With this movie, Irene Dunne stepped out as a more than capable screen comedienne which persona bore further fruit for her in ensuing years, particularly when she was paired with Cary Grant in two rollicking screwball comedies "My Favourite Wife" and "The Awful Truth". Here, you can see her loosening up for these parts as the staid small town niece living with her two spinster aunts who dutifully does the tea-making duties for the town's literary society and plays the piano at Sunday school. What the townsfolk don't know is that Dunne, under a pseudonym, has penned a racy "Fifty Shades"-type novel which has become a scandalous best-seller and drummed up media interest in its mysterious author's identity and background.
Then along comes romantic interest Melvyn Douglas, the well-connected lieutenant-governor's son, who photobombs Dunne's little world, unconventionally romancing and eventually scandalising her into declaring her love for him, only for him to promptly desert her as skeletons reveal themselves in his own closet. That's when Theodora promptly goes wild as she turns the tables on Douglas by going public with her identity, courting publicity everywhere she goes as she attempts to shame Douglas out into the open and into her arms.
It's nicely played and capably directed if lacking a little of the fire that makes for the very best screwball classics. The clash of the censorious women of the town's literary society, headed by the waspish but hypocritical Spring Byington and the rebellious editor of the local newspaper, Thomas Mitchell, is entertainingly played out and Dunne's later gate-crashing of the State Governor's ball to box Douglas into a corner as he did her makes for an entertaining "turnabout is fair play" conclusion. You do wonder at times though if Douglas's character, an irritatingly persistent whistler who then refuses to break up his own loveless marriage just to protect his father's political reputation, is actually worthy of Dunne's attention.
A nice, fun movie which probably just needed an infusion of Sturges or Hawks-type fire, Hecht or Wilder-esque rapid-fire dialogue and maybe a more likeable rogue like say Grant or William Powell than Douglas to really make it fly but Dunne is well worth watching in the lead and the film mostly delivers on it its scatty, carefree brief, if it could only have been a little wilder.
Then along comes romantic interest Melvyn Douglas, the well-connected lieutenant-governor's son, who photobombs Dunne's little world, unconventionally romancing and eventually scandalising her into declaring her love for him, only for him to promptly desert her as skeletons reveal themselves in his own closet. That's when Theodora promptly goes wild as she turns the tables on Douglas by going public with her identity, courting publicity everywhere she goes as she attempts to shame Douglas out into the open and into her arms.
It's nicely played and capably directed if lacking a little of the fire that makes for the very best screwball classics. The clash of the censorious women of the town's literary society, headed by the waspish but hypocritical Spring Byington and the rebellious editor of the local newspaper, Thomas Mitchell, is entertainingly played out and Dunne's later gate-crashing of the State Governor's ball to box Douglas into a corner as he did her makes for an entertaining "turnabout is fair play" conclusion. You do wonder at times though if Douglas's character, an irritatingly persistent whistler who then refuses to break up his own loveless marriage just to protect his father's political reputation, is actually worthy of Dunne's attention.
A nice, fun movie which probably just needed an infusion of Sturges or Hawks-type fire, Hecht or Wilder-esque rapid-fire dialogue and maybe a more likeable rogue like say Grant or William Powell than Douglas to really make it fly but Dunne is well worth watching in the lead and the film mostly delivers on it its scatty, carefree brief, if it could only have been a little wilder.