Love Crazy (1941)

Better Late Then Never

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

In the aptly named "Love Crazy", Myrna Loy and William Powell again prove that they make a marvelous screen pairing. And someone did a good job of selecting projects for them.The story starts with Powell and Loy almost giddily happy about their fourth anniversary. Then Susan's (Loy's) mother arrives and things go downhill. She's a clueless meddler who doesn't really like her son-in-law Stephen (Powell). Circumstances conspire to thrust an old flame into Stephen's path and his mother-in-law is there to witness just enough to inject doubt into the happy couple's relationship.It's a winding story, but eventually Stephen tries to convince everyone that he is insane in order to save his marriage. Things spiral out of control as each misunderstanding compounds.Powell proves a master of physical comedy in this film and he turns in an impressive performance dressed as a woman. The writing delivers some terrific one-liners. Although this film deserves to be considered one of the best Powell-Loy matchups, for me the level drops off slightly after Susan starts to seriously doubt Stephen.And it may be just me, but the portrayals of the legal profession and the psychiatry profession took me slightly out of the story. The legal doctrine used in the film seemed fabricated in parts. And the haphazard use of psychiatric jargon was jarring. It is possible, I suppose, that a psychiatrist in 1940 might have used phrenology as an aid in diagnosis, but no doctor would actually confuse schizophrenia with insanity. But these are not serious impediments to enjoying this film. I will deduct one point in my grading.This film has much to recommend it. The Powell-Loy chemistry shines in the best parts and the twisting plot keeps things interesting.

A terribly written film, obviously milking the Powell/ Loy magic long after it was gone. Don't waste your time. An unfunny movie. Not even clever.While the Thin Man and subsequent sequels were clever, by 41 it seems they should have killed this pairing. Bad scripting showed along with half hearted acting that they were only in it for the money. While the movie was not specifically a Thin Man film, the plot was pulling from it, and the insanity plea for the divorce was really lame, probably even by those standards. I found the movie boring and distasteful. Couldn't wait for it to end. You'll do yourself a favor passing on it.

In watching Love Crazy I was amazed at how the film picked up in the second half. In the first half William Powell and Myrna Loy are the usual happy married couple, but through some typical movie situations, some of them very forced, they wind in divorce court.Powell realizes that things have just gotten completely out of hand and wants to apply a break to the divorce. But Loy won't hear of it. So Powell decides to put on a crazy act because if insanity is claimed a thirty day hold is put on the proceedings.Sad for Powell, but hilarious for the viewer the scheme succeeds all to well. The second half of the film reaches a frantic pace that comes close to something Mel Brooks might put together. Powell is first trying to prove he's insane and then very much trying to prove he's not.Such wonderful supporting players as Florence Bates, the mother-in-law from hell, neighbors slinky Gail Patrick and slow burn Donald MacBride; blow-hard Jack Carson, a redundancy if there ever was one, Viennese psychiatrist Sig Ruman, make this Powell-Loy film a joy to watch and one of the better ones where they're not Nick and Nora Charles.Powell does more physical type comedy in this film than in any other I've ever seen. Even more than Libeled Lady because it had only that one classic scene in the trout stream. Here Powell is engaging in all kinds of screwy behavior because he's trying to convince people he's just that. Topped off by him shaving his famous mustache and getting into drag to play his own make believe sister.Great screwball comedy one of the best of its kind.

This should be seen by any aspiring director.Its a disaster. Yet it has a good enough set of screwball situations, and one of the best light comedy teams ever. What's missing? A pulse. Its something beyond merely lacking in comic timing. Creating a screwball world means the light has to crackle. Things have to move in an unreal, hyperreal way, veering both in jerks and in unexpected directions. To do that you have to have a rhythm to syncopate, to play against. And that means you have to have a director who feels the music of the story. So the lesson for directors here is in what not to do. This has the pace of a silent film drama. It has room to breath and us to settle into. That's wrong; our mind should be stabbing this instead of stroking it.Its a poor state when I have to recommend that a film is bad in an educational way, but that's the case here.Oh, the story has a mild fold in the vein of "Vertigo." A man wishes to make a story within the story and gets captured by it.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.