You'd think that a film which featured three actors known for their comedy would be more than moderately funny here and there, but unfortunately this pre-code women's drama has to face the awful truth that its two leading ladies have been libeled. The film suffers from one of the major sins of the early talkies: excruciatingly slow pacing. Long pauses of no dialogue and characters involved in a situation that makes no sense doesn't help this either.
The film opens with socialite Myrna Loy telling old flame Pat O'Brien that she has just gotten married. He goes to a bar where he meets the jilted Irene Dunne, and finding that they have things in common that means a possibly great friendship, they decide to get married. Of course, Loy and Dunne's fiance, John Halliday, come back into their lives, turning things upside down, but it's obvious that Dunne and O'Brien have fallen in love for real.
While there are a couple of whimsical moments, it really doesn't create a spark between the two. Dunne was an adequate singer, but sometimes her voice is rather shrill which occurs here when she sings a slow moving song out of the blue. O'Brien's humor comes from the fact that he never seems to know when to shut up, and often not the smartest things come out of his mouth. Being made in the pre-code era, you think that a predicament like this would create some scandalous situations (especially in prohibition era Manhattan), but the two leads really do nothing but chit chat, and the conflict never really rises above predictable and far too easy to solve.
The film opens with socialite Myrna Loy telling old flame Pat O'Brien that she has just gotten married. He goes to a bar where he meets the jilted Irene Dunne, and finding that they have things in common that means a possibly great friendship, they decide to get married. Of course, Loy and Dunne's fiance, John Halliday, come back into their lives, turning things upside down, but it's obvious that Dunne and O'Brien have fallen in love for real.
While there are a couple of whimsical moments, it really doesn't create a spark between the two. Dunne was an adequate singer, but sometimes her voice is rather shrill which occurs here when she sings a slow moving song out of the blue. O'Brien's humor comes from the fact that he never seems to know when to shut up, and often not the smartest things come out of his mouth. Being made in the pre-code era, you think that a predicament like this would create some scandalous situations (especially in prohibition era Manhattan), but the two leads really do nothing but chit chat, and the conflict never really rises above predictable and far too easy to solve.