Remember? (1939)

I sat through this whole movie - it was late, and my eyes were too tired to read - wondering: How could MGM's bosses have signed off on this script???? It is flatter than flat, and features two main characters who are very unsympathetic. The minor characters are uninteresting, ditto the plot.The direction, by Norman Z. McLeod, is also completely flat - though I'm not sure what even the best of directors could have done with this script, other than to refuse to direct it.There are a lot of talented people involved in this movie, but their talent goes unused here. Some of the other reviewers on here appear to have enjoyed this movie. I wanted to like it, since I am a big fan of Greer Garson. To me, however, this is a real turkey with no redeeming qualities.

Farce where Robert Taylor falls immediately for the fiancée of his best friend, Lew Ayres, none other than Greer Garson.The two quickly wed but seem to be mismatched from the very beginning in this rather dull romantic comedy of 1939.Billie Burke, as Garson's mother, has some funny moments with her usual ditsy behavior and that croaking voice of hers.Laura Hope Crews, Aunt Pity Pat that same year, in "Gone With the Wind" plays Burke's sister but has little to do here.After insulting Garson's family, the two quickly divorce but Ayres steps in to give them both a potion that will make them quickly forget everything. The silliness of the picture is that the two begin their relationship again as history repeats itself.No wonder Ayres takes the potion himself at the film's end. This is really one that we quickly want to forget.Henry Travers, Garson's co-star in the memorable "Mrs. Miniver," plays the judge who marries the couple twice. Twice is more than enough for this film.Garson made another film several years later dealing with forgetfulness, the great "Random Harvest," where Ronald Colman's bout with amnesia was memorable in the film. That was a film to remember.

**SPOILERS*** Overstuffed, with hot air, Hollywood turkey of a screwball comedy that came out just in time for the 1939 Christmas Holiday season that almost destroyed the careers of the three major stars in it.It's when Sky Ames played by Lew Ayres, who looks like a preincrnated looking Jack Lemmon, came back north early from his vacation from Nassau in the Bahamas with his bride to be Linda Bronson, Greer Garson, that things started to go drastically south for him. It was Sky's friend and partner in the advertising firm that he works for tall dark & handsome Jeff "Rainbow Eyes" Holland, Robert Taylor, who after laying his "rainbow eyes" on his fiancées Linda that he completely lost it.Having no consideration at all for his best friend and business partner Sky "Rainbow Eyes" Jeff set his sights on Linda and forgot that she was engaged to Sky as well as him having a business to run. At first a bit puzzled by Jeff's strange, to put it mildly, behavior Linda did't take long to dump her future husband Sky without as much as a second thought. Even though Jeff was anything but dependable in being on time for anything even his wedding and honeymoon with Linda. Jeff also proves to be an off the wall oddball with Linda's parents her dizzy mom Mrs. Louise Bronson, Billie Burke, and horse loving dad Mr. George Bronson, Reginald Owen, who despite his childish antics agree to let him have Linda's hand in marriage.Meanwhile back at the office Sky feeling that he's being treated like a first class schmuck by both Jeff and Linda comes up with an idea from one of the clients he's dealing with at the firm Dr. Schmidt, Sig Ruman. It's Dr. Schmidt who developed this magic potion that can make people forget their past going back as far as six months in time that Sky plans to get the couple to gulp down. With Jeff & Linda now married Sky plans to slip the forgot potion into their drinks and with their past, in meeting falling in love and getting married, obliterated he now can get a fresh start in life as well as with Linda.***SPOILERS*** Like everything else that happened to him in the movie Sky's brilliant idea turns out to be a total deserter for him. Not only in him getting both Linda and Jeff back together again, even though they forgot about each other, but having Linda now expecting with, in both her and Jeff forgetting about their past, what could only be Sky's child! With thoughts now failing him and knowing that he screwed himself up for the second time around in trying to get Linda back Sky does about the only thing left for him to do in correcting the mess that he got himself into. Gulp down the forget potion and blot this entire episode, or movie, completely out of his mind!

I gave "Remember?" a 6 because of the cast ONLY. I knew there had to be a disaster made during the "magic" year of 1939, and sure enough, this is it. Robert Taylor, Greer Garson, and Lew Ayres star in what surely is the foreshadowing of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" except that this is one case where a later film is better than one from the classic era.The film concerns a man, Jeff Holland (Taylor) who falls in love with his friend Sky's (Lew Ayres) fiancé Linda (Garson) and abruptly marries her. However, he's a workaholic. This makes her very unhappy, and the two divorce. Desirous of getting them back together, Sky uses an experimental drug, that sounded like mematine. It erases everything that happened in the last six months. Interesting, because today there is a drug called memantine for Alzheimer's, so it actually has an opposite effect."Remember?" is only mildly funny. It lacks the pace of a comedy - it's one of those in between things where the story isn't compelling enough to be a drama but doesn't come off like a comedy either. The main part of the plot comes practically at the end of the film. One scene I did love - Billie Burke, as Garson's mother, has a surprise congratulatory party for the new couple. When they arrive, she has everybody hide behind furniture - which has become somewhat tedious, because the Hollands are late and the entire group has been hiding on and off for hours. When they arrive, Jeff and Linda are sent into the library, where Jeff complains to Linda about her father and her family's boring, blowhard friends. Then Billie Burke yells surprise. A very good scene, but there weren't enough of these in the movie to justify it.The performances are good. Taylor is unbelievably handsome and really did have a nice flair for comedy. Lew Ayres, in real life a pacifist, vegetarian, and a very spiritual man, somehow played drinking men very well, and does so in this. Garson was still very early in her career but had already received an Oscar nomination. Guess Mayer thought she was a flash in the pan - this is hardly a step in a prestige career. Garson probably hoped she never was nominated for an Oscar again - who knows what MGM would do to her next. Fortunately it didn't work out that way."Remember?" is one of those films you'll more than likely want to forget.