Double Wedding (1937)

Touches You

Boring

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Much has been made of the fact that whilst this film was being shot Jean Harlow, a close friend of Loy and Powell's fiancé, died tragically leaving Powell and Loy to carry on generating laughs. Frankly I hadn't heard of the film and by extension the events surrounding the shooting so I must confine my comments to the plot and performances. The fact that it is yet another movie soured from Ferenc Molnar implies a certain quality and it doesn't disappoint, casting Powell as a wordly bohemian and Loy as a control freak or, to put it another way, yet another take on Benedek and Beatrice - they start out despising each other and wind up in the sack. This is as good an example as any of the genre and more than worth a look.

Every time I see a William Powell film that I haven't seen before, I walk away with even more admiration for him. Honestly, he may make it to my upper tier of actors soon (Spencer Tracy, Ronald Colman, and Cary Grant); he's so close already. And this film repeated that pattern...in this case because of the really off-beat Powell plays so well here.And while this is very much Powell's picture, Myrna Loy provides the balance to Powell's character. I did have a little trouble seeing Loy's character married to Powell's character. A sequel would have been great to explore that.For me, however, there are 2 problems with this film. The first is the first 15 minutes of the film. Frankly, it should have been totally rewritten with a better scenario. But after we get to Powell and Loy interacting, things turn around pretty well.The other problem is the supporting cast. Florence Rice is "okay" as the second female love interest. But John Beal floats along like a rock in water. Jessie Ralph as an elderly friend is the one standout among the supporting actors/actresses. And -- unfortunately -- Sidney Toler is along as the butler, and once again proves he had virtually no talent.So, for me, the film was uneven. But William Powell's masterful comedy instincts make this a film worth savoring, while overlooking the problems with the film.

WILLIAM POWELL and MYRNA LOY rise above a thin script and Richard Thorpe's uninspired direction to make DOUBLE WEDDING an unmitigated delight.Powell plays a lazy, laid-back hippie before it was fashionable to become one, living in a cluttered trailer and getting involved romantically with Loy and FLORENCE RICE. Rice does a nice job as Loy's flighty sister in love with JOHN BEAL, who plays a spineless character that Powell has to coach to show some spunk. Beal plays the weak character so effortlessly that he almost disappears, even when he has dialog.But the movie belongs to Powell and Loy who demonstrate why they had so much chemistry together. She's a rather bossy type who tries to manipulate Powell out of his obsession with her sister. Naturally, she ends up falling in love with the drifter herself.The frenetic last fifteen minutes are a bit much with the slapstick scenes all out of proportion to the rest of the film. But the majority of the scenes (especially those between Loy and Powell) are a prime example of comic flair as performed by professionals.If screwball comedy is your thing, this is the ticket.

A very funny, romantic movie. I enjoyed all the little creative pieces of "business" and lines such as "...you rang my gong." I enjoyed the treat of Sidney Toler as Keough.I enjoyed the beautiful, wonderful cars of the 1930s, and the background scenes of beautiful, wonderful downtown Los Angeles of the '30s and into the 1950s. I was born there in 1934 and remember it well when it was a beautiful place to live. Ah, nostalgia!! This is what it really did look like then.