THIS THING CALLED LOVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 110, 1 August 1941, Page 20

THIS THING CALLED LOVE

(Columbia)

PERTURBED by the rising divorce-rate of America, Ann Winters (Rosalind Russell), evolves a theory that the menace can best be com-

bated by a-system of trial marriagenot companionate marriage of the type once advocated by that shocking Judge Lindsay (I had difficulty in remembering his name, which shows what a lasting impression he made), but a form of union which is marriage in almost nothing but name, whereas (it is now coming back to me), the learned Judge’s variety was marriage in everything but ceremony. Miss Winters’s theory is that marriage is, or rather should be, at least as important as a business deal, and you wouldn’t commit yourself to a business deal without first finding out something about the other party*concerned, would you? So, she argues, let husband and wife share board but not bed for six months or so. It should be mentioned that Miss Winters, as some sort of an executive in some sort of a business firm which is somehow interested in insuring marriages against failure, has a rather more than purely personal motive for making an experiment with her own marriage, but it is unfortunate that she has to choose for the combined role of guinea pig and husband an engineer who has just returned after a long period spént in South America in close contact with bridges or dams or something equally important but unsociable. Tice Collins (Melvyn Douglas), has no desire to be a guineapig; he likes the old-fashioned kind of marriage (so, for that matter, do guineapigs, I’m told): but he pretends willingness to go through with the experiment in the comforting belief that he’s an attractive sort of chap, and that human nature will always prove stronger than scientific theory. On this basis of innuendo is built the not particularly original plot of This Thing Called Love. Having satisfied the Hays Office with a marriage ceremony and a wedding ring in the first quarterhour, the producer is left free in the remaining 70 minutes or so to devolop one risqué situation after another, in which the dominating theme is that of a husband making strenuous efforts to seduce his wife. And were it not for intervening circumstances in the form of business partners, divorcees, beautiful secretaries and a South American millionaire and his wife, who believe in married couples having as many children as rapidly as possible, it is obvious that the husband’s faith in human nature would soon be vindicated and scientific theory put to rout. I have described the plot as being not particularly original, which is probably the reason why, when I came to write this review some days after I’d seen the film, I couldn’t at first for the life of me remember what it was all about. It is, in essence, exactly the kind.of thing on which countless comedies of the bedroom type have been built. However, thanks to the intervening circumstances above-mentioned, the producer is able to complicate the story sufficiently for it to last out the appointed time and keep the audience laughing pretty consistently. In places he has to force the laughs, and borrow ideas fairly heavily from previous shows, but on the whole, (Continued on next page)

FILM REVIEWS (Continued from previous page) This Thing Called Love is bright, farcial entertainment-particularly if you like the comedy styles of Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. They work well in partnership,