My Favorite Wife (1940)

Sadly Over-hyped

Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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.

Though not as spontaneously hilarious as Dunne and Grant's earlier pairing in "The Awful Truth" (1937), "My Favorite Wife" again displays the masterful comedic timing and wonderful on screen romantic chemistry that Irene and Cary shared. Just as she did in "The Awful Truth", Miss Dunne has to use every trick at her disposal in order to goad Cary Grant into doing the right thing. She not only has to compete against her replacement spouse counterpart and ice queen Bianca, she has to win her husband and the father of her children back...all the way back to the marriage bed. The end scene with Cary Grant dressed as Santa Claus and wishing Irene Dunne a Merry Christmas is hysterical. Because of the strict movie code of the time, he can't come right out and say what special gift he is delivering to her but the audience knows just the same! Movies were so much more entertaining back then because they left so much to the imagination, thereby enriching moviegoers' imaginations in the process.

This is not my favourite screwball comedy of all time or anything, but I did really enjoy it. It is compared to The Awful Truth, and I will say I do prefer The Awful Truth, and while people may find this blasphemous I preferred 1963's Move Over Darling too.Where the film doesn't quite succeed is that it felt a little too short, the film's end takes a little too long and felt misplaced and there are some moments in the middle where the film drags a bit.However, it looks good, is well directed, is well scored, while the story is great, the screenplay a lot of fun and the performances from Irene Dunne, Gail Patrick and especially Cary Grant are fun. In terms of casting, the only weak link is Randolph Scott, not that he was terrible or anything but he is very underused seeing his role feels I agree more of a cameo than a fully-fleshed out character. So overall, good but not great, worth seeing for Grant. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

"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.