Skylark **** (1941, Claudette Colbert, Ray Milland, Brian Aherne, Binnie Barnes, Walter Abel) – Classic Movie Review 6813

Director Mark Sandrich’s bubbly 1941 romantic comedy stars on-form players Claudette Colbert, Ray Milland and Brian Aherne, and is a vintage delight.

[Spoiler alert] Colbert plays Lydia Kenyon, a fed-up wife married to Tony Kenyon (Milland), who always puts his advertising business first. Lydia gets the five-year itch, and then she meets and has a fling with charming, handsome attorney Jim Blake (Aherne), before of course inevitably returning to her husband Tony.

Sandrich’s movie version of Samson Raphaelson’s Broadway play and novel is filmed with lots of style. There is bright playing by the stars (particularly Colbert standing in for the theatre’s star Gertrude Lawrence) and witty support playing, and the movie is dynamically propelled by the genuine wit and good laughs in Zion Myers and Allan Scott’s buoyant screenplay.

Colbert, Aherne and Milland’s turns stay in the memory, and Binnie Barnes is outstanding in support as Myrtle Vantine, wife of Tony’s boss.

Also in the cast are Walter Abel, Ernest Cossart, Grant Mitchell, Mona Barrie, James Rennie, Leonard Mudie, Warren Hymer, Hobart Cavanaugh, Edward Fielding, Leon Belasco, Irving Bacon, May Boley, Robert Dudley, Patricia Farr, Fritz Feld, James Flavin, Margaret Hayes, Armand Kaliz, Francisco Maran, Howard M Mitchell, Ella Neal, William Newell, Frank Orth, Edward Peil Sr, Keith Richards, Henry Roquemore, Virginia Sale, Kara Beth Taylor and Minerva Urecal.

Skylark is directed by Mark Sandrich, runs 93 minutes, is made and released by Paramount, is written by Zion Myers and Allan Scott, is shot by Charles Lang and Mark Sandrich, is scored by Victor Young, and is designed by Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6813

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