Loud, fast, not particularly funny. A good description of most Golden Age Warner Bros. comedies. This one isn’t even fast. Putative explanation follows. Contract star Jane Wyman, after a decade’s slog from featured player to second leads, finally breaking onto A-list leads in THE YEARLING/’47 (on loan to M-G-M) then surprising the heck out of Warners execs when JOHNNY BELINDA/’48, a film no one wanted to make, hit big. So, having nothing on deck for her, they called in comic script doctor Harry Kurnitz to punch up this dusty screenplay about neurasthenic concert pianist David Niven whose controlling manager has just bought an Upper West Side apartment building for his growing portfolio. (He’s also robbing Niven blind.) Checking out his new property, Niven finds a whole building of sweet eccentrics, falls for pretty model Wyman, woos her away from overbearing fiancé Chester Morris and is freed from psychological ailments by getting to know and appreciate New York's hoi polloi. Alternately over or under played, it was director Delmer Daves only attempt at light comedy. And it does alter the Warners model by not being particularly fast, but only because building manager Victor Moore has such a deliberate manner. Not for nothing was Moore’s style best caught on film under Laurel & Hardy experts Leo McCarey and George Stevens. Only at the end, when most of the comic complications have been dealt with, do you suddenly notice how charmingly Wyman & Niven work together, an adorable mismatch. But by then it’s much too late.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Niven bats 1000 at similar comic weight in BACHELOR MOTHER/’39. Wyman’s best in these things came during her Second Lead days. Try PRINCESS O’ROURKE/’43. (Note both films written by Norman Krasna, who’s often mistaken for Harry Kurnitz.) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/08/bachelor-mother-1939.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/06/princess-orourke-1943.html
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