The More the Merrier ***** (1943, Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 3072

George Stevens’s delightful 1943 classic wartime housing shortage romantic comedy The More the Merrier stars Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Oscar-winning Charles Coburn.

Producer-director George Stevens’s delightful 1943 classic romantic comedy The More the Merrier stars Jean Arthur as patriotic US Government worker Connie Milligan, who rents a cramped apartment in overcrowded Washington during World War Two and offers to sublet half of it, expecting a female tenant. 

But mischievous old millionaire Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) talks her into subletting to him and then sublets half of his half to young, irreverent sergeant Joe Carter (Joel McCrea). Connie already has a boyfriend, but soon she is romancing the handsome Joe and the old man is playing Cupid to the other two.

Stevens’s cracking-paced wartime housing shortage comedy is a sparkling and highly enjoyable entertainment. All three stars sparkle, with Arthur and McCrea showing a surprising, nimble comedic touch. But, even so, they are upstaged by the irresistible old charmer Coburn, who won the 1944 Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 16th Academy Awards. There were five other Oscar nominations, including Best Film, Best Director for Stevens, Best Actress for Arthur, Best Original Story and Best Screenplay.

The film’s script is based on an original short story and screenplay called Two’s a Crowd by Garson Kanin, who went uncredited.

The extremely adroit and nimble screenplay, full of funny lines and delicious scenes, was credited to four writers – Robert Russell, Frank Ross, Richard Flournoy and Lewis R Foster – but a fifth, Garson Kanin, even uncredited as contributor to the original story along with Russell and Ross, probably penned the lion’s share of it.

Also in the cast are Richard Gaines, Bruce Bennett, Frank Sully, Leigh Harline, Ann Savage, Ann Doran, Grady Sutton and Mary Treen.

Stevens won Best Director at the 1943 York Film Critics Circle Awards.

It was remade with Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton as 1966’s Walk, Don’t Run, updated and relocated to be set in Tokyo where there were housing shortages because of the 1964 Summer Olympics.

The More the Merrier (1943, Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea).

Jean Arthur paid Garson Kanin $25,000 to adapt his short story Two’s a Crowd into a screenplay. He co-wrote the script with Robert Russell and Frank Ross, Arthur’s husband. Arthur also brought in George Stevens, with whom she had worked on The Talk of the Town (1942) as director and Joel McCrea as co-star, having met him on pre-code romantic melodrama The Silver Horde (1930).

It was shot from 11 September 1942 to 19 December 1942, with additional shots filmed in late January 1943.

George Stevens filmed many takes of each scene from multiple angles. McCrea recalled that Columbia Pictures studio boss Harry Cohn said to him during production: ‘What’s that son of a bitch Stevens doing, making all that film? He used more exposed film in one picture than in any five pictures I’ve ever made.’

The cast are Jean Arthur as Constance Milligan, Joel McCrea as Joe Carter, Charles Coburn as Benjamin Dingle, Richard Gaines as Charles J Pendergast, Bruce Bennett as FBI Agent Evans, Frank Sully as FBI Agent Pike, Donald Douglas [Don Douglas] as FBI Agent Hardy, Clyde Fillmore as Senator Noonan, Stanley Clements as Morton Rodakiewicz, Henry Roquemore as Washington Sun reporter, Grady Sutton as diner server, Leigh Harline, Ann Savage, Ann Doran, Mary Treen.

Dumping original title Two’s a Crowd, Columbia Pictures came up with several alternatives till they alighted on Merry-Go-Round, which tested best with audiences. But Washington officials objected to this title and plot elements that suggested ‘frivolity on the part of Washington workers’ and finally approved The More the Merrier.

Talking about Merrier, it was Stevens’s last comedy. He went to North Africa with the US Army’s combat photography unit and made drama and Western films after the war.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3072

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