Wife, Husband and Friend (1939)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Gregory Ratoff

Writers:

James M. Cain (novel) and
Nunnally Johnson (writer)

Release Date:

3 March 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Woman hopes to be a great singer and is encouraged by her scheming teacher. After she flops her husband...

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Cast

Loretta Young	...	Doris Borland
Warner Baxter	...	Leonard Borland aka Logan Bennett
Binnie Barnes	...	Cecil Carver
Cesar Romero	...	Hugo
George Barbier	...	Major Blair
J. Edward Bromberg	...	Rossi
Eugene Pallette	...	Mike Craig
Helen Westley	...	Mrs. Blair
Ruth Terry	...	Carol (secretary)
Alice Armand	...	Sally Bostwick
Iva Stewart	...	Miss Carver's secretary
Dorothy Dearing	...	Mrs. Price
Helen Ericson	...	Mrs. Spalding
Kay Griffith	...	Nancy Sprague
Harry Rosenthal	...	Bill Wilkins - Pianist

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

James M. Cain, whose story "Two Can Sing" was the basis for this film, had himself trained as an operatic baritone. Opera figures prominently in several of his other stories, including "Serenade" and "Mildred Pierce" (though the opera parts of the plot of "Mildred Pierce" were dropped in the film version).

Movie Connections:

Version of Everybody Does It (1949)

Soundtrack:

Drink From the Cup of Tomorrow

A James M. Cain comedy, yes!

This rarely shown 1939 Twentieth-Century-Fox comedy is based on a frothy novel by James M. Cain, best known today for his hard-boiled detective fiction and screenplays. With a first-rate script by one of Zanuck's most versatile collaborators --the writer/producer/director Nunnally Johnson, who the very next year would be nominated for his screenplay for "Grapes of Wrath," the movie is blessed with an unusual cast: Warner Baxter, whom one would never think of as a comic actor, is perfectly believable and extremely appealing as the too understanding husband; the incandescently lovely and, for once, the not-too-saccharine Loretta Young as his not quite talented enough wife; Binnie Barnes as the scheming other woman; Helen Westley as the dreadful mother-in-law, and finally one of Lubitsch's stalwarts, George Barbier, as Westley's long-suffering husband. Perhaps in tribute to the great maestro himself the film ends with Baxter and Young in a train singing "Beyond the Blue Horizon" which Jeanette MacDonald also sang in a train in Lubitsch's classic "Monte Carlo." Gregory Ratoff directs with great flair.