The Feminine Touch *** (1941, Rosalind Russell, Don Ameche, Kay Francis, Van Heflin, Donald Meek, Henry Daniell, Gordon Jones) – Classic Movie Review 11,918

Director W S Van Dyke II’s 1941 MGM film The Feminine Touch is a fairly smart, brisk and funny romantic comedy with several very good actors and two inimitable star players in Don Ameche and Rosalind Russell as a married couple in trouble after he loses his job. Also in the cast are Kay Francis, Van Heflin, Donald Meek, Henry Daniell, Sidney Blackmer, Gordon Jones, Grant Mitchell, and David Clyde.

Don Ameche plays a college professor called John Hathaway who writes a book about jealousy and takes his wife Julie (Rosalind Russell) to New York, where she gets a job with publisher Elliott Morgan (Van Heflin), who falls for her, while she thinks that her husband (Ameche) is having a fling with Morgan’s colleague Nellie Woods (Kay Francis).

A strong cast and fast-moving direction give a mild but jolly script just the right touch.

Julie Gibson sings ‘I’m Jealous’.

It runs 97 minutes.

The 1956 British film The Feminine Touch has no connection.

The cast are Rosalind Russell as Julie Hathaway Don Ameche as Professor John Hathaway, Kay Francis as Nellie Woods, Van Heflin as Elliott Morgan, Donald Meek as Captain Makepeace Liveright, Gordon Jones as Rubber-Legs Ryan, Henry Daniell as Shelley Mason, Sidney Blackmer as Freddie Bond, Grant Mitchell as Dean Hutchinson and David Clyde as Brighton.

The Feminine Touch is directed by W S Van Dyke II, runs 96 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by George Oppenheimer, Edmund L Hartmann and Ogden Nash, is shot in black and white by Ray June, is produced by Joseph L Mankiewicz and scored by Franz Waxman.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,918

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