The Magnificent Rogue

I have no idea who the magnificent rogue of the title is, but this is a pleasantly complicated comedy about what happens when Johnny comes marching home again and wants things the way they were. Lynne Roberts has been running the advertising agency while her husband, Warren Douglas, has been Now that he's back, he wants her to retire to the house in Westchester, while she wants to continue her career. Agency right-hand woman Stephanie Bachelor comes up with a competition. If Lynn can land the account of womanizing cigarette magnate Gerald Mohr, she continues working. If Warren does, she retires to something frilly in the fifth reel. Among the complications are a breach-of-promise suit brought against Mohr by stripper Adele Mara.

It's a promising story and, like all good comedies, has something real if off-kilter to say about the human condition. However Albert Rogell directs his leads too slow to show much comic sparkle, although Mohr and Mara are good and actually the most sympathetic characters in the entire movie. Grady Sutton is also present, but as always his humor is so low-key as to serve merely to tell the audience what has gone on before the movie began. Despite the comic presence of a few supporting and bit players, this is a movie that doesn't live up to its title.