Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Though not as spontaneously hilarious as Dunne and Grant's earlier pairing in "The Awful Truth" (1937), "My Favorite Wife" again displays the masterful comedic timing and wonderful on screen romantic chemistry that Irene and Cary shared. Just as she did in "The Awful Truth", Miss Dunne has to use every trick at her disposal in order to goad Cary Grant into doing the right thing. She not only has to compete against her replacement spouse counterpart and ice queen Bianca, she has to win her husband and the father of her children back...all the way back to the marriage bed. The end scene with Cary Grant dressed as Santa Claus and wishing Irene Dunne a Merry Christmas is hysterical. Because of the strict movie code of the time, he can't come right out and say what special gift he is delivering to her but the audience knows just the same! Movies were so much more entertaining back then because they left so much to the imagination, thereby enriching moviegoers' imaginations in the process.

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne together are fantastic. She plays his supposedly dead wife who was shipwrecked 7 years ago. She just happens to reappear on the day he marries his new wife, who is very snobbish and cold. Watching his facial expressions, it always amazes me how he could use them better than any actor in history. The look on his face when he sees her as the elevator door is closing is worth the watching of this movie alone. The hotel clerk and the judge are also both hilarious in their limited scenes with Grant. Even Randolph Scott, who's character was stranded with Grant's wife's character, is very amusing in his bickering with Grant. But the real kicker is the ending and watching Cary Grant fidget and stress over how to choose his REAL wife in their cabin. This movie is everything a comedy should be and one that any Cary Grant fan or classic movie lover should definitely see! My grade: A+.

Or, as Irene Dunne says, "the Mulligan stew", which gets a laugh in court as she reveals she is the wife who came back to life after being declared legally dead when her husband (Cary Grant) went off and married another woman (Gail Patrick). In the same year as the sexually reversed "Too Many Husbands" (which is about just what the title indicates), "My Favorite Wife" is the more remembered of the two, probably because it has a fast moving and funny screenplay where everything comes together perfectly.Those who have seen this film's Doris Day/James Garner remake ("Move Over Darling") first will have little trouble recognizing the same structure which only changes at the end. The story opens with Grant in court going through the legal procedure of having the long-missing Dunne declared dead just so he can immediately marry the somewhat temperamental Patrick. Dunne shows up immediately afterwards, encountering her two children and mother-in-law, then heading off to the hotel where she and Grant initially spent their first honeymoon to create a bundle of confusion. It continues when Grant and Patrick arrive home and Dunne is there, posing as the daughter of an old friend of Grant's mother (Anne Shoemaker). Grant discovers that his missing wife wasn't quite so alone on her island stay, with the handsome Randolph Scott present as a man whom she nicknamed "Adam" to her "Eve".This is both combination of family and screwball romantic comedy as the desire to reunite the family torn apart by no fault of their own, and it is brilliantly written and acted. You can tell when Patrick breaks down crying that those are indeed crocodile tears as she is way too tough (both in her character and in our memory of her previous screen performances) to be willing to break down so easily. Character performances by Donald MacBride as a befuddled hotel clerk and Granville Bates as a befuddled judge add to the delight of this story. Dunne and Grant are an easy-going romantic team who in three films had the sophistication and wit of Powell and Loy, Tracy and Hepburn, and Lombard and Gable. How I wish they had done more!

At first, I must say that this movie doesn't exceptionally stand out from the whole bunch of screwball comedies produced in the times of Great Depression in the USA. The first part of My Favorite Wife may be even called boring, due to a very slow narrative process and lack of any specific action. Of course, it's just an introduction to the plot and the viewer has to believe that in a moment something extraordinarily funny and crazy will happen. And it does, along with the entrance of, fantastic as always, Irene Dunne. The story presented in this movie is so ridiculous that it will make you laugh just reading about it. It seemed like another regular wedding for Mr. Nick Arden (Cary Grant) and his new wife Ellen (Gail Patrick). His first wife is presumed dead after drowning somewhere far at sea seven years ago, and he wants to be form a happy relationship with a new woman. Guess what happens when Ellen Arden (Irene Dunne) suddenly shows up at their doorstep more alive than ever – all hell breaks loose and Nick becomes involved with two women at the same time. Additionally, his two wives (how grand it sounds) aren't particularly fond of each other and start to make Nick's life much harder than he imagined. And if this wasn't enough, somewhere on the road Nick meets Steve Burkett (Randolph Scott), a handsome man, with whom Ellen was stranded on a deserted island for seven long years. Level of jealousy goes through the roof, and the real 'fun' starts for all people involved in this ludicrous affair. Finally, Nick has to decide, who to choose, as it may seem that from a point of having two beautiful women at once he will ultimately be left all alone.The movie provides a great amount of laughs, due to many amusing one-liners and gags, especially on the part of Cary Grant's perfect sense of humorous acting abilities. Every screwball film, in which he stars abruptly becomes much more entertaining, because of his irrefutable acting manners and charisma, so important for a funny leading man. And he does it differently every time. Even though the movies may seem similar, the portrayals of characters that he presents always have other specific comedic feels to it. And the relationship that he forms with Irene is brilliant; you can sense that deep emotional attachment coming from their characters in every scene. Maybe seven years have passed, but the flame in their hearts still burns. They can't argue that their need to be together is so strong that it will surpass anything.All in all, I can't call it My Favorite Screwball, but I certainly might recommend it to anyone, who is need of a light-hearted American comedy that may provide a positive shock in the sense of absurdity and amount of laughs that come with it.