You Belong to Me [Good Morning, Doctor] **½ (1941, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Edgar Buchanan) – Classic Movie Review 6773

Director Wesley Ruggles’s 1941 romantic comedy You Belong to Me stars the perfectly paired Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda once again after their success in The Lady Eve (1941). It is also known as Good Morning, Doctor.

This time Fonda plays idle rich Peter Kirk, a newly married husband who is jealous of the men patients seen by his new doctor wife Helen Hunt (Stanwyck), in a rather tattily made, seemingly hastily concocted, and none too brilliantly entertaining comedy, mainly kept alive by the sparkling star playing. And there is an effective support cast too. Edgar Buchanan helps especially as the garrulous gardener Billings, along with Fritz Feld as the as Hotel Clerk and Melville Cooper as Moody.

Millionaire playboy Peter Kirk meets and falls in love with beautiful doctor Helen Hunt at a ski resort. She agrees to marry him if she continues to practice medicine. He becomes jealous of her treating male patients and gets into confrontations with two of them, Robert Andrews (Gordon Jones) and Frederick Vandemer (Roger Clark).

Stanwyck and Fonda are great even when Claude Binyon’s screenplay is fairly feeble, even though it is from a story by Dalton Trumbo. But You Belong to Me is a marked come-down from the stars’ previous hit outing together, the true classic The Lady Eve (1941).

Also in the cast are Roger Clark, Ruth Donnelly, Melville Cooper, Maude Eburne, Ralph Peters, Renie Riano, Ellen Lowe, Mary Treen, Gordon Jones, Fritz Feld, Paul Harvey, Sidney Bracey, Lloyd Bridges, Georgia Caine, Jeff Corey, Lester Dorr, Byron Foulger, Sarah Edwards, Robert Gray, Howard C Hickman, Jack Norton, Larry Parks, Grady Sutton, Harold Waldridge and Charles Smith.

Larry Parks has a bit part here but is the star of the 1950 remake Emergency Wedding [Jealousy].

You Belong to Me, also known as Good Morning, Doctor, is directed by Wesley Ruggles, runs 94 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Claude Binyon, from a story by Dalton Trumbo, is shot in black and white by Joseph Walker, is produced by Wesley Ruggles, scored by Frederick Hollander and designed by Lionel Banks.

It was released in the UK as Good Morning, Doctor,

It is the third and last film pairing of Fonda and Stanwyck after The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941).

It opened on 22 October 1941 in the US.

The cast are Barbara Stanwyck as Helen Kirk, Henry Fonda as Peter Kirk, Edgar Buchanan as Billings, Roger Clark as Frederick Vandemer, Ruth Donnelly as Emma, Melville Cooper as Moody, Ralph Peters as Joseph, Maude Eburne as Ella, Renie Riano as Minnie, Ellen Lowe as Eva, Mary Treen as Doris, Gordon Jones as Robert Andrews, Fritz Feld as Hotel Clerk, Paul Harvey as Barrows, Georgia Backus as Attendant, Sidney Bracey as Frederick Vandemer’s Butler, Lloyd Bridges as Ski Patrol, Stanley Brown as Ski Patrol, Georgia Caine as Necktie Customer, Jeff Corey as Mr Greener, Lester Dorr as Photographer, Howard C Hickman as Mr Deker, Sam McDaniel as Pierre, George Lessey as Marshall, Arthur Loft as Reporter, Byron Foulger, Sarah Edwards, Robert Gray, Jack Norton, Larry Parks, Grady Sutton, Harold Waldridge and Charles Smith.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6773

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com