Double Wedding Reviews

Another "double" film for Powell (he'd already done DOUBLE HARNESS with Ann Harding). This time, he's teamed with Myrna Loy again in another madcap comedy attempt at recapturing the magic they demonstrated in their previous six films as a duo. Powell is a wacky painter who lives in a trailer. He doesn't believe in working and feels that life is meant to be lived for the fun of it and nothing more. Loy is a workaholic who runs a chic dress shop and has no time to play. Her younger sister, Rice, rankles under Loy's dominating personality and is especially miffed by the fact that Loy is pushing her toward marriage with Beal, a conservative prig. Rice thinks she's in love with Powell, who tells her to shed herself of her encumbrances (namely Beal and Loy) and find true happiness as an actress. Loy is furious at Powell's intervention and the rest of the film is a fairly standard set of twists culminating in the double wedding of Rice and Beal, and Loy and Powell. Jo Swerling's adaptation of Molnar's play is pleasant enough, but the farce goes over the top too often and beyond credulity. Every so often, goofiness for the sake of goofiness just doesn't work. It barely makes it here. Toler does a neat job as the butler but the talented Kennedy is wasted, as are Meek and Parker. Too much slapstick and not enough wit.