Double Wedding **** (1937, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Florence Rice, John Beal) – Classic Movie Review 8559

Director Richard Thorpe’s 1937 screwball comedy Double Wedding stars the delightful William Powell and Myrna Loy in their seventh teaming, and they are totally at practised ease with the sophisticated slapstick of this very pleasing MGM comedy taken from Ferenc Molnár’s play Great Love.

Powell plays the free-spirited artist Charles [Charlie] Lodge, who romances Irene Agnew (Florence Rice), the sister of his true lady love Margit Agnew (Loy) in order to woo Margit. The meek and mild Waldo Beaver (John Beal) and Irene have been engaged for four years, but now Irene fancies Charlie. Margit has meticulously planned Irene’s wedding to Waldo and confronts Charlie about giving up Irene. Could there be a double wedding in the air?

Production was halted because of the death of Powell’s fiancée Jean Harlow on 7 June 1937 (age 26) from uremic poisoning and he found finishing the movie ‘very difficult under the circumstances’. Loy disliked the film because of her friend Harlow’s death, saying it was ‘the scapegoat for concurrent despair’.

Also in the cast are Jessie Ralph, Edgar Kennedy, Sidney Toler, Mary Gordon, Barnett Parker, Katharine Alexander, Priscilla Lawson, Donald Meek, Henry Taylor, Bert Roach, the Chicago-born character actor Roger Moore (1900–1999), Mitchell Lewis, Doodles Weaver, Oscar O’Shea and Jack Dougherty.

Double Wedding is directed by Richard Thorpe, runs 87 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Jo Swerling and Waldo Salt, based on Ferenc Molnár’s play Great Love, is shot in black and white by William H Daniels, is produced by Joseph L Mankiewicz, and scored by Edward Ward.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8559

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