THE EGG AND I

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 427, 29 August 1947, Page 24

THE EGG AND I

(Universal-International)

HERE are a_e good many laughs in this comedy, based on a bestseller which I seem to have the distinction of not having read. It is the

story of a city-bred and newly-wed couple (Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray), who take up poultry-farm-ing in the American backblocks and run into plenty of pioneering hardships and comic misadventures. Again, as in the case of The Yearling, one feels that the butter’s spread’ too thick: there are a number of valid comedy situationsfor imstance, the heroine’s encounter with the stove, and the rustic dancebut almost all of them are overplayed. Even in the case of the stove, the doors pop open too often; the house which the newly-weds occupy is too incredibly senile and, for that matter, too easily rejuvenated; not quite so many leaks 1n the roof when it rains would have been more convincing-and just as funny. It is perhaps a little obvious to say that this film is like the curate’s egg: but it would, I think, have been better entertainment and equally as popular if it had concentrated more on chickers and their temperamental ways, and had avoided such obvious box-office bait as the Other Woman (Louise Allbritton) and her attempts to lure MacMurray away from his roost. As I say, I belong to the minority who haven’t read the book; but I’m willing to bet’ that it doesn’t hatch out any such stereotyped final situation as that of the jealous author-heroine going home to mother to brood and then returning to surprise her husband with the news that he is a father.