The Frame

Sometimes I wonder about Hollywood. In 1940, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne made a film called My Favorite Wife in which Dunne was shipwrecked for seven years, and just when Grant had her declared dead and remarried, she showed back up. Also in 1940, this film was made, in which Fred MacMurray gets shipwrecked, and his wife Jean Arthur, after waiting seven years and declaring him dead, marries Melvyn Douglas–only to have MacMurray show back up. The weirdest thing to me is that My Favorite Wife is really careful not to push the censors too far–Grant never consummates his new marriage, since Dunne returned the day of the wedding. But Arthur had been married to Douglas for six months before MacMurray came back, and the first night MacMurray is back is basically spent with the two men trying to figure out how to get into Arthur’s bed without the other one stopping him. So it’s more risque, but it’s not as sustained as My Favorite Wife–in fact, it would be relatively dull if it weren’t for Arthur’s impeccable comic timing. (Suddenly imagining this story with Grant and Arthur, and wishing that film had been made instead of these two..)
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