PLAZA THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 45, 16 November 1940, Page 15

PLAZA THEATRE

“Too Many Husbands,” now screening at the Plaza Theatre, is a delightful comedy of a complicated matrimonial tangle, aud has as its leading players Jean Arthur, Fred Mac Murray, and Melvyn Douglas. The story is neat, involving only three people. It tells of Vicki (Jean Arthur), an entirely feminine and quite unscrupulous little blonde, the darling of two decidedly different men. Vicki, so she thinks, is the widow of a man drowned at.sea. She marries again. The supposedly drowned man comes home, and the wife-widow finds herself with two perfectly good husbands, both determined to win her for themselves, and neither with any intention of allowing the other a chance of doing so. From this promising opening many amusing situations develop, as might be expected when it is known that the director is Wesley Ruggles. According, to the story, the man who eventually wins his wife is the man who deserves to win her, but it would spoil it to tell who be is—and the audience must wait till the very end before getting even a glimpse of the solution. This introduces a tense note into the fun, which is at most times fast and furious. Fred Mac Murray and Melvyn Douglas have a fund of bitter witticisms to work off at each other s expense, and they ceaselessly fight out the battle between themselves till the last. Characterizations throughout are almost flawless. Jean Arthur excels herself as the wife with “too many husbands,” and who does not cavil at indulging in the ancient and honourable game of the double cross when the occasion warrants it; Melvyn Douglas, as Henry, the staid, business-like,, preoccupied husband, has a role which is evidently very much to his liking; and Fred Mac Murray, as the husband who returns from the dead, provides a contrast in type which goes (y make the picture one of the funniest and amusing of its kind. Melville Cooper and Harry Davenport create a good deal of quiet fun in the background. “Two Many Husbands,” with its care-fully-planned dialogue, streamlined cast, and utterly ridiculous but fascinating sequence of happenings, should provide many filmgoers with some of their best laughs.