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I love this movie so much

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Best movie ever!

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

After a whirlwind romance, young lawyer John Mason (Jimmy Stewart) returns to New York with new bride Jane (Carole Lombard) and the film then follows the ups-and-downs of their first couple of years together. The movie starts out as a screwball comedy (a genre for which Lombard was known), as a stammering John prevaricates while telling his domineering mother the news, followed by an awkward dinner party with the boss (made worse by the first of Jane's unhelpful, obnoxious cooks). After a somewhat unsurprising (to us) surprise (to them) at dinner, the movie teeters back and forth between drama and comedy John's legal career stalls, before diving into straight melodrama involving an aerial race against time, through a blizzard, to bring medicine to a dying child. I didn't find the movie to really shine at any level, there didn't seem to be much 'chemistry' between the romantic leads and the race to save the child was contrived and not particularly compelling. As always, Stewart was good playing his usual 'everyman' and Lombard was fine playing standard characters (the chipper bride, the concerned wife, the frightened mother). Not a standout in either Stewart's long career or Lombard's tragically short one.

I'm giving this one a 4 out of 10, I guess mostly for the star quality of James Stewart, Carole Lombard and Charles Coburn.A brief review of the plot: Young New York City lawyer, John Mason (Stewart) returns from weekend business trip to his office where everyone except the boss, Judge Doolittle (Coburn)already knows that in Boston he met and married a woman, Jane (Lombard). It seems like this will be a bit of a comedy, when they have a scene with the couple telling John's mother how they got married without knowing each other more than one day.Almost everything else is drama or melodrama. The couple has little money, even though they rented a small apartment to house them and John's mother. Perhaps if they didn't insist on having a cook/maid all the time they wouldn't have fallen so far behind in their bills, as depicted.Mostly because of money, partly because of the mother too-often criticizing Jane, they mostly endure life instead of enjoy it, even when blessed with a new baby, who seems to have never been given a name as he is always referred to as "the baby." On New Year's Eve as they ring in 1939, mostly because John feels depressed over a salary cut right when he was seeking a raise, they talk about getting divorced. But they learn that the baby is now seriously ill.At St. Vincent's Hospital, they learn that the baby will soon die from pneumonia unless they can obtain a special serum. Phone calls all over the country teach that the only serum available is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Thanks to Judge Doolittle's generous offer to pay $5,000, they can have it flown, only a raging blizzard that appears to range from Utah to New Jersey, makes flying extremely dangerous. But a pilot is willing, for half of the $5,000 fee, so he borrows the plane and takes off.After much flying difficulty in his bi-plane, he later encounters engine trouble and bails out, later crawls to a farmhouse said to be about 35 miles from New York City where his package is found and the baby is miraculously saved, apparently with almost no time to spare. The couple now smile, knowing their problems in life are over.Most of this film really seems to show how even a young lawyer in NYC who has a beautiful wife and a baby can be most unhappy with his life if he doesn't earn enough money to pay the maid, or anyone else for that matter.This film was mostly lacking in any joyful scenes of life. I truly could not understand why this tiny apartment with two fully-able-bodied, healthy women needed to have a maid/cook around. It would be one thing if John was supposed to be earning lots of money, but it was made clear throughout that he wasn't. The mother complained of having little to do--maybe she could have cooked or done the laundry? Jane felt bad that she didn't know how to cook or maintain the house--maybe the know-it-all mother-in-law could have showed her? Since John's mother felt like she was in the way and was unhappy there, it really would have made sense to find a small apartment for her, especially when her bedroom was needed for the baby.The whole business of the serum only available in one place in the country, then being flown in a slow bi-plane was ridiculous, to say the least. The many stops the plane would have needed to make would have meant it took a couple of days to get there, while the film made it appear to be just an overnight flight. The pilot risking his life was foolish because of the danger of his flight and the fact that if he crashed, nobody would get the serum and he would probably be dead as well as the baby.We all know that young couples without enough money often quarrel about money and feel miserable. I don't think this film shed any light on this subject in 1939 or today. It was truly not a comedy in any way with almost no comedic scenes, especially after the first few minutes.There is one scene where the couple's last maid, a black woman, Louise Beavers, cheers up Jane with a pithy saying, "Never let the seeds stop you from enjoying the watermelon." Someone said this scene made them cringe because it came from a black woman.I vigorously disagree. I understand the old stereotype about blacks eating watermelon. But surely we haven't gotten to where we now have to pretend that black people never eat watermelon and that it is wrong to ever have a black person just mention that delicious fruit that most people love to eat. There was not a single stereotype in this film connected with this matter. The black maid was the only maid who did anything likable.In fact, Jane spent almost the whole film being terribly annoyed at her mother-in-law, but refused until almost the end to speak up for herself. She had to push John to speak up for himself at work because he was too wimpy. That maid, who had three or four big scenes, could well be said to be the most likable person in the film and was portrayed as intelligent and charitable.If you love to see any old film with any of the three stars, you might want to watch this, just to see what it was like. Otherwise, I would think you will find it quite boring, not funny, and not worth watching.

Newlywed couple (James Stewart, Carole Lombard) struggle to make it work despite financial problems, a meddling mother-in-law, and a sick baby. Interesting but flawed movie. It's a bit muddled with an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to storytelling. Starts off like a romantic comedy but morphs into a melodramatic tearjerker. Lombard and Stewart rise above the material and have good chemistry. Lucille Watson is the mother-in-law from hell. Louise Beavers is great as an understanding maid with words of wisdom for Lombard. Well-photographed by Leon Shamroy. Climax is exciting stuff, if a bit far-fetched.

Made for Each Other (1939)"Last year there were half a million divorces in this country. Congratulations."And that is the beginning of a sometimes-screwball comedy that turns very serious by the end, with James Stewart leading the charge. It could be screwier, and Jimmy Stewart is more lovable than hilarious, so the humor revolves around him as the foil. Carole Lombard, his partner in crime, can be more zany, for sure, but even there, she is more restrained than other films (like "Twentieth Century"). It's the situation, and the rest of the cast, who make this funny...and eventually tragic.How exactly it drags at times is hard to say. Oddly, even Stewart is a little off base, exaggerating too much. The plot, overall, lacks drive. You might think this doesn't matter in a silly comedy, but it does very much. In fact, because this comedy is laced with a fair amount of normal drama, it needs a basic conflict that dramas need. There are some terrific scenes--the New Year's moment is really moving, and the scenes after that--and these are the reason to watch.On some level, this is a type of drama/comedy that is aimed at new parents, or newlyweds. The couple's focus on the baby reminded me of "Christmas in Connecticut," and "Penny Serenade." I wish it just worked better, but too often it bumbles along, one little moment after another, the result of imperfect direction (John Cromwell) and a weak script. So it does the best it can, and the last half hour is its best, with high drama kicking in. This is a David O. Selznick production in the same year as his slightly more famous movie, "Gone with the Wind."