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Departing from Lubitsch, the marriage circle "continental or cockeyed." The institution wobbles in a Manhattan drawing room, the husband (Cary Grant) has a counterfeit Florida tan and the wife (Irene Dunne) arrives with voice teacher (Alexander D'Arcy) in tow, the audience of acquaintances is eager for scandal. "A sort of readjustment takes place after divorce," plenty of time to cross paths in the 90 days before it becomes final. She rebounds with the Oklahoma oilman (Ralph Bellamy) while he takes up with Dixie Belle from the nightclub (Joyce Compton), nothing like sabotaging each other's affairs to rediscover their own romance. "Well, I can't possibly interpret this as jealousy." "Oh, no. Mm-mmm." Bon mot and pratfall in a blessed union, Leo McCarey's ad-libbed buoyancy in spades, one of cinema's ticklish glories. The lawyer expounds on marital beauty with his own missus grousing in the background, the judge's gravest decision addresses the custody battle over their wire fox terrier. (Dunne cheats in the courtroom with a concealed squeaky toy, Grant later on interrupts her date with piano pounding and canine accompaniment.) "I get it. I'm up to my neck in funny people, huh?" The crashing of the recital builds to the signature moment of the giggle at the end of the aria, the buildup to the would-be gigolo in the boudoir (complete with tell-tale derby hat and off-screen tumult) is like Feydeau at Hal Roach Studios. The spacious approach liberates the actors—slick Grant finds the sublime goofball within, prim Dunne jubilates in emulating a showgirl's risqué act and sounding a blushing patrolman's siren. The climactic reconciliation reimagines Capra's walls of Jericho in adjoining bedrooms at midnight, with broken door and guardian pussycat and cuckoo clock fused by McCarey's faith in comedy bringing people together. "I'm going out to get some popcorn and pink lemonade, I've just seen a three-ring circus." Hitchcock takes a different tack with Suspicion. With Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale, Robert Allen, Robert Warwick, and Mary Forbes. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |