Review of Lonely Wives

Very amusing pre-code farce starring Edward Everett Horton, who is excellent playing a dual role - as a married lawyer, Richard "Dickie" Smith, with an eye for a pretty girl (after he "blooms" at eight o'clock each evening, that is) and his lookalike "The Great Zero", a vaudeville impersonator who would like to add to his stage show an impersonation of Smith, recently the "man of the moment" after his work on a murder trial that made the papers. Smith gives Zero a try-out - they exchange places so Smith can take two girls out to the "Whoopee Club", his swivel-hipped secretary and her gal pal Diane (played by Laura La Plante), an actress who wants to use her wiles to get Smith to basically give his services for free in helping her get a divorce from her husband who leaves her "alone and lonely". Meanwhile, Zero is to stay and impersonate Smith, who can't get out of the house 'cause of his big busybody of a mother-in-law, on the watch while her daughter is on a trip to the mountains. Mix-ups abound after the wife arrives home unexpectedly the night Zero is pretending he's Smith, and she's all ready to give her "hubby" an alcohol rubdown in her new lace nightie - as she says about the nightie "it's positively indecent". Soon more mix-ups as the extremely intoxicated butler thinks both lookalikes are one man.

I thought the film was well-done and quite humorous. I really enjoyed Edward Everett Horton in this, and while he is not one of my favorites, I found him to be very funny here. Well done trick photography really made it seem like he was two different men. Laura La Plante does a pretty good job as Diane, blotto on last night's booze as she slides down a stair bannister and drain pipe in a slinky gown. A fun romp that had me laughing out loud.