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As Good As It Gets

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

William Powell and Jean Arthur team in this murder mystery comedy about a divorced couple who get together to investigate a string of murders centering around the horse racing industry.It's definitely a Thin Man knockoff, but all the right elements are present. Powell plays an erudite physician as the straight man who gets implicated in a murder. Arthur is the comic as his ex wife who helps him track down the killer as he gets ready to strike again.Like a lot of depression era espacist movies, this film focuses on wealth and lavish lifestyles. Much of the film takes place in swanky high-rises with penthouse apartments. Powell has a butler and personal secretaries and makes his way through New York's elite horse racing set.It's a fun movie even if you don't buy the black widow spider as the murder weapon. It's also a production code era movie that deals gently with the subject of divorce. The Bradfords start out as a divorced couple in an obvious love/hate relationship, but they fall in love again during the course of the movie. The last scene is the two of them getting remarried. That's the way they made you play that subject in those days.

I was so taken with the chemistry between Powell and Arthur that I barely followed the plot, which was OK but had some holes. Horse-racing jockey dies, mystery ensues, involving gangs and money. The murder instrument and method were not very realistic, reminiscent of the James Bond scene with the tarantula. Sorry, but I'd guess movie audiences even back then were too sophisticated to fall for that.So, I was mainly just queuing up for their scenes together, which was most of them. Their dialog was so witty and sharp, her endearing and wily attempts to show her affection and recapture his love were so real, and his feeble attempts to off her advances when it was obvious he loved her back, made it that much more enjoyable. There was real affection afoot between those two, and the movie cameras that separated them from us could not hope to hide it.I rate their chemistry much higher than that between Powell and Loy in The Thin Man series. It really sparkled. The rest of the movie could have been the corniest thing going (and at times, it was), but it wouldn't have mattered. And because of these two, this movie had me not wanting to miss a minute.Altogether, Powell and Arthur had 5 collaborations, two in 1929, two in 1930, and this one in 1936. We were robbed in that this medium was not seized upon and repeated. It's a shame we couldn't be treated to more of these.

An OK mystery, but I don't get some of the rave reviews here. Were we all watching the same film? Anyone who was paying attention had the murder method figured 15 minutes before Powell catches on. Gathering all the suspects in one room is another weak ploy by writers not nearly as clever as The Thin Man crew (after all, Powell has already seen the film of the killer, already has the evidence, and already knows whodunnit, so what's the point?). You can see most of the laughs coming long before they happen, very few are actually funny, and the rest don't make any sense. Give it a 6 for effort, especially since there are so many good performances from most, though not all, of the crew. Powell is much better than the material. Arthur just seems unable to work with lame jokes and comic devices that keep falling flat (can you blame her?). The problem is a weak, contrived script. Did the writers really think we wouldn't guess who walked off with the gelatin on Powell's scalpel? Gimme a break. Ignore the humor and you have at least a decent mystery. As for the laughs alone, I give it a 2. I understand this was one of RKO's biggest hits in 1936. Must have been the big names that brought the crowds in. Frankly, I would have asked for a refund.

A reasonably entertaining combination of comedy and mystery, done in much the same fashion as 'The Thin Man', and even starring the same star, William Powell is as good as one would expect, however Jean Arthur does not work quite as well with him as Myrna Loy does, and she is even a tad annoying to have on screen at times. The script is well written with some good lines and an interesting plot, and the film relatively engaging on the whole. By all means it is inferior to 'The Thin Man', but yet it manages to do quite a good job with similar material, and other than Powell's character, the elements borrowed from 'The Thin Man' are fairly disguised. It is a good film in itself either way.