Kisses for Breakfast (1941)

Just what I expected

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A Disappointing Continuation

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Dennis Morgan, Jane Wyatt, Shirley Ross, and Lee Patrick star in "Kisses for Breakfast" based on a play and produced in 1941.Morgan, a likable actor, plays Rodney Trask, a handsome crooner who marries Juliet (Shirley Ross). Juliet wanted her cousin Laura (Jane Wyatt) to come up from the south, but cousin Laura begs off due to illness. Juliet decides that en route to their Havana honeymoon they will visit her, so Rodney takes down her address.They are preparing to leave when Rodney's old girlfriend Clara shows up. She seems to think she can get $10,000 from Rodney. To keep their meeting private, they go for a drive. Clara has a partner, who knocks Rodney out and trashes his car. Rodney wakes up with amnesia. Everyone believes him to be dead. The only thing Rodney has on him is Laura's address. After a hobo gives him the name "Happy Homes" from a billboard, Rodney heads for Laura's.Laura and Rodney fall in love, and he is able to help bring her plantation back to its former glory. They marry, and Laura receives an invitation to Juliet's wedding to Lucius (Jerome Cowan). Laura and Rodney decide to attend. Crazy comedy that would have been funnier with just the right cast. As someone pointed out, Jerome Cowan is miscast, and Shirley Ross is too overdone. Lee Patrick as Juliet's friend is hilarious. Morgan is just fine, as is Wyatt. But this thing needed a boost, which a few tweaks in the casting would have given it. William Powell, Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert, actors more adept at comedy could have helped this along.Since it's 1941, there are also racial stereotypes and racial humor. I for one think these are a reminder of where we once were - I'm not a fan of rewriting history.Una O'Connor plays a maid, and she's a riot. This is a true madcap comedy that needed more madcap actors.

Recently I watched this film because I had just viewed all the episodes of "Father Knows Best". And, this is one of the few film appearances of Jane Wyatt, later the mother in FKB.I don't know quite what to make of this film. It is a bit of a different twist on amnesia. But somehow it just doesn't quite come together. Parts of it are quite clever, and other parts rather stupid. But, I've seen worse, and it is interesting due to the cast.Dennis Morgan plays a hammy singer who gets married to a rather obnoxious woman (Shirley Ross of "Thanks For The Memory Fame"), and then, after being kidnapped, he is hit on the head and suffers from amnesia. He meets the lovely Jane Wyatt and marries her. A year later Wyatt and Morgan go to her cousin's wedding...Shirley Ross! Wyatt is fine, although it's difficult to get a sense of her acting in this film. Also of note are Willie Best and Louise Beavers, who get some rather racist lines...at least by today's standards. Lee Patrick is very good as the sassy best friend. And the maid -- Una O'Connor -- is a hoot.It's worth a watch once just for the unusual cast.

This risque farce in the screwball comedy vein delivers loads of laughs. Newlywed Dennis Morgan suffers a bout of amnesia on the verge of his honeymoon trip and winds up marrying a second wife while still unknowingly married to his first! The intrepid first wife eventually tracks him down, inserting herself into a manic menage a trois while persistently competing for her conjugal rights. Don't miss the glorious pillow fight erupting in a roomful of flying feathers as each wife surreptitiously tries to slip into bed with Dennis. And the fateful shower of oil when wife #1 switches the bathroom water pipe to the fuel line in the basement is a scream. Altogether a delightfully zany romp.

This is an "A" script with a "B" cast. Except for Jerome Cowan, Lee Patrick and Una O'Connor, the cast is not worthy of the material which is quite witty. I can imagine Jimmy Stewart, Rosiland Russell and Carole Lombard in the major parts. Then it would have been a classic.