Casanova Brown ** (1944, Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Frank Morgan, Anita Louise) – Classic Movie Review 7693

Director Sam Wood’s 1944 Casanova Brown boasts good stars in Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright and Frank Morgan, but this is no more than pleasant comedy, which is especially disappointing as there is an intriguing premise here and it is a well crafted movie. It was nominated for three Oscars: Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (Perry Ferguson, Julia Heron), Best Sound, Recording and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Arthur Lange).

Cooper stars as Casanova ‘Cass’ Brown, a man who finds his now ex-wife Isabel (Wright) is inconveniently having a baby exactly at the moment that their divorce arrives and he is about to remarry. Cooper goes to the hospital to discover what is going on, and eventually he sets out to abduct the child. Isabel’s parents, Mr and Mrs Drury (Edmund Breon, Patricia Collinge), hunt for the child.

Good stars they may be, but Cooper and Wright are not really ideally cast here, which harms the film. Casanova Brown is a remake of Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell’s once-famous play The Little Accident, of which there were two earlier film versions, both as Little Accident.

Also in the cast are Anita Louise, Jill Esmond, Halliwell Hobbes, Mary Treen, Isobel Elsom, Emory Parnell, Charles Cane, Larry Olsen, Irving Bacon, Dorothy Tree, Robert Emmett Keane, James Burke, Frederick Burton, Byron Foulger, Robert Dudley, Edward Earle, Sarah Padden, Snub Pollard, Grady Sutton, Isabel Withers, Mary Young, Phil Tead, Jack Gargan, Kelly Flint, Julia Faye and Ann Evers.

Casanova Brown is directed by Sam Wood, runs 97 minutes, is made by International Pictures, Christie Corporation, Nunnally Johnson Productions, is released by RKO Radio Pictures (US) and General Film Distributors (UK), is written by Nunnally Johnson, based on Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell’s play The Little Accident, is shot in black and white by John F Seitz, is produced by Nunnally Johnson, is scored by Arthur Lange and is designed by Perry Ferguson.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7693

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