Too much of everything

The Age of Commercialism

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Blistering performances.

Painfully lame comedy. Victor Moore gets a license to marry people on Christmas, but doesn't realize it doesn't go into effect until New Year's Day. In that span, he marries five couples, and this film tells the five stories of what happens when they find out. The answer: nothing at all interesting. Not a single one of these scenarios is the least bit amusing. Only Marilyn Monroe completists ever need watch this film. I seriously don't even remember her story, though. I think she was a beauty pageant contestant who finds out she can't compete if she's married, but then she finds out she's not, so everything's okay. That's the level of storytelling we're dealing with here. Also starring Ginger Rogers, Mitzi Gaynor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Paul Douglas and Jane Darwell.

Back in the '50s, a common sitcom episode was the married couple finding out that they're not legally married."We're Not Married," a 1952 film, has five such couples, including Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe and David Wayne, Eve Arden and Paul Douglas, Eddie Bracken and Mitzi Gaynor, and Louis Calhern and Zsa Zsa Gabor.There were several episodic, anthology-type films from this period. "We're Not Married" deals with five very different couples and what the notice of non-marriage means to each couple. There's a wealthy man (Calhern) married to a gold digger (Gabor), a bickering husband and wife radio couple (Allen and Rogers), a couple in a slump (Paul Douglas and Eve Arden), an ambitious young woman and her husband (Monroe and Wayne) etc.The best is the Calhern-Gabor, and Allen and Rogers make a good team and give bright performances. There are some funny sequences throughout.Mores have changed a lot since this film, but it makes for pleasant watching with good direction by Edmund Goulding.

A previous person described this film as "fluff." This is a perfect word to describe it, and should contain a capital "F."But it's also entertaining and interesting. It has a host of 1930's and 1940's actors (and some pre-dating talking pictures), as well "youngsters," Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe and Lee Marvin (latter in an uncredited bit part).The premise is pristine, and the "plot" revolves in a silly fashion around the supposed customs of that period, with people scurrying about with issues which wouldn't warrant any dramatic presentation today.The thin plot involves several couples whose marriages were ruled invalid by the governor, since they were married by a justice-of-the-peace, near the end of the year sometime back, with his certification not valid until the following January 1st.Rogers and Allen are a pair with a morning "couples" radio program (seemingly consisting of nothing but sponsor plugs and inane "nasty-nice" banter), with a sham marriage for purely economic purposes. Bracken and Gaynor are a young couple who need to be remarried before his army unit embarks, or else their expected child won't be legitimate, but (according to his sergeant) "a foul ball." Golddigger Gabor (not a stretch here) literally faints when the letter from the governor arrives at her wealthy husband's (Calhoun) office, while her lawyer is discussing her plundering his assets during a divorce settlement (precipitated by a set-up when a fully-clothed impostor, who resembles a conservatively-dressed elementary teacher poses as his wife in a hotel room, for about three minutes, while her confederates note the incident). Although released in 1952, this is strictly a "40's" flick. Even then, certainly the governor would simply have effected a special edict making these unions legitimate, and even if not, Gabor, however devious her purpose, would have been able to claim some sort of common-law entitlement, or rights under whatever passed for "palimony" then.Still, it's now a nostalgic piece, with nearly all the thespians gone, except for a couple or so, including Zsa Zsa, now 90, plus however many years are still fudged from her birth date.

This is a thoroughly entertaining little piece of fluff with a great comic premise and good performances from a fine cast. Ginger Rogers and Fred Allen, in particular, work wonderfully together as the bickering radio stars who must play a lovey-dovey couple on their morning show. It is too bad that Allen - who has such a wonderfully dry and cynical comic persona (sort of a Walter Matthau prototype) - didn't make more movies. This is a fun way to while away an hour and a half.