Considering the three main stars a curiously obscure drama from the legendary year of 1939. Superior soap opera contains some of the best work Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis ever put on film. Carole shows that she wasn't just a superb comedienne but a skilled dramatic actress. Cary is just right in blending
the facile with the seriousness of the untenable situation he finds himself in. As good as both of them are, and they are great, even better is Kay Francis, a portrait in silky malevolence. This was inexpicably almost the end of her film career, she ended up in Poverty Row junk only a few years later and after watching this it's hard to understand how this didn't open up a whole new chapter for her as the wicked woman of cinema. Perhaps she was just too early for noir, she would have been perfect as a poison pit viper in many of those pictures.
October 25, 2008
