1h 35min | Comedy, Music, Romance | 29 September 1939
Director: Edward H. Griffith
Stars: Fred MacMurray, Madeleine Carroll, Allan Jones, Helen Broderick
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031440/
Watched online, ok print; also available on AmazonPrime
Very little Music here. AJ sings an aria and Happy Birthday; FM plays the ukelele singing a ditty and a "Balinese" song.
I previously rated this as 7. Today not even close. Perhaps I had just discovered FM's early career, and/or MC's. But the feminist in me is objecting to the plot. (MC actually uses that word, as in "I'm not a feminist, but...")
MC plays an established executive at a department store (chain?) who believes she's satisfied with her life (but then goes window shopping at a boat shop) after a very specific and bizarre fortune is told to her. (She didn't initiate the telling, her friend/second cousin HB did.) There she meets Bali resident FM (we're in NYC). He pursues her.
We get at least 2 weird plot jumps, deliberate I think (not lost film, for example, and the second one is clearly set up to surprise us). But it was all outlined by the fortune teller, if you'd listened. I won't spoil the plot, but I didn't like either character. (One is a child, an orphan (semi-orphan initially) who gets handed around very easily. And the things they say in front of her!) Also, MC and HB have a fight with very hurtful words; HB reappears later, with no reference to it.
AJ plays the Ralph Bellamy part (dull, reliable, cheerful, well-off fiance, or boyfriend here), and his aria was strange: I actually wondered if it was his voice.
This being 1939, we get no attempt to look like we're in Bali when the plot so indicates. Some process shots are pretty bad, including one where MC's walking in NYC.
Paramount, dir. Griffith; 6
