User reviews

Though one might suspect "Too Many Husbands" as being in the same vein as "My Favorite Wife," it's actually based on a Somerset Maugham play. The stars of this 1940 film are Jean Arthur, Melvyn Douglas, Fred MacMurray and Harry Davenport. After her first husband, Bill Cardew (MacMurray) was lost at sea, his grieving, lonely widow Vicky marries his friend and business partner, Henry Lowndes (Douglas) six months later. Boy is she surprised when Bill shows up alive. So is her new husband and her father (Davenport). It then falls to the confused Vicky to decide which husband she wants.

This is a very amusing comedy with terrific performances from all the stars. Melvyn Douglas, one of the truly great American actors, had to do this type of film until he finally reached old age and could show the world how sensational he was. He's very funny, his voice cracking when he's upset. The men act like quarreling children, playing games of oneupmanship and chasing Vicky everywhere. Seeing the frilly guest room, Bill questions Henry's effeminate taste. "What's this fabric?" Bill asks, holding up a piece of curtain. "DOTTED SWISS!" Henry yells in a booming voice. In another scene, Bill impresses Vicky by jumping over furniture, causing Henry to give it a try. He falls flat on his face. Arthur does an excellent job as a somewhat dizzy woman who loves both men, and Davenport is a riot as her sober-faced, worried father. MacMurray has always seemed bland to me, but he holds his own as the returning husband who's been stranded on an island for a year.

Much better than I thought it would be, and Arthur fans will love it.

Too Many Husbands is a prime example of the screwball comedy. All the usual elements are in place -- romance out of whack, a collection of goofy but likable characters, frenetic, sometimes slapstick action, fast-delivery, witty dialog, a ridiculous situation, class satire, and the cops further gumming up the works -- all breaking off in unexpected directions like the baseball pitch the genre is named after.

A flighty rich dame (Jean Arthur) finds herself married to two different men at the same time, and she loves both of them. She is not an intentional bigamist. Hubby number one, sexy but ever wandering Fred MacMurry was lost at sea and declared legally dead, so the lonely widow marries his best friend, reliable, hard-working smoothie Melvin Douglas. When hubby number one shows up alive after all and ready for action with his beautiful wife, the fun ensues. Poor Jean, she just can't make up her mind which husband to choose. With one a reckless adventurer and the other a neglectful workaholic no sensible woman would want either, but this is Jean Arthur! She's having a whale of a time as the two compete to show her more attention than either ever had in the past. She may just take forever to make up her mind!

Jean Arthur, who was reportedly a serious dingbat in real life, seems perfectly cast in this type of role. MacMurry and Douglas are in their element here, too. The three bright stars, all at their peaks, make this one a delight all the way through. Good support comes from Henry Davenport, another mainstay of the screw-baller, as Jean's harried father, and Edgar Buchanan, looking younger than you thought he ever was, as a suspicious cop.

Too Many Husbands is a bit of a slow-starter, but give it a chance. Under Wesley Ruggles' sure direction, it soon picks up steam, getting wackier and funnier as it goes along. The great acting, gorgeous, luminous, old nitrate black and white cinematography and smooth editing you have come to expect from big studio productions of the 'thirties and the 'forties make this one a pleasure to watch. Smooth, glossy entertainment from Old Hollywood's Golden Era.

Fred MacMurray is the long lost husband who returns to the scene to find that his wife, Jean Arthur is married to new husband, Melvyn Douglas. Arthur's character must choose which husband to keep. The viewer is compelled to want both men to win Arthur's hand; they are both charming. The plot is simple but the fun, witty dialog and situations that develop are very entertaining. I loved MacMurray and Douglas' tails and top hats. The ball gowns were lovely to look at. It's amusing to watch the dancing style in the party scene; lively, silly and fun. A fine, light movie to enjoy with popcorn and the family or champagne with a friend.

