Most of the stuff that occurs in the story stretches the limits of credibility but at least Powell and Loy have a good time doing it. This is screwball comedy in high gear, paced by the high energy of the players, especially after Steve Ireland's (William Powell) attorney recommends an insanity defense in a divorce proceeding brought by Mrs. Ireland (Myrna Loy) over a misunderstanding. Did you notice though, even after four years of marriage the Ireland's were sleeping in separate beds.
I'm pretty sure I saw something about this in another film but just chalked it up to a writer's imagination, but this time when the story introduced a Lunacy Commission I had to look it up. Turns out there was such a thing; in England a Lunacy Commission was a public body established to oversee asylums and the welfare of the mentally ill. In New York, the state legislature did away with it's own version of a Lunacy Commission which it considered a patronage racket. That occurred in the Winter of 1940, so it appears that the screen writers got this one in just under the wire.
Reading some of the other viewer comments there seems to be high regard for Powell's cross dressing caper in this one and he did do a pretty good job as his own sister. But the stunt that really caught my eye was that time he did a remarkable flip with a ladder on the grounds of the sanitarium, with his head winding up in between the rungs! I hope he was lucky enough to do that in one take!
I'm sure Thin Man fans will get a kick out of this film. It came out just about the middle of that series of pictures, with Powell and Loy pretty much in the same mode as a lovey dovey couple until things go awry with Isobel Grayson (Gail Patrick), Ward Willoughby (Jack Carson), the ping ponging elevator, the Bristol Party, the watch stealing cockatoo, divorce court, the Lunacy Commission and that blasted infernal rug. At times you can even make sense of it.
I'm pretty sure I saw something about this in another film but just chalked it up to a writer's imagination, but this time when the story introduced a Lunacy Commission I had to look it up. Turns out there was such a thing; in England a Lunacy Commission was a public body established to oversee asylums and the welfare of the mentally ill. In New York, the state legislature did away with it's own version of a Lunacy Commission which it considered a patronage racket. That occurred in the Winter of 1940, so it appears that the screen writers got this one in just under the wire.
Reading some of the other viewer comments there seems to be high regard for Powell's cross dressing caper in this one and he did do a pretty good job as his own sister. But the stunt that really caught my eye was that time he did a remarkable flip with a ladder on the grounds of the sanitarium, with his head winding up in between the rungs! I hope he was lucky enough to do that in one take!
I'm sure Thin Man fans will get a kick out of this film. It came out just about the middle of that series of pictures, with Powell and Loy pretty much in the same mode as a lovey dovey couple until things go awry with Isobel Grayson (Gail Patrick), Ward Willoughby (Jack Carson), the ping ponging elevator, the Bristol Party, the watch stealing cockatoo, divorce court, the Lunacy Commission and that blasted infernal rug. At times you can even make sense of it.