Despite its splendid first and second acts, "The Good Fairy" comes to grief when the Herbert Marshall character wantonly decides to shave off his beard. As a previous commentator has remarked, Marshall looked much, much better and was far more impressive with it on. What's more, the movie itself seemed to move faster and with more agility, plus a lot more fun! In fact, almost the whole of the Third Act could be jettisoned. It's just a waste of time. The dialogue is both so repetitive and unfunny, even the actors look uncomfortable – even Marshall himself, would you believe? Once he reverts to Mr. Clean- Shaven, he's just plain, wearisomely dull. The lovely Margaret Sullavan tries hard to spark her character up a bit, but even she is no match for a script that about two-thirds through is suddenly over-burdened with too much dull dialogue and wearisomely fleshed out with boring, slow-moving, repetitive and unessential scenes. Available on an excellent Kino Video DVD.
Review of The Good Fairy
