Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

This film brings us Rex Harrison already foreshadowing Professor Higgins. He tries out the arrogant, picayune, verbally acute role and is absolutely successful. The seed is planted and we, who know what is to come twenty years hence, rub our hands gleefully in anticipation of Higgins. But Linda Darnell is no Eliza. Instead, she is a loving, docile, trusting wife, already dressed as though she will be meeting the Queen and looking beautiful and so very desirable.The dialog crackles and moves fast. Only Rex Harrison and perhaps Cary Grant could have have delivered with the wit and brio that Sturges deserved.There are two extended slapstick scenes that should have been cut shorter.Edgar Kennedy as a Private Eye has a couple of great scenes when he turns out to be a classical music devotee and is knowledgeably enthusiastic about Harrison's conducting.A digression: Harrison tosses a couple of tickets to the Philharmonic concert, they are orchestra tickets a few rows from the front row. Price $3.80, designated as "Patron"' seats.

Rex Harrison surely rued the day he ever got involved in this turkey. It was doomed to fail at least because it plays so much classical music most movie-goers have no interest in. What's more, Harrison is a miserable simulacrum of a conductor such as it is, and the music is pot-boilers from Rossini, Wagner and Tchaikovsky (of course).The plot is utterly implausible, contrived and contorted. The acting is good by Harrison, satisfactory by Darnell, then goes down from there. Even considering this is a "black" comedy, the other characters are poorly developed caricatures. The putting-out-the-fire scene has to be one of the stupidest ever published.Maybe it would make more sense once medical marijuana is legalized, but for now, steer clear of this confusing mess.

Sir Alfred DeCarter is a famous orchestra leader much in demand. After he returns from one of his tours, he is told by his dense brother-in-law, August Henshler, that acting on Alfred's request, he engaged a private detective to follow Daphne, his wife. That is the way for August to comply with an innocent request for 'keeping an eye on her'. DeCarter goes into a rage because he would never suspect his Daphne of any wrongdoing and rips up the detective's report.The famous conductor has everything working against him as a sudden attack of jealousy gets the best of him. Alfred begins putting a plan together as he starts to lead his orchestra into a concert. As each piece in the program is played, Alfred begins planning how to deal with Daphne because he has reasons to believe she has been cheating him with Tony, his handsome, and younger, male secretary.Preston Sturges, the creative mind behind this enjoyable film, was at the top of his profession. With this film he solidified his position as one of the most innovative directors of that era in Hollywood. He wrote and directed with impeccable style that characterized most of the work he did for the cinema.Rex Harrison gave an amazing performance as Alfred, the conductor whose jealousy gets the best of him. The last sequence at his apartment, after the concert is one of the best comic turns by this actor who goes through all the emotions, and furniture, in a frenzied manner. Beautiful Linda Darnell is excellent, although her part doesn't allow her to do much more. Rudy Vallee, who had worked with Sturges before, shows an ability to bring to life his character. Barbara Lawrence, Kurt Kreuger, Lionel Stander, and Edgar Kennedy are seen in supporting roles.A delicious comedy thanks to Preston Sturges.

This is what we might call late-blooming Sturges coming as it did four years after his last Paramount movie and having written and directed eight movies for that studio between 1940 and 1944, the majority of which were successful he was arguably entitled to both a break and a different studio. It was Fox who were to benefit from the breach with Paramount and Sturges got to feature Fox contract player Linda Darnell plus Rex Harrison, who was still hanging around the Lot after shooting Anna And The King Of Siam there a couple of years earlier. In fact Linda Darnell played very much the same role she plays here - an ordinary girl who lucks into a rich older man - as she did for Mank the next year in A Letter To Three Wives where she substituted Harrison for Paul Douglas. This is at its heart a very bitter black comedy but perhaps because he thought it too dark himself or perhaps because he was 'persuaded' by the Front Office, Sturges leavened it from about the seventh or eighth reel with some hopelessly unfunny slapstick involving Harrison who is, above all else, at home with verbal comedy. There are certainly fine moments and the beginning is studded with Sturges one-liners but the ultimate effect is of an unsuccessful meld of bleak humor and slapstick.