The problem with this movie is that it keeps only the original premise of the play (Home and Beauty, 1918) by Somerset Maugham--that a man who has been presumed dead returns home to find his wife has remarried. In the play the comedy derived from the fact that neither husband wanted the wife and each kept trying to out-noble the other and step aside. (The wife is very pretty and charming, but each husband has been married to her long enough to discover that she is selfish and vain.) At the end of the play the wife married a third man, who did not know her well enough to know her true character. In a movie, however, one could hardly have a heroine whom both male leads disowned, so one is left only with the clumsy and repetitious jokes of one woman, two husbands, and which one will she pick.

I wasn't expecting much from this Jean Arthur comedy vehicle, and as a result, I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Arthur plays a woman married to the best friend of her dead husband, who's mighty surprised when her dead husband turns out not to be so dead after all. Now she's got two men fighting over her, a state of affairs she settles back to enjoy, much to the dismay of her father, played by that terrific character actor Harry Davenport.

Jean Arthur is absolutely adorable, even if she is a bit of a brat in this. You want to hug her even as you want to see her kicked in the seat of her pants. Fred MacMurray plays the back from the dead husband, while Melvyn Douglas plays the best friend. I felt MacMurray straining a bit at the screwball comedy antics he was asked to tackle, but Douglas navigates the material expertly and probably gives the film's best performance.

I will say that the film is utterly unpredictable -- I could not guess how it was going to turn out right up until its closing credits.

Grade: B

Over at RKO Studios where My Favorite Wife was being done Columbia was working on Too Many Husbands, a reverse of the same plot premise. That is a presumed dead husband showing up unexpectedly and inconveniently and complicating poor Jean Arthur's life. Of course when your husbands are Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas that's a choice any girl would love being stuck with.

Too Many Husbands as a history going back to a W.Somerset Maugham play and before that to Tennyson's Enoch Arden. In this version Arthur has married her late husband's publishing partner in their firm Melvyn Douglas. But like Irene Dunne who spent several years on her tropical island in My Favorite Wife, Fred MacMurray is only there for a few months. Douglas however convinced he was really dead got him declared so in order that he may marry Arthur.

So now what to do? After all kinds of methods tried the decision is really kind of taken out of their hands. Will the loser bow out gracefully? One never knows in these things.

Jean Arthur was a mainstay over at Columbia Pictures, but her leading men MacMurray and Douglas were borrowed from Paramount and MGM respectively. And instead of a live in mother Arthur has a doting father in Harry Davenport living with her who just wishes things would go back to normal with one man in her life. Presiding over it all is Douglas's butler Melville Cooper whose facial expressions are a throwback to silent era days. But they're all he needs to get his point across.

A remake of this with a military and show business background was done in 1955 called Three For The Show. Even with Betty Grable, Jack Lemmon, and Gower Champion around it's decidedly inferior to this.

Too Many Husbands even got some Oscar recognition with a nomination for Best Sound Recording. Fans of the three leads should be pleased.

When I first heard the premise;a spouse declared dead comes back home after months alone on an island , only to find his beloved wife has re-entered marital bliss with his best friend, I thought 'it'll be interesting to see if they come anywhere near the brilliance of "My Favorite Wife"' And I also presumed this had to be a rather blatant rip-off of the Cary Grant-Irene Dunne classic released ,incidentally, in the same year. Boy was I wrong! For starters this appears to have been released months earlier and the screenplay,comic timing,and acting are easily in the same league as the best of the so-called 'screwball comedies'. When Jean Arthur is "on" there is no actress who can beat her and she looks about as good in this rarely shown film as she ever has . Fred MacMurry and Melvyn Douglas hold up their end, but the surprise, for me, was good old Harry Davenport who gets many lines , many chances to display bravado mugging and line readings, and never fails. This is a Jean Arthur film that needs immediate release on the DVD market!!

JEAN ARTHUR, FRED MacMURRAY and MELVYN DOUGLAS are the kind of stars who are able to turn formula stuff into gold that glitters. This may have been based on an original play by Somerset Maugham, but it's just another spin on MY FAVORITE WIFE from the same year.

The fun is wonderful while it lasts--for the first forty-five minutes. But soon it veers into repetition with a series of scenes showing Arthur unable to make up her mind as to which hubby she prefers.

