THE EX-MRS. BRADFORD (1936)

1936 was William Powell’s peak year: THE GREAT ZIEGFELD, MY MAN GODFREY, AFTER THE THIN MAN, LIBELED LADY, all hot Oscar contenders.*  But home studio M-G-M had an opening in his sched and loaned him out to R.K.O. for this middling murder mystery.  Co-star Jean Arthur just as busy/just as hot (Frank Capra and C.B. DeMille directing two of her five films that year) also onboard.  Let’s face it, this one something of an afterthought for both stars, a sort of Screwball Murder Mystery, and with that forced tone you get in second-tier Screwball comedy.  In brief: Jockey falls dead in the middle of a big race and crime novelist Arthur gets ex-husband Powell, who’s a doctor, to help investigate in hope of getting back together.  Director Stephen Roberts, who died young, this his last film, takes a while to find his form, but at least keeps from using one of those cutsey comic scores, the ones that function as a laughtrack.  So, no waa-waa trombone slides.  In fact, no score at all, most unusual for a pricey 1936 A-list comedy, yet finding real pace as the mystery starts to come together.  Fun once you get past the first act.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Powell & Arthur two of the most delightful players in Golden Age Hollywood though Arthur’s Achilles’ Heel is on display right at the start.  Simply put, the more you glam her up, the worse she looks.  Being a great beauty the one thing she can’t get away with.  Note how uncomfortable she seems all dolled up in the opening scenes compared to how smashing she looks once they stop trying so hard.  Especially at the end where she looks simply lovely.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Though officially a doctor here, Powell largely acts as a detective, one of many he played over the years.  Try him as Philo Vance in THE KENNEL MURDER CASE/’33.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-kennel-murder-case-1933.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Only Thomas Mitchell in 1939 topped Powell with five rather than a mere four Oscar contenders in a single year.  But Mitchell was a supporting character actor in all five.