During the 1940s housing shortage in Washington DC, Constance Milligan (Jean Arthur) decides to take in a boarder to help the war effort. Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) moves in and he, in turn, invites hunky Joe Carter (Joel McCrea) to move in. Complications ensure.
It's beyond me why this is considered a classic. It's not a bad movie just an OK movie. It does have lots of things going for it: Arthur is just wonderful--and beautiful; Coburn is a delight (he won an Oscar for this); it's well-directed and some of the romance works.
But I never believed the story for one second and I didn't find this that funny at all--I thought most of the jokes fell flat. Arthur and Coburn tried but McCrea (never a good actor) just could not do comedy. He did wonderfully in one scene (his expressions when Colburn introduces him to Arthur are quite funny) but he was his usual expressionless self the rest of the movie. He was handsome and hunky--that was about it. Also the ending was just REALLY going too far. I realize I'm in a minority here but I just thought this was so-so. I can truthfully only give this a 6.
It's beyond me why this is considered a classic. It's not a bad movie just an OK movie. It does have lots of things going for it: Arthur is just wonderful--and beautiful; Coburn is a delight (he won an Oscar for this); it's well-directed and some of the romance works.
But I never believed the story for one second and I didn't find this that funny at all--I thought most of the jokes fell flat. Arthur and Coburn tried but McCrea (never a good actor) just could not do comedy. He did wonderfully in one scene (his expressions when Colburn introduces him to Arthur are quite funny) but he was his usual expressionless self the rest of the movie. He was handsome and hunky--that was about it. Also the ending was just REALLY going too far. I realize I'm in a minority here but I just thought this was so-so. I can truthfully only give this a 6.