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That was an excellent one.

Good concept, poorly executed.

As Good As It Gets

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

Just watched this on Netflix Streaming. In this one, Victor Moore plays a justice of the peace who presided over six weddings before his license to do so took effect. That means none of those couples are legally married. An explanation of one of them is provided in discussion so only five is seen as depicted on screen: Fred Allen and Ginger Rogers are the first we actually meet and see attempting to get hitched just before they start their morning radio show. They're the funniest as they argue just before airtime before then acting all lovey-dovey plugging various sponsors. Reminds me of an actual skit Allen did with Tallulah Bankhead on his actual radio show in which they also played a married couple on the air doing both the lovey and bickering version of their banter that I heard once on a long playing 33 1/3 rpm record back in the late '80s. The next segment has Marilyn Monroe as a Mrs. America contestant while hubby David Wayne is taking care of their baby and doing housework. Then there's Eve Arden and Paul Douglas as a slightly boring couple with Douglas doing a little fantasizing with other women when he gets his letter. The next one has Louis Calhern as a Dallas oil executive (talk about coincidence as this is my next review concerning original "Dallas" cast members in my movie/TV appearances list in chronological order though the cast member I'm referring to here was Wayne who was the first Digger Barnes there) who gets a divorce summons from Zsa Zsa Gabor (known for many such cases herself in her real-life future). And, finally, there's Eddie Bracken as an Army man who doesn't want his pregnant wife-Mitzi Gaynor-to birth an illegitimate child while he's away. Like I said, the first segment was the funniest with the Monroe/Wayne, Calhern/Gabor, and Arden/Douglas ones also providing some laughs but the most touching is the last one. By the way, it's fascinating seeing Lee Marvin in that one not playing a tough guy. In summary, We're Not Married is quite a good mix of various short stories put in one feature.

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.

Fred Allen, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, David Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Eve Arden, Mitzi Gaynor, Eddie Braken, Paul Douglas, Jane Darnell, James Gleason, Paul Stewart AND Zsa Zsa Gabor! Now that's MY idea of an all-star cast! Yes, "We're Not Married" is a light comedy for sure, but an enjoyable one. I for one got a kick out of the scene in which Zsa Zsa is raking her husband over the coals in a divorce settlement only to find out that she's not actually married! Call it art half imitating life! For anyone who loves films from the 30s,40s and 50s, this is a minor gem that should be seen at least once. I had thought I'd seen every movie that I'd ever enjoy at least once, so this came as a very welcome surprise. I just saw it on AMC which meant lots of commercial stops, so look for it on the Fox Movie Channel.

In the early 1950s there were several episodic movies that came out of 20th Century Fox, two of which had early performances of Marilyn Monroe. The two were O'HENRY'S FULL HOUSE and this film, WE'RE NOT MARRIED! The O'Henry anthology had stories that were funny ("The Ransom of Red Chief") and stories that were moving ("The Gift of the Magi"), and stories that were tragic ("The Last Leaf"). But WE'RE NOT MARRIED! was pure comedy, and as such worked quite well.It is based on an old plot ploy that turns up in other films, like Hitchcock's MR. AND MRS. SMITH. What happens to a married couple, after a couple of years of marriage, when they discover that there is a flaw in their marriage that invalidates it? Like MR. AND MRS. SMITH, the flaw here is the legality of the license...of the justice of the peace. And in WE'RE NOT MARRIED, the nice but bumbling justice of the peace is Victor Moore. Moore had gotten word that he was appointed to the job, and began marrying as soon as he got the letter. He did not notice that he was not to marry anyone until a particular date. As a result there are at least six couples that he married who are technically living in sin.How do they handle the problem? In MR. AND MRS. SMITH, Robert Montgomery's attempt to dismiss it as a minor problem almost destroyed his marriage (as Carole Lombard wonders what kind of man he really is). Here the stories are able to look at the situation carefully. The results are far more cynical in three cases.Louis Calhern, a millionaire, marries Zsa Zsa Gabor (a gold digger) who arranges to frame him so she can divorce him and get a bundle. Calhern, confused and not knowing what to do, gets the letter from Moore and suddenly realizes Gabor has no legal standing to do anything (this was long before the concept of "palimony"). Suddenly, to the consternation of her attorney (Paul Stewart) and Gabor, not only is Calhern cooperative, but he's positively full of information about hidden assets. At the very conclusion he drops the shoe on Zsa Zsa by giving her the letter as a personal message of a deep feeling for her. As he leaves the room we hear her faint.Walter Brennan (in a section of the film that was cut originally but has been restored) is a backwoods Lothario who loves to charm Hope Emerson. Emerson is married with several kids (which Brennan knows about) but he keeps saying how he'd love to marry her if only she were free (Brennan does this because he really loves Emerson's cooking - charmed by him she is feeding his lying face). Then she gets the letter from Moore, and asks Brennan to read it (Hope can't read). Brennan realizes what it's about, and hastily lies about the contents, and says it is junk mail. Then he destroys it. Little does he realize, after that sequence ends, that Moore and his wife (Jane Darwell) are discussing the rural address and problems of delivery there, and decide to send a second copy just to be certain.Paul Douglas is married to Eve Arden, but their marriage is in one of those rut periods. When he gets the letter, he starts imagining his new freedom, dating another good looking woman each night. Only at the end of this dream does he suddenly envision the cost of such a lifestyle (an expensive cost for 1952). At the end he decides to forget about the gorgeous women and look at how nice, peaceful, and stable that rut he's in really is.There are also stories involving Mitzi Gaynor and Eddie Bracken, Marilyn Monroe and David Wayne, and (possibly best) Fred Allan and Ginger Rogers as a bickering couple who are like Dorothy Kilgallen and her husband Dick Kalmar on radio's "Breakfast With Dorothy and Dick". While not the greatest of film comedies, it's pretty consistently amusing in getting as much mileage out of the central plot ploy. Certainly worth watching and enjoying when it turns up on television.