Too Many Husbands and the Code

Posted by Susan Doll on August 9, 2008

In watching all the Fred MacMurray films today for the blogathon, I was fascinated by Too Many Husbands. Host Ben Mankiewicz mentioned in his introduction that it had some problems with the Production Code Administration (the censorship office) because of the premise of the plot — a wife with two husbands. So, I watched it within that context. I was surprised it got away with as much suggestive dialogue and innuendo as it did.

Curious, I spent some time looking through some books about the Production Code. I once taught an entire course on the history of censorship in Hollywood films, so I have several books specifically about the Code. Yet, this film was not mentioned in any of them, probably because it does not have classic status.

Picking out what scenes and dialogue skirted the Code was fun as I watched this little gem of a movie unfold. Vicky, played by Jean Arthur, is married to Henry, played by Melvyn Douglas. But when Bill, her first husband who is presumed drowned, returns home after being stuck on a deserted island, she has to decide which husband to keep. Bill is played by our star of the day, Fred MacMurray. The plot would have attracted the attention of the PCA right away, because, even though Vicky did not commit bigamy on purpose, her situation is adulterous. Adultery was not forbidden by the PCA, but according to the Code, ”Adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented attractively.” I couldn’t help but think that the last scene — in which Vicky, Bill, and Henry dance together as a threesome – suggested that having two husbands was pretty darn attractive. Though the legalities of the bigamy are sorted out in the plot, so that Vicky and Bill’s marriage is legally binding, and her marriage to Henry is void, the smart viewer reads between the lines — what about the sexual relationship between Henry and VIcky? What is the long-term effect of that on Vicky? Vicky admits to loving the attention from the two men, who compete hard for her. At the end, Henry and Vicky’s dance is interupted by Bill who cuts in, resulting in the hilarious dance-step competition between Henry and Bill. In the last shot, the three are dancing together, with Vicky hanging on to a husband with each arm. Vicky gets the last line of the film, ”We have to do this more often.” Dancing is sometimes a metaphor for sexual passion, or just plain sex, in a film. If you think about that in the context of the final scene, it is highly suggestive. In essence, Vicky gets to have her cake and eat it, too.

The conclusions of Golden Age films often end in the “clinch,” in which the leading man and leading lady embrace. There is a lot of meaning in that cliche; it suggests that the two will end up together in a traditional marriage and nuclear family, which validates two of our society’ s basic social institutions. The ending to Too Many Husbands definitely subverts the cliche, suggesting that Vicky is happiy with her less-than traditional situation.

The film was definitely dialogue-driven, and some of the lines are laden with innuendo. When Bill and Henry say good-night to VIcky, after deciding that Vicky should stay in the master bedroom alone, Bill calls out, “Good-night. My thoughts will be sleeping with your thoughts.” I can’t believe that line got by the PCA.

I also think the casting helped the writers and producers of Too Many Husbands get away with more. By casting perennial nice-guy Fred MacMurray and wholesome, spunky Jean Arthur as Bill and Vicky, not to mention dignified Melvyn Douglas as Henry, viewers would accept the ticklish relationship between the three without thinking anything low or common.

It reminded me of how clever good writers and directors could be during the days of the Code. Most people think that the Code excised sex from films during the Golden Age, but that isn’t exactly true. There are no explicit scenes or shots of sex, lust, and passion, but there are many implicit suggestions. Films from this period were designed to appeal to a mass audience of all ages and all levels of ”sophistication,” for lack of a better word. Those who chose to read between the lines understood the subtext; those who were young or chose not read anything deeper into a scene could accept the dialogue and scenes at face value.

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10 Responses Too Many Husbands and the Code

Posted By Medusa : August 9, 2008 8:47 pm

Great analysis of the movie’s naughty bits! I also enjoyed the movie and the performances. Interesting how when “their” wife couldn’t make up her mind, both men got ticked off at her and sort of joined for a while in a male solidarity thing until becoming rivals for her bed again. I also thought it was interesting when Mankiewicz related at the end of the movie that they tested two endings for the movie, one where Fred ended up with Jean, and the other where Melvyn prevailed. The test group — did he say college females? — preferred Fred.

Posted By Suzi Doll : August 9, 2008 9:56 pm

Thanks for the comment Medusa. I wished I would have recorded this film, because as I was thinking about it all afternoon, I began to see how interesting it was in terms of male-female politics. It also reminded me of a reverse MY FAVORITE WIFE, with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. It used the same plot device–a spouse lost at sea who survives on a deserted island — except it was the husband who found himself with two wives.I looked it up and WIFE was released within a couple of months of HUSBANDS.

Posted By Jenny the Nipper : August 12, 2008 6:17 pm

I’m not really a Fred fan but I find myself enjoying the blogfest, anyway.

My Favorite Wife is very similar, indeed. It too has loads of innuendo, as well, including a bit of bisexual innuendo between Cary Grant and Randolph Scott (some biographers imply that Grant and Scott were lovers) and some cute references to both the Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby. I highly recommend My Favorite Wife as it’s one of Cary’s most under-rated comedies. His timing and chemistry with Irene Dunne was amazing and the first half hour of it is as good as anything in the Awful Truth.

