What movie did YOU just FINISH watching?
Jan 21, 2021 3:31:23 GMT
wickedkittiesmom, spiderwort, and 1 more like this
Post by Salzmank on Jan 21, 2021 3:31:23 GMT
Love Crazy (1941, dir. Jack Conway).
Cute little Powell-Loy movie in which they’re a married couple who are broken up by Loy’s scheming mother. Powell resorts to outrageous silliness to win Loy back.
And it’s good silliness, and it’s William Powell and Myrna Loy, so no matter what it’s going to be good. Some of the comedy bits are as good as anything Powell and Loy had to work with—particularly the ending, in which Powell… No, I don’t want to give it away!
All in all, though, it just doesn’t hold together, and even some of those fine jokes and gags suffer from some too-reticent direction on the part of Jack Conway (an OK filmmaker who helmed some good movies but was never more than OK—and certainly not distinctive). Woody Van Dyke would have paced this thing like lightning—a Van Dyke trademark not only in comedies like The Thin Man but also dramas like Manhattan Melodrama. All through watching this I was comparing it with Van Dyke’s I Love You Again (1940), another non-Thin Man Powell-Loy comedy, and the Van Dyke film came out on top every time. Mostly I think that’s because Conway paces things a bit too slowly and because some of his comic timing is off.
None of it is bad, and again some of the jokes really work, but—well, I found an online review calling it “uneven,” and that’s perhaps the best word for it. Still, it is Powell and Loy, and spending an hour and change in their company is never a bad decision.
Cute little Powell-Loy movie in which they’re a married couple who are broken up by Loy’s scheming mother. Powell resorts to outrageous silliness to win Loy back.
And it’s good silliness, and it’s William Powell and Myrna Loy, so no matter what it’s going to be good. Some of the comedy bits are as good as anything Powell and Loy had to work with—particularly the ending, in which Powell… No, I don’t want to give it away!
All in all, though, it just doesn’t hold together, and even some of those fine jokes and gags suffer from some too-reticent direction on the part of Jack Conway (an OK filmmaker who helmed some good movies but was never more than OK—and certainly not distinctive). Woody Van Dyke would have paced this thing like lightning—a Van Dyke trademark not only in comedies like The Thin Man but also dramas like Manhattan Melodrama. All through watching this I was comparing it with Van Dyke’s I Love You Again (1940), another non-Thin Man Powell-Loy comedy, and the Van Dyke film came out on top every time. Mostly I think that’s because Conway paces things a bit too slowly and because some of his comic timing is off.
None of it is bad, and again some of the jokes really work, but—well, I found an online review calling it “uneven,” and that’s perhaps the best word for it. Still, it is Powell and Loy, and spending an hour and change in their company is never a bad decision.