Three Loves Has Nancy (1938)

Director:

Richard Thorpe

Writers:

Mortimer Braus (story)
David Hertz (writer)

Release Date:

2 September 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

THREE TOP STARS TO THRILL YOU! (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

A small-town country homebody goes to New York to find her missing fiancé and gets romantically involved with two sophisticated men.

Plot Keywords:

New York | Publisher | Beautiful Woman | Psychiatrist | Author

Cast

Janet Gaynor	...	Nancy Briggs
Robert Montgomery	...	Malcolm 'Mal' Niles
Franchot Tone	...	Robert 'Bob' Hanson
Guy Kibbee	...	Pa Briggs
Claire Dodd	...	Vivian Herford
Reginald Owen	...	William, the Butler
Cora Witherspoon	...	Mrs. Herford
Emma Dunn	...	Mrs. Briggs
Charley Grapewin	...	Grandpa Briggs
Lester Matthews	...	Dr. Alonzo Z. Stewart
Grady Sutton	...	George Wilkins, Jr.
Mary Forbes	...	Mrs. Hansen
Grant Withers	...	Jack

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:S

Company:

Loew's

Trivia:

In Sept. 1938, M-G-M distributed this film on a double bill with Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938) starring Robert Young, Lew Ayres and Ruth Hussey'. The tag line said "Comedy swings to a new high in these two romantic M-G-M hits!"

Goofs:

Continuity: The scenes at the end when, both sets of parents meet, has Franchot Tone's father alternating from Douglas Wood to Charles Richman from scene to scene.

Quotes:

William, the Butler: Pardon me, sir. There's a young lady crying in your bedroom.
Malcolm 'Mal' Niles: Well, what of it? It's a party, isn't it?

Fresh Off The Farm

Janet Gaynor plays a Thirties version of Tammy in Three Loves Has Nancy and her three guys are Robert Montgomery, Franchot Tone, and Grady Sutton. Want to take odds on who she winds up with?

Montgomery plays a popular author who Gaynor meets at a book signing and later on a train to New York. She's going because her fiancé Grady Sutton left her at the church and she's off to New York to find him. With a country innocence that belies a certain amount of country common sense she involves herself in the lives of Montgomery and his next door neighbor and publisher Franchot Tone in her search for the jilting Sutton.

Somebody had to have seen this film before creating the Tammy character that Debbie Reynolds made popular in the Fifties. Gaynor has the whole thing, accent and all, uncannily down. Montgomery and Tone play the same roles that they both did in so many films for MGM, the debonair man about town. I leave it to you as to who looks better in a tuxedo.

I wish there had been more of Gaynor's family, especially Guy Kibbee as her father and Charley Grapewin as her grandfather. The film would have been better for it.

Three Loves Has Nancy is all right entertainment, but nothing new here. Nothing that hadn't been done before or definitely would be done again later.