The Ex-Mrs Bradford **** (1936, William Powell, Jean Arthur, James Gleason, Eric Blore, Robert Armstrong, Lila Lee, Grant Mitchell, Ralph Morgan, Frank Reicher) – Classic Movie Review 6864

Director Stephen Roberts’s 1936 crime caper The Ex-Mrs Bradford is entertaining and often wittily written, with much of the urbane style and zesty handling of the best Thirties screwball comedy thrillers.

It stars the strong team of William Powell and Jean Arthur as Dr Lawrence Bradford and Paula, the friendly ex-Mrs Bradford, while there is cheery comic relief from Eric Blore’s manservant, Bradford’s Butler Stokes, and James Gleason’s cop, Inspector Corrigan.

Powell and Arthur are on very spry form, giving polished performances as a surgeon (Powell) who teams up with his daffy divorced wife (Arthur), now a thriller author, to crack a case of homicide at the races after a jockey dies of supposed ‘heart failure’ during a race, and finds that he is the police’s number one suspect in the case.

Also in the cast are Robert Armstrong as the bookie Nick Martel, Lila Lee as Bradford’s receptionist Miss Prentiss, Grant Mitchell, Ralph Morgan, Frank Reicher, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Lucile Gleason, Charles Richman, John Sheehan, Paul Fix, James Donlan and Frankie Darro.

The Ex-Mrs Bradford is directed by Stephen Roberts, runs 82 minutes, is produced by RKO Radio Pictures, is released by RKO, is written by Anthony Veiller and James Edward Grant, is shot in black and white by J Roy Hunt, is produced by Edward Kaufman, and is scored by Roy Webb.

It was a hit, making RKO a profit of $350,000, on a budget of $369,000.

It is the 11th and last feature film of Stephen Roberts, who died of a heart attack aged 40 soon after the release of the film. It follows Roberts’s The Lady Consents (1936) and The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (1935).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6864

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