It Had to Be You ** (1947, Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, Percy Waram) – Classic Movie Review 8969

Directors Don Hartman and Rudolph Maté’s 1947 comedy It Had to be You stars Ginger Rogers as daffy Victoria Stafford, who leaves three grooms at the altar before dashing fireman Cornel Wilde drives her wild and up the aisle into an altered state.

The genial, fun star performances help to plug the empty spaces in Norman Panama and Melvin Frank’s screenplay in this breezy, fairly amusing sex comedy. However, it is not one of Rogers’s best, partly because the Rogers-Wilde teaming lacks the charisma of, say, the Rogers-Fred Astaire partnership.

The screenplay tails off regularly, and, without good lines, the support is left mugging helplessly. But the movie is worthwhile for Rogers.

Also in the cast are Percy Waram, Spring Byington, Thurston Hall, Ron Randell, Charles Evans, William Bevan, Frank Orth, Harry Hays, Douglas Wood, Mary Forbes and Fred Sears.

Producer Hartman began directing but soon handed the film over to the film’s cinematographer Maté.

It is on DVD in the Screen Goddess Collection: Ginger Rogers box set, which contains The Major and The Minor, Bachelor Mother, Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee, It Had To Be You, and Tight Spot.

It Had to be You is directed by Don Hartman and Rudolph Maté, runs 98 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, from a story by Don Hartman and Allen Boretz, is shot in black and white by Rudolph Maté and Vincent J. Farrar, is produced by Don Hartman, and is scored by Morris Stoloff (musical director), Arthur Morton and Heinz Roemheld, with Art Direction by Stephen Goosson and Rudolph Sternad.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8969

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