Posted By Richelle : August 15, 2008 12:01 am

I didn’t see Too Many Husbands, but I found myself comparing it to a later Jean Arthur-in-the-middle item, 1942′s Talk of the Town. However it was seen by audiences at the time, I can’t help but view it as a thought experiment on the day-to-day workings of a menage a trois. Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur) is not married to either wrongfully-convicted fugitive Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) or stuffy legal scholar Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman), but they all end up living together in an odd arrangement when Leopold decides to hide in her house at the same time she’s rented it to Prof. Lightcap. The two men engage in lofty if passionate philosophical debate on the nature of the law, pitting their uncompromising principles against one another, while she cooks, cleans, types, referees, and tries constantly to get them to focus on the real problem at hand: the threat to Leopold’s life from the endemic corruption of the town of the title. Once that’s settled and the men are separated (the prof to be a Supreme Court justice, Leopold to continue his rabble-rousing elsewhere), the movie settles the obligatory question of who Nora will end up with (guess!), but I think her relationship with either of them has nothing on the tension between the two. It’s all very queer, in several senses of the word.

Posted By Chris : August 20, 2008 10:52 am

I have seen this movie and really enjoyed it. I love Jean anyway. Osborne’s intor to this on a different airing indicated it was released about the same time as “My Favorite Wife” and both did pretty well at the box office. Having seen Douglas in “Theodora Goes Wild” it is as good a reason as any for him to be in this film. It’s fun and far too little known.

Posted By admrilbubba : January 8, 2009 4:11 am

7 Jan 09 WIFE WITH TWO HUSBANDS and 8 Jan 09 at 0200 3 FOR THE SHOW was also run. It was fun to watch the comparison as they did earlier in the day.
I enjoyed wife with two husbands, though a bit unrealistic if a husband was missing 6 months and declared legally dead (they said they were married 6 months, and the first husband was lost for a year). I watch more fro entertainment, and also curiosity of the era the movie was made and era it is suppose to be set in. As for the USAF condoning the same is a real stretch if you know the UCMJ, ah the liberties of theater.
In 3 for the show the apartment used was the same as the movie shown just before it, MY SISTER EILEEN (Lemmon’s characters apt). Interesting the details you pick up, if shown close enough together. It was the TV in the living room I noticed, though I didn’t see the upstairs in my sister Eileen.
My question or comment is, wasn’t this movie also done with a wife lost at sea(on a Island)? She returns after 7 years to find her husband just remarried. The interest or comical part was when the husband finds she was with a man on that island.. It ends with the judge reversing his declaration of death and annulled the 2nd marriage. It too was handled with kid gloves due to the censors. For example the judge asked if the marriage was kissless instead of consummated, or today they may just ask ‘did you make love after the wedding?’ or it would be ignored all together! Perhaps the movie CAST A WAY with Tom Hanks was written with theses movies in mind?
Am I crazy or just stretching my mind to far?

Posted By Iris M. Cooper : January 8, 2009 5:54 pm

I watched the 1940 movie, entitled “Too Many Husbands” last nite, and I could not stop laughing. Though there were remakes of this movie with different titles, this has to be the best.

The latent sexual undertones leaves more to be desired than the dialogue they have in movies today. Jean Arthur was so talented, and she was a breath of fresh air. Her comedic timeing was “off the charts.” No wonder Fred McMurry and Melvin
Douglas were both vying for her.

Though I am no expert on movies, my husband and I thought the ending was a bit weak. You think . . .

Thank you, Mr. Turner, for sharing these vintage movies with all of us movie buffs.

As always,

Iris M. Cooper
Lover of Vintage Movies

Posted By Suzi Doll : January 8, 2009 9:39 pm

It’s so nice that this post sill gets hits.

To Admrilbubba: There were two movies in which the wife was lost at sea, only to return just as her husband married. MY FAVORITE WIFE starred Cary Grant; then in the early 1960s, this movie was remade as MOVE OVER, DARLING with Doris Day and James Garner. Interestingly, it was originally supposed to be SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE starring Marilyn Monroe, but she was fired by 20th Cent.-Fox for excessive absences and then she died. It was turned into a Doris Day vehicle. I don’t think CASTAWAY was inspired by any of these films — the genre and themes are just too different

To Iris: The purpose of most endings in classic Hollywood films is to restore order by validating our values and institutions (in this case marriage), which is usually represented by a happy ending. Sometimes this seems repetitive or weak to us now but the whole of these films is greater than any of their parts.

Posted By Evangeline : February 8, 2009 2:24 am

I just watched this and found it frothy and naughty! I loved the ending. What’s so interesting, since you brought up the Cooper/Hopkins/March vehicle “Design For Living” is that while it was obvious Hopkins slept with March’s character when he returned to France, “Too Many Husbands” was a bit naughtier, since no one stated outright that Vicky was sleeping with Henry. DFL ended with the three vowing “no sex” while TMH ended with Vicky having Henry and Bill still fighting for her (bed).

Posted By TCM's Classic Movie Blog : November 28, 2009 12:01 pm

[...] One good thing did come of the lawsuit. Capra must have seen IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK because he cast Jean Arthur in his next film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) which Arthur made directly after this. Arthur would continue to shine and steal the spotlight in such subsequent Capra productions as You Can’t Take It With You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) but if you’ve never seen her in IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK, you’re in for a treat. The film has aired on Turner Classic Movies in the past but it is also available as one of four titles on Volume 1 of the DVD series Icons of Screwball Comedy from Columbia. Another rarely seen Jean Arthur film is in the collection – TOO MANY HUSBANDS – and you can read a former post on it by Suzi Doll at this location - http://moviemorlocks.com/2008/08/09/too-many-husbands-and-the-code/ [...]

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