It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Don't get me wrong. This is a sort of fun slap sticky screwball comedy from and of the 40's. It is Kirk Douglas's sixth film and he is billed second after the lovely Laraine Day. It is just two films and two years before his Academy Award winning turn in Champion in 1950. BUT Kirk is best at those scene chewing, somewhat over-dramatic, tooth baring roles. Comedy, not so much ! Keenan Wynn is fun to watch in another of his frequent appearances as best pal to the star. He has the most clever wise cracks in the film but they aren't all that funny, really. The whole deal with him using the kitchen and burning everything is just sort of annoying and goes on way too long. Grady Sutton and Alan Mowbray are their usual competent selves. As the housekeeper there was a "Oh, wow.. looky here that's Irene Ryan, Granny from the Beverly Hillbiliiies !" Rudy Valle is sticklike as always.The story is silly and rather garbled and total nonsense but it's a chance to see the 32 year old, on the threshold of stardom, Kirk Douglas.

In his sixth film Kirk Douglas plays a writer who is ultimately outwritten by his wife, Larraine Day. He lives in an apartment owned by Florence Bates who is constantly around seeking favours and cannot be insulted. I'm guessing that Mank watched this one because soon afterwards he cast Douglas as an English teacher who is out-earned by his wife, Ann Sothern, who writes trashy radio serials for producer Florence Bates, who gets up Douglas's nose. Coincidence or what. That to one side this is a fine albeit obscure movie and if I have a cavil it is that the quality of the print - which I purchased in a shrink-wrapped case - was fairly poor. Second banana Keenan Wynn gets all the best lines and delivers them adeptly and also gets the pay-off laff when he introduces his new bride - Bates - to Douglas and Day. If I could score a decent print I'd watch it again.

Since I'd bought the DVD, I watched as much of this as I did out of a sense of obligation to my wallet.The plot has Kirk Douglas as a successful first novelist who hired Laraine Day as a secretary, falls in love, and marries her. Complications ensue.Douglas is usually thought of as an intense actor, given to heavily dramatic roles, sometimes hero, sometimes rat. He's not bad in this thoroughly comic part. The problem is that the part isn't particularly comic and neither is anything else.The plot rambles on. A dozen "quirky" characters come and go -- most prominently Keenan Wynn as Douglas's friend who does nothing but make wry comments. Thelma Ritter was better at this sort of thing.Well, if the plot is weak it could still have been rescued by some sparkle in the dialog but there is none to speak of. Some gags are silly. Others don't clear that bar. Here's what I thought of as an amusing line. Douglas has just hired Day and wants to get her down to the beach house and seduce her. Day is disturbed and remarks that she's never heard of a writer working in a beach house. Wynn asks if she liked Douglas's previous book, "Last Year's Love." Yes, of course she did. "Well, most of 'Last Year's Love' was done in the beach house." Ha ha.Nice cast, including support, but a failed comedy. There have been better sitcoms on television.

This was much funnier than I expected it to be. I had never heard of it, but it was included in a collection of "Comedy Classics" bought cheap at a dollar store. Most of the movies were dreadful, but this was one the a few that were good.One doesn't usually think of Kirk Douglas as funny but he is in this. Irene Ryan is, also, and her character bears little resemblance to Granny. Perhaps the funniest in the cast is Keenan Wynn, who delivers some of the best lines in the movie with great flair. Some of the minor characters also very enjoyable.The writing is also very clever and witty. Great lines abound all around.