Day-time Wife (1939)

The Worst Film Ever

Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This movie was not bad, it wasn't wonderful but it wasn't bad. There were some very funny scenes. I found it fascinating (and slightly disturbing) that Linda Darnell was only 16 when she made this movie! She did a very good job in this role considering her age!The movie starts on the morning of Mr and Mrs Norton's second anniversary. Ken Norton doesn't realize what day it is and that night while an anniversary party is taking place at their house his secretary calls in to let Jane know he's got to work late. The guests decide to bring the party to him. When they get to his office they find two cleaning ladies but no Ken and no secretary. Jane's friend finds a bottle of expensive perfume in the secretary's drawer. Ken sneaks into their apartment late at night while Jane is still awake and smells the expensive perfume on her husband.Jane sets out to find what a secretary/boss relationship is like and gets a job with a well off architect. Things get interesting when Jane's boss and Ken start working on a contract and arrange a double date with their secretaries to discuss the contract.

Despite the bad reviews on this site, I enjoyed "Daytime Wife." It's a little comedy, very much of its time, but I enjoyed seeing the supporting actors - Warren William, Joan Davis, and Binnie Barnes - in their roles as well as the stars, Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. Personally, I didn't find anything wrong with Power's comedy. I thought he was quite funny. There was a comment about Darnell's high-pitched voice, and it is interesting - in Fallen Angel, six years later, her voice had dropped an octave. She must have been a smoker. She's very pretty and very young in this film - she actually grew into her great beauty a little bit later.Darnell and Power are married, and she suspects, against her will, that he's cheating on her with his secretary. At the risk of coming off as a cynic, if I were married to someone who looked like Tyrone Power, I wouldn't let him out of my sight. Anyway, she takes a job as a secretary to find out why a man is drawn to a woman other than his wife. She's able to deftly turn the tables on Power when he's involved in a business deal with her boss (Warren William) and they all wind up at a nightclub - William, Darnell, Power, and his secretary, played by Wendy Barrie.It's a cute movie, though inconsequential, certainly given the mammoth films that were produced in 1939. This film was Zanuck's punishment film to Tyrone Power for getting married to Annabella, whom Zanuck had tried to force back to Europe. Power was 25 when this film was made. He is absolutely glorious looking and for the drool factor alone, Daytime Wife is worth it.

A light-as-air confection, with very dark overtones. The very young, fresh-faced Linda Darnell is stood up on their second anniversary by husband Tyrone Power. The always delightful Binnie Barnes, her poisonous often-divorced friend Blanche says he's fooling around. Darnell refuses to believe it.But believe it she must as evidence piles up. So, under the guide of shopping all day, she takes a job as a secretary. Her goal: finding out what about their secretaries appeals to men. (It must be noted that a husband willing to accept five-day-a-week, all-day shopping expeditions goes against many conventions.) Ushered in by goofy but knowing receptionist Joan David -- THE Joan Davis, that divine comedienne here in an early, rather small role -- she interviews for a job. Her boss is Warren William, at his slimiest. He comes on to her like nobody's business, his own wife notwithstanding.Darnell is determined to keep working rather than depend on Power's money and to pursue her plan: What makes these guys fall for these girls? William and Power are business associates and they all, secretaries and his wife included, end up at a nightclub. She is very firm with Power but in the end makes up with him.It's an early feminist movie. And in its own gentle way it's a subversive one, too. Unlike Catherine Deneuve in "Belle de jour," she does not become a call girl. But she scandalizes her chauvinistic, narrow-minded husband by becoming a working woman -- and a very smart one at that.

Stupid stupid stupid! Tried very hard to sit through this incredibly ridiculous, terrible excuse for a movie, I just could not do it. It is quite awful. Even though Tyrone Power has hardly ever given a performance worth watching (except for NIGHTMARE ALLEY), he in particularly painful to watch in this idiotic hokum. I usually don't like to give a movie a bad rap, but rather move on and find praise for one. However, this I must warn you about. It's just plain silly and not even worth seeing for the great character people that pop up, Marie Blake, Leonid Kinskey and Mary Gordon. As usual, Power and Darnell look great, as does the art direction, but thats about it. Steer clear!