end of "The Awful Truth." It stages the scene in practically the same way. While "The Awful Truth" ended with a dignified Grant and Dunne finally getting together, "My Favorite Wife" ends with Grant in a Santa Claus suit, a fitting contrast between the two films.Randolph Scott is wasted here, his role amounting to more of a cameo, less a full-fledged character. The reason he's in the movie at all is probably to make light of the rumors concerning his real-life relationship with Cary Grant (they lived together for a number of years). The film has Grant almost swoon at the sight of a shirtless Scott taking a dive, and later it has Grant sitting in his office, reliving the moment in his mind. And then there's the scene of Grant looking through women's clothing, holding them up to a mirror, while telling a doctor, "I have to go, he's waiting for me in the car!" Fun at the expense of Cary Grant's sexuality is probably the most interesting thing about the picture.Overall, this movie is lifeless, a bankrupt attempt to recreate the success of "The Awful Truth." It repeats too many elements, and not very successfully. Watch "The Awful Truth" instead.