THE DOCTOR TAKES A WIFE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 72, 8 November 1940, Page 17

THE DOCTOR TAKES A WIFE

(Columbia) Other directors may make more lavish and more spectacular comedies, but when it comes to turning out an honest job of work it seems there are few to touch Columbia’s Alexander Hall. Almost any season Mr. Hall can be relied upon to produce from his directorial hat at least a couple of bright farces. Last season "Good Girls Go To Paris" and "The Amazing Mr. Williams"; this season "The Doctor Takes a Wife" and "He Stayed for Breakfast." The first two both starred Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas. "The Doctor Takes a Wife" has Loretta Young and Ray Milland, and "He Stayed for Breakfast" has Loretta Young and Melvyn Douglas. Mr. Hall, it will be seen, does not use many bells, but nobody can deny that he rings a surprising number of changes. "The Doctor Takes a Wife" is what may be described as a typical Hollywood fabrication. One can almost picture the story conference... "We'll have them married," says one writer. "And yet not married. That will keep the romance hot," says another. "Give them careers; that’ll help with the situations," adds a third. "And don’t forget the Mistake That Changes Their Lives," says a fourth. And everyone is set to go. What actually happens is that Loretta Young is a novelist who has a best-

seller up her sleeve in the form of a book glorifying the spinster. By an accident she is married off to a young bachelor doctor, Ray Milland. She can’t deny the marriage and risk a scandal, so they set up house together and she writes another book glorifying the married woman. Add complications by the dozen for Mr. Milland, a couple of bedroom scenes, and an ending which you can be left to guess at, and there you have "The Doctor Takes a Wife." Altogether a bright little comedy that deserves well.