Living in a Big Way (1947)

Best movie of this year hands down!

That was an excellent one.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The wartime housing shortage for returning veterans gets an amusing and telling look from one of Gene Kelly's lesser known pictures, Living In A Big Way. Kelly plays a GI who marries Marie McDonald on impulse before going overseas. They don't even have time to get down to business. They're not even that well acquainted.This film is directed by Gregory LaCava who gave us two screen comedy classics, Stage Door and My Man Godfrey. This film bares more than a passing resemblance to the latter. Living In A Big Way turned out to be LaCava's last completed film.The big shock that Kelly gets when he returns home to claim his bride with pal Bill Phipps is to discover she's rich. And she's got a stuffy fiancé in John Warburton whom she hasn't bothered to tell about that unconsummated marriage. Being married to 'The Body' that's the part most unbelievable about Living In A Big Way.In fact it is the main weakness of Living In A Big Way. Had someone like Lana Turner or Carole Lombard been cast in the role of the unfulfilled wife some of the comedy aspects in her character would have been handled a lot better. Living In A Big Way might have become a classic. It might not have needed the musical numbers Kelly did which were creative and fun, but kind of forced into the film. The wife's role truly was one made for Carole Lombard who was beyond casting.Charles Winninger and Spring Byington as the parents are carbon copies of Eugene Palette and Alice Brady from My Man Godfrey. There's also a nice performance by Jean Adair as McDonald's grandmother.And one role to note, that of Phyllis Thaxter as a war widow who joins Kelly's and Phipps's community of veterans. She's the kind of girl that every GI would love to have come home to.Living In A Big Way is an amusing enough film, but hardly one of the great films of Gene Kelly or Gregory LaCava.

There's a lot to like in this musical variation on "The Best Years of Our Lives" where a returned G.I.(Gene Kelly, once again in a military uniform) comes back to Los Angeles to find the bride he married before going overseas and ends up believing only married him for his allotment checks. It turns out that she (Marie McDonald, aka "The Body") is actually a wealthy socialite, a beauty contest winner who has no interest in being married to him, at first. Through the advice of her spunky grandma (Jean Adair of "Arsenic and Old Lace"), Kelly decides to move on, taking over her old mansion which he intends to turn into a residence for homeless veterans. The more he looses interest in McDonald, the more she gets interested in him again. The real issue for Kelly is the question, is she really worth the effort? As it turns out, the answer to that is an empathetic "No!" with her selfishness so obvious that it becomes obvious that Kelly is way above her. Everybody in her family likes him and seems to find McDonald only tolerable because she's one of the family. But this is an MGM musical, and in these films, the bad girls usually reform or are more comic relief. McDonald seems more appropriate for film noir where the femme fatal is usually a big-busted, rather masculine female with little or no redeeming values. Then, there's Clinton Sundberg as the prissy butler, a nasty character whose wisecracking makes Monty Woolley in "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and Clifton Webb in "Laura" seem masculine by comparison. His nasty commentary on everything going on becomes tiresome after a while. Usually cast in quietly sardonic roles, this "vicious queen" part is so stereotypically awful that you just wish the boss (Charles Winninger as McDonald's world-weary father) would give him the boot. Spring Byington adds another overly concerned wife role to her repertoire, nagging Winninger about his drinking even though you can understand why he reaches for the bottle in the first place.The musical numbers are all superb and are quite different than anything Kelly had done up to that point. He sings and dances to "I'll See You in My Dreams" with McDonald (set in happier times when they first met), has a cute dance number with McDonald's neglected pooch, and later participates in a bunch of children's games where his acrobatic skills (later perfected in "The Pirate") are shown off to great effect.The scenes where Kelly befriends widow Phyllis Thaxter have you hoping that he'll give McDonald the boot and find happiness with this Donna Reed like young lady, but this is MGM where divorce can't be granted easily. This gives the film a multi-personality, the mix of comedy, music and drama sometimes conflicting, and certainly wrapped up too smoothly.

I thought this movie was fun. I have never really watched old movies before and this one was a really great first date film. It had warmth and heart and spirit. Was kind of cheesy but in today's film industry, cheesy is cute. I gave it a ten and I highly suggest renting, buying or seeing the movie anyway you can. Gene Kelly was very dreamy and a little bit sarcastic and you knew the character thought that he was gonna have it all. The female lead was cast perfect because their two personalities had spark and you wanted to hold on and see what would happen. The grandma in the movie was priceless. The perfect addition to a great old movie. I love the fact it was black and white and Gene Kelly is so sweet with all the kids in the movie that you can't help liking him. See It.

This may contain spoilers for some.The storyline could have been an interesting premise. A returning soldier and his war bride coping with their marriage following his return from war. But too many flaws are to be found.The casting was not carefully done. Gene Kelly and Marie McDonald were lacking in chemistry. Gene's chemistry with Phyllis Thaxter was much better.Marie McDonald was beautiful, although she does not seem to have been a great actress (this is the only film of hers I've seen), she is not terrible. I do think she would have been aided if cast opposite an actor she had more chemistry with and with a better script.This film is watchable but not memorable. The character development is lacking. Marie's character Margaud goes back and forth and the writers don't seem to have known whether they wished for her to be a good person who made some mistakes or a selfish one. The instances with the divorce and then her later help with the housing are examples.Gene's character seems to go back and forth about whether he wants his marriage to work or not.The film in general does not seem to know whether it wants to be a drama or a musical comedy. The absence of a direction for the film to go causes it to be wrapped up a little to easily within the last few minutes of the film.For those who are fans of Gene or Marie, then this film should be viewed. Or just for those who are curious about the acting of Marie McDonald who's acting has been heavily criticized and is mostly known for her nickname "The Body".