The June Bride is actually married earlier to make the June issue of the magazine of which Bette Davis is the editor. She's no Meryl Streep of "The Devil Wears Prada" personality; In fact, she's a very congenial lady, except when ex-beau Robert Montgomery is around, still stung from the fact that he stood her up for a dinner date. "After three years, I figured you weren't coming", she slyly tells him, then cringes when she learns that he's been assigned by their publisher to become her newest writer. She's off to Indiana for a homey wedding where the plump mother of the bride needs constant massages to fit into her new dress, the father keeps the cork off the apple cider and ice inside it to ferment it, the sister of the bride is in love with the groom, and the bride is actually in love with the groom's brother. ...And you think us city folk live soap opera lives!!!
This is Bette Davis's first comedy in six years, and she certainly knows how to throw off a witty line or two. She's given a fine sparring partner in Montgomery who did a few of these screwball comedies over at MGM during his heyday there and after war movies and film noir needed a lighter role. Surrounding them on the staff are cynical Fay Bainter and wise-cracking Mary Wickes, a bust of Julius Caesar's given to the bride's mother (Marjorie Bennett) on her wedding day which the husband (Tom Tully) secretly hates, and the sisters (Barbara Bates and Betty Lynn) who aren't exactly loyal to each other. Country folk aren't all butter churns and hog-calling contests, we learn, and the city folk have a thing or two to learn.
This is a battle of the sexes comedy that only seems to be out to prove that a woman with a career is not a woman at all, and it is obvious where Montgomery wants Davis to be if he can get her to the alter. Like other career women in Warner Brothers movies (Kay Francis in "Man Wanted", Ruth Chatterton in "Female", Barbara Stanwyck in "Christmas in Connecticut"), Davis finds she can't have both worlds. Yet, you still get the impression that there will still be a tiger underneath the kitten with an apron should Montgomery get his way, 'cause after all, she's Bette Davis, and a tiger never changes her stripes.
Yet, in spite of all that, this is still very amusing, and there are some truly funny moments, especially Montgomery's consumption of apple cider and his reaction to what he's doing when he wakes up. The sisters are totally different in personalities, and when Montgomery learns what the sister of the bride is really up to, his reaction is eyebrow raising. It's ironic to see Bennett as the country mother here, recalling her performance as Victor Buono's cockney mama in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" where she didn't share any scenes with Davis. A very young Sandra Gould ("Bewitched's" second Gladys Kravitz) is very funny in her brief role as Davis's boss's secretary, while a young Debbie Reynolds (who went through her own Bette Davis wedding in "A Catered Affair"), is seen in a "don't blink or you'll miss it" moment as a wedding guest, one of the bride's friends.
This is Bette Davis's first comedy in six years, and she certainly knows how to throw off a witty line or two. She's given a fine sparring partner in Montgomery who did a few of these screwball comedies over at MGM during his heyday there and after war movies and film noir needed a lighter role. Surrounding them on the staff are cynical Fay Bainter and wise-cracking Mary Wickes, a bust of Julius Caesar's given to the bride's mother (Marjorie Bennett) on her wedding day which the husband (Tom Tully) secretly hates, and the sisters (Barbara Bates and Betty Lynn) who aren't exactly loyal to each other. Country folk aren't all butter churns and hog-calling contests, we learn, and the city folk have a thing or two to learn.
This is a battle of the sexes comedy that only seems to be out to prove that a woman with a career is not a woman at all, and it is obvious where Montgomery wants Davis to be if he can get her to the alter. Like other career women in Warner Brothers movies (Kay Francis in "Man Wanted", Ruth Chatterton in "Female", Barbara Stanwyck in "Christmas in Connecticut"), Davis finds she can't have both worlds. Yet, you still get the impression that there will still be a tiger underneath the kitten with an apron should Montgomery get his way, 'cause after all, she's Bette Davis, and a tiger never changes her stripes.
Yet, in spite of all that, this is still very amusing, and there are some truly funny moments, especially Montgomery's consumption of apple cider and his reaction to what he's doing when he wakes up. The sisters are totally different in personalities, and when Montgomery learns what the sister of the bride is really up to, his reaction is eyebrow raising. It's ironic to see Bennett as the country mother here, recalling her performance as Victor Buono's cockney mama in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" where she didn't share any scenes with Davis. A very young Sandra Gould ("Bewitched's" second Gladys Kravitz) is very funny in her brief role as Davis's boss's secretary, while a young Debbie Reynolds (who went through her own Bette Davis wedding in "A Catered Affair"), is seen in a "don't blink or you'll miss it" moment as a wedding guest, one of the bride's friends.