My Favorite Wife (1940)
Directed by Garson Kanin

Film Review

After their immense success in The Awful Truth (1937), Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are brought together for a second helping of screwball hijinks. My Favorite Wife is a breezy romantic comedy that was RKO's second most successful film of the year.  If the plot sounds familiar it is because it was inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden, a fact that is acknowledged in the surname of the main characters.

Cary Grant is as smooth and debonair as ever, delivering some great comedy with effortless ease and more charm than you could find in a dozen girls' finishing schools. And there aren't many men who could get away with wearing a leopard skin dressing gown.  The more convoluted the plot becomes, the funnier Grant is, particularly as he is assisted by some very talented supporting artistes.  Although they were a natural screen couple, Grant and Dunne would only appear together in one more film, the tear-jerker Penny Serenade (1941).

Twenty years later, Marilyn Monroe was to have starred in a remake entitled Something's Got to Give, directed by George Cukor. When Monroe was fired for persistent absenteeism, she was replaced with Doris Day and the film released as Move Over, Darling in 1963.

Film Synopsis

Ellen Arden returns to her family home to find that her husband Nick has just married another woman, Bianca.  Nick is under the misapprehension that Ellen is dead, having drowned seven years ago during a nature expedition.  In fact, Ellen has spent the past seven years stranded on a desert island, with only an Adonis named Stephen Burkett to keep her comany.  When Nick learns of Ellen's return, his first thought is how to break the news to his second wife.   Bianca is a beautiful woman but it is Ellen whom he really loves. Unfortunately, Burkett also loves Ellen and he reckons he has a stronger claim to her than Nick does...