"Practically Yours" has the right cast, director and studio to be a tremendous comedy. But this film doesn't work very well as a comedy. I don't know if the plot would work even with a good working over of the script. This movie came out in late 1944, with World War II raging around the globe. Many people had reports of loved ones killed or missing in action. So, right away, a comedy that touches on the status of servicemen in combat would be awfully touchy.
Six of the top 10 movies of the year were war-related films, and two of them were comedy musicals. But, they were for light-hearted entertainment and humor that had nothing to do with combat or war casualties. So, from the very start, this film had at least one strike against it. Still, it apparently did OK at the box office, with a U.S. take of $4.7 million on a budget of about $1.2 million. (Remember, this was 1944 and there were no actors in the world who earned millions for one film.) It came in 71st in ticket sales for the year.
My five stars for the film are just for the cast and the good job the leads did with some not very good roles they had. Fred MacMurray is Lt. Daniel Bellamy and Claudette Colbert is Peggy Martin. The supporting cast all did well, again with some shaky roles.
The plot is far-fetched to begin with - that a pilot's last words before diving his plane at an enemy ship would be about missing his dog, Peggy. Naturally, every living person who heard that thought he was talking about his sweetheart. Then, people back home presume it's Peggy Martin who just happened to work at the same company Bellamy did before the war. Only, she never thought he noticed her, and she didn't have any romantic leanings toward him.
Now, that might work in a screwball comedy, but not in a plot in which the male was thought to have been killed in action. And, then returns alive, having been blown into the sea when his plane exploded striking the ship. I don't know how Paramount made the film that showed this. It was supposedly captured on film by another plane.
This film has very little funny in it, so it's a scratch as a comedy.
Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert did do well in 1944 - both were in big hit films for the year. MacMurray was in a crime drama with Barbara Stanwyck. "Double Indemnity" received seven Oscar nominations and finished the year second in box office receipts. He was in three other films as well that year, and one was a first-rate war-related comedy - "Standing Room Only," with Paulette Goddard. Colbert starred in a war-time home front movie, "Since You Went Away," that won one Oscar of nine nominations. It was the fourth money earner that year, at $14 million.
Except for MacMurray and Colbert fans, this film probably wouldn't appeal to many modern audiences.