MELVILLE COOPER is fun as the befuddled servant and HARRY DAVENPORT is delightful as Arthur's father. And FRED MacMURRAY and MELVYN DOUGLAS are especially funny in competitive moments, with Fred showing off his athletic prowess by jumping over furniture while Douglas fumes. But Claude Binyon's script is unable to overcome the one joke premise of the whole thing.

It threatens to run out of steam before the situation is resolved with a wacky nightclub scene in which all three kick up their heels for the finale.

It's formula comedy but there's no denying that all three stars were gifted at this sort of comedy and work extremely well together.

Trivia note: Like many a Jean Arthur film in the '30s and '40s, this one opened at Radio City Music Hall, a showcase for prestigious family films.

This has an excellent cast. It begins well. And it's not by any means terrible.

It seems forced after a while, though. We get the idea way before it's been resolved.

My objection is not based on the movie's similarity to the more familiar "My Favorite Wife." Much as I love Irene Dunne and like Cary Grant, and love them in "The Awful Truth," that movie has always seemed mean and smug to me.

Jean Arthur looks pretty in "Too Many Husband" but she doesn't exactly have the usual Jean Arthur charm. At least I didn't find her to. Fred MacMurray is fine as her jock first husband. And this sort of chic comedy was catnip to the always charming Melvyn Douglas.

Harry Davenport contributes a whole lot, too. He plays Arthur's father. It's clear that he loves her and likes both men but has no patience for anyone's dawdling or neuroses.

It's a decent movie but if it's your first exposure to Jean Arthur, by all means give her some more tries. "The More The Merrier," of course, is sublime. I haven't seen "Easy Living" in ages but remember it as a joy. And she is very charming in "History Is Made At Night" -- as well as in many, many movies spanning several decades.

It's so great to have her back on the small screen!

This delightful comedy falls just short of being one of the classic screwball comedies of the era. It's a story of a woman whose husband disappears in a boating accident and is presumed to be dead. The woman then marries her late husband's business partner. When the first husband turns up alive after a year on a desert island, the woman has two legal husbands. The plot evolves around the woman's decision about which husband to keep. Jean Arthur is a delight, as always, and McMurray and Douglas could hardly be better.

It's a stage-bound film, however, clearly a filmed version of a play. There are really only six characters, including the butler. Columbia didn't want to spend much money on the production. In one scene, upstairs in the woman's family home, you can twice see the set walls shake when doors are shut. Still, the movie is great fun and should not be missed by serious students of film.

1940 was a wonderful year for "lost spouse returning" films. Both this film as well as MY FAVORITE WIFE debuted a short time apart and they are, on the surface, very, very similar movies.

In MY FAVORITE WIFE, Irene Dunne is lost at sea and assumed dead. Years later, she's declared legally dead and Cary Grant (her husband) remarries. Dunne then returns just after the wedding and hilarity ensues.

In TOO MANY HUSBANDS, Fred MacMurray is lost at sea and assumed dead. He's declared dead almost right away and Jean Arthur (his wife) remarried. Fred then returns to find she now has two husbands and only a little bit of hilarity ensued!

In fact, because these two films were so similar, lawsuits were launched. I really don't know how they were settled or which movie came first. All I know is that MY FAVORITE WIFE is definitely the better of the two. The fact that TOO MANY HUSBANDS was only showed on TCM for the first time a week ago is probably indication that it is the lesser films--especially since MY FAVORITE WIFE is a commonly seen film on American cable TV.

The problem is the writing. While the cast of TOO MANY HUSBANDS is just fine (Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvin Douglas), the lines they are given and the situations they are placed in just aren't as funny. In particular, Jean's character is VERY annoying at times--as she seems like a selfish and immature person throughout the film. This is BAD, as Jean's usual screen persona is of a sweet and spunky lady--here she in an indecisive and whiny person. Just think--in this film, she learns she has two husbands and LIKES IT when the two guys are ready to fight it out as well as all the attention they pay her!! Conversely, the fact that Cary and Irene in the other film truly love each other never really is in question--the problem is just figuring out HOW to extricate themselves from the mess! While this is still a pretty good film (nearly meriting a 7), it just isn't in the same league as the other one. If you love old films like I do, see them both. If you only want to pick one, then the answer is pretty obvious.

