Mr. and Mrs. North

I well remember the Mr.&Mrs. North series as a lad during the early days of television. It was a poor man's Thin Man with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton a stylish married couple solving crimes once a week during the early and middle Fifties.

I'm always a fan of Gracie Allen so it was with interest that I finally got to see this film she did without her husband George Burns. That was a mistake. Gracie should have done the film Mr.&Mrs. North with George instead of William Post, Jr. Post was no comic actor and George Burns would have handled Gracie's scatterbrained antics with ease and aplomb.

One fine day a body falls out of a closet in the North house. It is that of Rose Hobart's husband and they're North friends. In fact a whole slew of friends and business acquaintances fall under suspicion. But in her own scatterbrained fashion Gracie seems bound and determined to pin it on her husband. She exasperates detectives Paul Kelly and Millard Mitchell to no end.

A fine list of character players are in this cast most of whom fall under suspicion. One who doesn't is the mild Fowler Brush salesman who keeps trying to give information but no one wants to talk to him when they hear what he does for a living. Felix Bressart is very funny in that role, almost as funny as Gracie.

But this film desperately needed George Burns.