HE'S GOT DOUBLE WOMAN TROUBLE!
And it's the sex-plosion of the season when they get together!
Cement Company CEO Stephen Dexter (Brian Aherne) is advised by his best friend and lawyer Roger Van Horn (Robert Benchley) to get a quick marriage to save his company from being bought out in a hostile takeover. Dexter wants to marry his latest yearly fling, Phyllis Walden (Virginia Bruce), but his secretary and brains behind the company, Kendal Browning (Rosalind Russell) seizes the opportunity to land the man that she has been silently pining for. Once the business need to be married is over, Dexter expects Kendal to accept an all expenses paid holiday to Hawaii by way of a Las Vegas divorce as ample compensation for her trouble. But Kendal has other ideas and enlists the help of her charming lady-killer buddy, Jose de Briganza (John Carroll) to break up the Stephen-Phyllis romance. From there the sparks fly and witty repartee flows like champagne until the film’s inevitable happy conclusion.
The sharp tongue and gleaming personality of top-billed Rosalind Russell is the reason to watch Hired Wife. The film rests squarely on the over-sized shoulders of the power outfits that she wears, and Russell carries it with ease. She had established her comedic credentials with her over the top performance in The Women (1939), and her fast talking, take charge, independent woman persona in His Girl Friday (1940), Howard Hawks' quintessential screwball comedy that she had made earlier in the year. It was a role she would return to time and again throughout the 1940’s. As she said,
“In all those types of films I wore a tan suit, a grey suit, a beige suit and then a negligee for the seventh reel near the end when I would admit to my best friend on the telephone that what I really wanted was to become a little housewife.”
Benchley, Aherne & Russell
In Hired Wife, Russell is paired with Richard Aherne in
their first of four films together, with the three from the 40’s all being
variations on the same rom-com theme. For me, Aherne was always forgettable in his pairings with Russell, perhaps because she so dominates any scene she has with him. As hard
as Russell tries (and she’s great at it) to convince us that Aherne is the only
man for her, it comes across as just what it is – the plot device to drive the
story forward. However, I will grant that Aherne could deliver an excellent performance, such as he gave in Merrily We Live (1938) where he held his own matching wits against the star power of Constance Bennett.
Russell, Benchley & Bruce
Much more engaging are the two secondary male actors, Robert Benchley and John Carroll. The film jumps into gear when either is on the screen. Algonquin Round Table regular Benchley plays his patented best friend sidekick role to perfection, his mere presence buoying up the screen if the comedy is flagging. There’s frankly more energy between Benchley and Aherne in any one scene than Russell and Aherne have together in the entire movie.
Russell & Carroll
Next to Russell, the film’s real delight is John Carroll (Marx Bros Go West, Flying Tigers, Only Angels Have Wings) using a hilariously false accent to play Kendal’s ace in the hole for breaking up the Stephen-Phyllis dalliance. One deftly acted scene in the back of a cab quickly establishes the Kendal-Jose dynamic. He’s a charming, perpetually broke, Clark Gable-ish lover of life and all women, who once tried to romance her, got turned down, and is now is her loyal friend. She returns that loyalty with a sibling-like love for his magnetic joie de vie. As actors, Carroll and Russell have a comedic and romantic allure that is rarely seen in films, and I’m sure that more than one audience member was rooting for them to end up with each other. Every scene between them is a delight, especially their near telepathic interplay whenever she is slipping him money to help maintain his pretence as a wealthy Spanish playboy as he attempts to woo Phyllis away from Stephen.
The script gives underused Virginia Bruce very little to work with in the other woman role as Stephen’s girlfriend, Phyllis. Initially established as a quasi-gold digger, the mechanics of the plot require her to also supposedly be seriously romantically interested in Stephen. All her scenes are reactive – outraged at being tricked into not marrying Stephen and then getting huffy when he’s placed in a situation where he can’t get a quick divorce. As a pretty blonde we can see Stephen’s physical attraction to Phyllis, but she’s clearly outclassed in every category by Kendal – it’s baffling why Stephen does not recognize this as well.
With better material, Bruce was an extremely capable actress
with a wide range. She’s exceptional as the broken woman brutalized by Walter Houston in Kongo (1932), the talkie remake of Lon Chaney Sr.'s West of Zanzibar (1928),
or in her comedic role as The Invisible Woman (1940) next to John Barrymore in the underrated
third entry in Universal’s Invisible Man franchise. The part of Phyllis needed
an actress as charismatic as Jean Harlow who could have breathed her full-bodied
life into this underwritten role and given Kendal a worthy adversary in her pursuit
of Stephen. As it is, the film fails to generate any real concern over Kendal
not getting her man in the end.
This bright, but by the numbers, film is greatly enhanced by the people behind the camera. It was directed by William Seiter from a screenplay by Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman, based on an original story by George Beck. Journeyman director Seiter made a number of well respected films such as Laurel and Hardy’s Sons of the Desert (1933) and Your Were Never Lovelier (1942) with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth. Connell was a two-time Oscar nominee for Meet John Doe (1941) and Two Girls and A Sailor (1944; shared with Lehman), but I remember him best for the screenplay for The Most Dangerous Game (1932). The engaging, but unfussy cinematography was by seven-time Oscar nominee (and winner for Three Coins in the Fountain,1954), Milton Krasner.
Bit players to look out for include Suzanne Ridgeway who would go on to be dropped into quicksand by Baranga, the tree monster (stump?) in From Hell It Came (1957), and Robert Lane who played Chester Morris’ not-too-bright foil, Inspector Farraday, in the Boston Blackie film series.
Pretty blonde Janet Shaw had small parts in two Universal monster flicks; a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) and as the first victim of the Night Monster (1942). Shaw’s role in Hired Wife is tiny. She’s the blushing young bride getting married at the Justice of the Peace ahead of Kendal and Stephen. But, how Kendal looks at her during the ceremony is crucial to our understanding of what marriage, and marriage to Stephen, means to Kendal, and why she later refuses to give him up - she knows in her heart of hearts that it’s the best thing for both of them.
IS HIRED WIFE WORTH MY TIME? Definitely, especially if you enjoy a romantic comedy with well-written dialogue, if not a very original script. Rosalind Russell is always wonderful and the film is supercharged by Robert Benchley and John Carroll. At 96 minutes it would have benefited from trimming away 10 minutes in the middle, and expanding the too quick, “Oh no, we ran out of time” ending.
AVAILABILITY: It appears to be available as a grey market
DVD and it turns up on TCM from time to time. Several nice copies are also up
on YouTube, which is where I watched it.