Businessman's wife, widowed for one year before marrying her deceased husband's best friend, finds out her first husband is still alive; he was believed by the Coast Guard to have drowned after the sinking of his ship, but instead was rescued off an island. Although based upon a play (by W. Somerset Maugham!), "Too Many Husbands" now resembles Cary Grant's 1940 comedy "My Favorite Wife" with a sex-switch (this film actually beat "Wife" into theaters by a scant two months, but was not as popular). Jean Arthur is enjoyable, as always, but her choice of men is rather depressing, and there isn't any fun in her predicament when the hubbies are this selfish and childish. Fred MacMurray's returning spouse comes on like an overgrown Boy Scout (and the actor's smug condescension towards everyone else on-screen is rather off-putting); Melvyn Douglas is a smoother fit for Arthur, but he's been directed to be boorish, with lots of heavy sighs and eyeball rolls (it's clear whom we in the audience are supposed to root for). Disgruntled characters harping on one another isn't usually the stuff of laugh-out-loud comedy, and this one palls with an hour left to go. ** from ****

The premise is hardly unfamiliar, having been done quite a number of times, and always has the dangers of doing little new, being repetitive and trying too hard. 'Too Many Husbands' did sound very intriguing still though, because Wesley Ruggles was one of those competent if undistinguished directors and there are many good examples on film of the type of film 'Too Many Husbands' is. Not to mention having Jean Arthur, Melvyn Douglas, Fred MacMurray and Harry Davenport in the same cast.

A lot is done well in 'Too Many Husbands', as it does entertain and charm for most of its running time and most of the cast are strong. At the same time, it doesn't quite make the grade, it was in need of a stronger second half, one performance for me did not work really and it could have done with more subtlety and variety. Still, not too bad a way to spend a dreary afternoon when there is very little to do with bad weather and lockdown restrictions.

Shall start with the good things. Most of the performances are very good. Arthur is her usual perky and alluring self and Douglas is suave, just as charming and with great comic timing. My favourite performance came from Davenport, who is an absolute joy to watch and has a real twinkle to his performance. All in roles so well suited to them and played to their strengths. One shouldn't dismiss the dependable contributions from Melville Cooper and Edgar Buchanan. Ruggles directs with zest in the first half.

Was somewhat mixed on the visual side of things, the costumes coming off best visually. To me the first half was a lot of fun, with some sparkling wit and sophistication in the dialogue delivered with tremendous energy. The story also charmed and compelled in the first half as well and the characters more investable.

Not everything comes off well sadly. While the first half was thoroughly enjoyable, the second half was less so and sort of petered out really. It became thin on the ground story-wise, the charm got lost amidst the silliness and the material got rather repetitive and tried too hard for laughs. The ending also is practically a non-event.

MacMurray also didn't work for me. His character was not a meaty one really and he plays it rather blandly and is also too smug. While the costumes are fine, there is just too much of a filmed play feel to the photography which tends to confine the action too much.

Overall, worth seeing but uneven. 6/10

Vicky Lowndes (Jean Arthur) leads a normal life with her husband of less than a year. Hank (Melvyn Douglas) does his best to avoid the subject of Vicky's previous husband, his best friend Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray). However, when Bill comes back from the dead via a boat from the island he'd been shipwrecked on, the happy Lowndeses become a strange threesome. It is up to Vicky to choose which husband she prefers, but it isn't as simple as it sounds. She can't very well hurt the man she loves in order to be with the other man she loves.

Each cast member is adept at screwball comedy, which is what this film essentially is. However, there is a deeper vein too. Because both men are likable, it is suspenseful waiting for Vicky to choose a husband. This predicament triggers an emotional response as well. Arthur is reminiscent of Irene Dunne in her teamings with Cary Grant, but slightly funnier. Douglas and MacMurray couldn't be more different from each other, so that adds a new spin on the situation.

This movie is very much like My Favorite Wife starring Dunne and the incomplete Something's Got to Give starring Marilyn Monroe, but this film gives the wife two husbands, not the other way around. It is interesting to see how she handles the situation and how the men schmooze themselves silly to get into her good graces. In this way, it is quite a bit funnier.

