Double Your Pleasure

Now we switch gears, to Things You'll Actually Like, If You Like That Kind of Thing. Double Wedding is a 1937 comedy starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. That pretty much says it all.

Powell plays Charley "Horse" Lodge, a bohemian movie director wannabe who lives in a car trailer behind a bar. He is mentoring a couple of wannabe bohemians, played by Florence Rice and John Beal. This couple are under the thumb of Rice's control freak sister Margit, played by Myrna Loy.

Predictably, Charley falls in love with Margit, who despises him. Meanwhile, her sister falls in love with Charley, and her fiance is too civilized to do anything about it. Will Powell get Loy? Will the other couple get back together? Does the title Double Wedding give any clues?

This movie fits into the Holiday/You Can't Take It With You genre of bohemian goof-offs and society straights, with the goof-offs winning every time. While not quite up to those standards, this movie is definitely top-shelf. The script (by Jo Swerling, who wrote Pennies from Heaven, from a play by Ferenc Molnar) has got a great rhythm and plenty of gags, if none too fresh. Powell and Loy nail their characters, while remaining, eternally, themselves. There were some great supporting character actors, as well, such as Sidney Toler as the butler with the peculiar accent. Edgar Kennedy does his slow burn, and the Marx Brothers are referenced with a movie marquee ("Day at the Races") and a tribute to the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera.

Powell's character is revealed to have an ex-wife, who divorced him for being too bohemian. I thought that was interesting, because Carole Lombard actually had divorced Powell for being too bohemian - he wanted an open marriage, and she didn't (after a few years, anyway).

What I didn't know is that Powell was engaged to Jean Harlowe, who died during the filming of Double Wedding. The story of her death is very sad - Her domineering mother was a Christian Scientist, who let her die rather than allow her medical help. Powell never lets this show in this frothy comedy.