Thu 13 May 2010
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE BRIDE COMES HOME (1935).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews1 Comment
THE BRIDE COMES HOME. Paramount, 1935. Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Robert Young, William Collier, Sr., Donald Meek, Edgar Kennedy, Johnny Arthur, Jimmy Conlin. Screenplay by Claude Binyon, from a story by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. Photography: Leo Tover; special photographic effects by Dewey Wrigley. Producer/director: Wesley Ruggles, producer/director. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.
The best, and funniest, part of the film is the final scene in which the great Edgar Kennedy, playing a small-town Justice of the Peace, attempts to complete a ceremony uniting a reluctant Claudette Colbert and an eager Robert Young.
Meanwhile, suitor number two (Fred MacMurray) is racing in a car with the would-be bride’s father (William Collier, Sr) to stop the ceremony and claim the prize. This sequence lifts a charming romantic comedy into a more inspired comic realm.
And now you know why I referred to the “great” Edgar Kennedy. Everybody’s good, but he provides the comic leaven that not only puts the frosting on the cake but makes it rise to the occasion.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Sounds like one I should look up, if only for Edgar Kennedy, king of the slow burn.
But I notice it is from a story by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, who would become one of the best suspense novelists of her time with a real talent for psychological suspense.
MacMurray and Colbert teamed again for THE EGG AND I, the film that gave us the Ma and Pa Kettle characters and series.
They also teamed in NO TIME FOR LOVE, famous for a fantasy sequence with MacMurray as a super hero who suspiciously resembles Captain Marvel — who was modeled on MacMurray — though the timing is such that the costume and MacMurray’s being the model for Marvel may be a coincidence as far as anyone can tell.