In 1940, RKO brought out My Favorite Wife with one of their big stars, Irene Dunne, and two great male leads, Gary Grant and Randolph Scott. It's about a man (Grant), an apparent widower, who marries a woman because he believes his first wife (Dunne) died while on an expedition to the Pacific some seven years before. In fact, Dunne had spent those seven years on an island with another man (Scott), but claims that she was not unfaithful to Grant with Randolph. Grant spends most of the movie trying not very hard at all to explain the situation to his new wife, with whom we are to imagine that he has not had conjugal relations. There are some funny scenes, but it stretches things out far too long, and has other weaknesses.

Two Many Husbands, released by rival studio Columbia in that same year, is centered around one of their big female stars, Jean Arthur, who marries a man (Melvyn Douglas), because she believes, after only six months, that her first husband (Fred MacMurray), was lost in Africa. Complications ensure, more or less, as Arthur tries - but not very hard - to choose which man she wants to be married to.

MFW has a weak script, but the one for this movie is a lot weaker still. As is the direction by Wesley Ruggles.

There's nothing particularly wrong about this movie, but it doesn't have much pep, and the end is a real copout. Paramount's Design for Living (1934), based on a play by Noel Coward with Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, and Frederick March, dealt with a similar situation much better.

In the end, I prefer Irene Dunne to Jean Arthur and Cary Grant to Fred MacMurray, so TMH seemed that much weaker to me.

On another hand, I found it interesting how both TMH and MFW flirted with homosexual innuendos in the depiction of the two men's plight, even though the Hayes Code was in force by then.

All six actors made much better movies, and had much better scripts, elsewhere.

I've just discovered this lighthearted film today on tv and must admit it has all the fine elements that make for a good stage play -- plenty of sure-fire dialogue, continual momentum to the story (never a dull moment), and light touches of original music. There are some hilarious moments so downright comical it made me burst out laughing. Just accept it as one more comedy of that era and you'll enjoy it nicely without having to make comparisons or look for weaknesses. Harry Davenport as the father adds his wisdom where he can. I feel all the actors had a good romp in this movie and I liked the repartee amongst them very much. Not sure precisely how it ended so will need to see it again some day. It's a fun movie indeed.

I am a massive fan of Jean Arthur but this film fails on so many levels. The idea that she would get married in such a short space of time doesn't fit with the narrative of her loving her first husband and the film goes downhill from there. Both Fred McMurray or Melvyn Douglas fail to convince the audience that they actually love their wife. This is in stark contrast to Cary Grant who we totally believe loves Irene Dunne in My Favourite Wife.

Early on we hear that Douglas's secretary loves both men and the audience expects that at some point she will be reintroduced to console the losing husband ,instead she is just a loose end .Instead we are left with a very unsatisfactory ending where she picks no one but the law decides MacMurray is her rightful husband but she keeps Douglas as a back up in case Mac Murray doesn't keep up to his promises. Even Jean Arthur can't save this Turkey.

"Too Many Husbands" impressed me as the best of the three main versions of this plot (the others being "My Favorite Wife" and "Move Over Darling"). Only in "Too Many Husbands" did I get a distinct sense of the terrible dilemma faced by the spouse who has to make a choice. This is because in this version alone are the two competing spouses portrayed as equally worthy, charming, and attractive by actors who were close to one another in those qualities, as well as in their respective levels of stardom at the time the film was made. In both "My Favorite Wife" and "Move Over Darling", it is quite clear, from the portrayal of one of the competing spouses and from the casting of a lesser star in the role, whom we are supposed to be rooting for. Not so in "Too Many Husbands". Douglas and MacMurray are very near equals in star power and in the way their characters are written and portrayed. Unlike the other two films, this results in as real a conflict for the viewer as it does for Jean Arthur's character. Unfortunately, it also results in the movie's weakest point--the ending (or lack of one). The dilemma was apparently so strong that the film makers themselves were unable to decide. After having Arthur's character seemingly make her choice, they tacked on a rather strange ambiguous ending suggesting that the "losing" husband might still have a chance. The effect is a non-ending that suggests the film makers couldn't make up their minds, so they just turned off the camera.