When a couple who married impulsively are separated after three days and reunited after he returns from active military duty, they discover they don't even know each other and decide to divorce even though she has had a child. The wife's father doesn't approve of the divorce, and the judge decides to test their marriage even further by sending the couple back to where they first met to re-live their romance. Both are stubborn, but with the interference of some eccentric characters, this couple just might find out the hard way that they do love each other.
Jean Arthur and Lee Bowman are the young couple thrown together by circumstance in a situation they don't want to be in with the other. Charles Coburn is the delightful papa who interferes with the couple, and "Uncle Henry" Charley Grapewin is the over-the-hill bellboy in the San Francisco hotel who takes it upon himself to keep them together no matter what. Edgar Buchannan (as the judge), Harry Davenport (justice of the peace) and Jane Darwell (his wife) offer support and much advice, particularly that of how war-time weddings weren't always thought through, a reflection of the loneliness of the era even though it was a very romantic time, in movies, music and for the homesick sailors on leave longing for the war to end so they could return home.
This movie offers a gently written scenario, sweetly spoken in a soft manner that helps with a plot line that at some points seems to be going all over the place. This was Jean Arthur's last contract film at Columbia, and she gives a very dignified non-frenetic performance. As for Bowman, he seems to be a missed opportunity, a romantic hero that never rose above mostly second leads, this film being perhaps his only chance to become a star. This seems to have fallen through the cracks of classic films to be remembered, perhaps because it is so low-key, a valentine to a softer side of the war.
Jean Arthur and Lee Bowman are the young couple thrown together by circumstance in a situation they don't want to be in with the other. Charles Coburn is the delightful papa who interferes with the couple, and "Uncle Henry" Charley Grapewin is the over-the-hill bellboy in the San Francisco hotel who takes it upon himself to keep them together no matter what. Edgar Buchannan (as the judge), Harry Davenport (justice of the peace) and Jane Darwell (his wife) offer support and much advice, particularly that of how war-time weddings weren't always thought through, a reflection of the loneliness of the era even though it was a very romantic time, in movies, music and for the homesick sailors on leave longing for the war to end so they could return home.
This movie offers a gently written scenario, sweetly spoken in a soft manner that helps with a plot line that at some points seems to be going all over the place. This was Jean Arthur's last contract film at Columbia, and she gives a very dignified non-frenetic performance. As for Bowman, he seems to be a missed opportunity, a romantic hero that never rose above mostly second leads, this film being perhaps his only chance to become a star. This seems to have fallen through the cracks of classic films to be remembered, perhaps because it is so low-key, a valentine to a softer side of the war.