Comments on: Too Many Husbands and the Code

By: TCM's Classic Movie Blog

TCM's Classic Movie Blog — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:31:58 +0000

[...] 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/ [...]

By: Evangeline

Evangeline — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:24:36 +0000

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).

By: Suzi Doll

Suzi Doll — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:39:32 +0000

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.

By: Iris M. Cooper

Iris M. Cooper — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:54:13 +0000

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

By: admrilbubba

admrilbubba — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:11:10 +0000

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?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:52:49 +0000

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.

By: Richelle

Richelle — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:01:42 +0000

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.

By: Jenny the Nipper

Jenny the Nipper — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:17:09 +0000

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.

By: Suzi Doll

Suzi Doll — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:56:50 +0000

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.

By: Medusa

Medusa — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:47:29 +0000

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.