TOO MANY HUSBANDS
(Columbia) Without actually being willing to bet that Somerset Maugham didn’t write the story of this picture, I take leave to harbour honest doubt. From what I know of Mr. Maugham-and also of Holly-wood-it seems more probable that by the time his original story had gone through the Hollywood mill all they’d’ got left was the title and a vehicle for Jean Arthur, Melvyn Douglas, and Fred MacMurray. A very brisk-moving, jaunty, three-wheeled vehicle it is,. too, with Miss Arthur’s portion, as usual running rather more smoothly than the others. MacMurray is Husband No. 1, broad: shouldered and undependable, who goes off for a sailing trip and doesn’t return, leaving his wife and a Court of Justice so firmly under the impression that she’s a widow that she loses little time in marrying Husband No. 2, the more reliable, hard-working Melvyn Douglas, who’s the best friend of Husband No. 1. Then Husband No. 1 inconveniently returns from keeping turtles company on a desert island where he’s been ship-wrecked-and Jean Arthur has to decide which of her two lawfully-wedded husbands she'll keep. As may be imagined, it’s a theme with possibilities; and not such a fantastic.one, either: The kind of thing, one can well imagine, that might happen after a war. But whereas in reality such a situation would be macabre and tragic, Columbia (we won’t venture an opinion on Somerset Maugham) treats it as a slightly ribald joke. So does Jean Arthur, who just won’t make up her mind which husband she wants (to do her justice it’s a difficult decision) and who takes a fiendish delight in keeping them both on tenderhooks. The fun, lively most of the way, palls a trifle toward an ending which leaves one as much up in the air as our own tnfinished short story last week, "Mr. Potts Takes a Walk." But whereas we do offer a guinea for finishing Mr. Potts’s walk for him, Columbia leaves it entirely to your own imagination to get Jean Arthur and her husbands out of their fix. ¥
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 21
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344TOO MANY HUSBANDS New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 21
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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