So much average

hyped garbage

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

NY lawyer John Mason (James Stewart) is newly married to Jane (Carole Lombard) despite the disapproval of his mother. They are supposed to take a honeymoon cruise to Europe but his nearly-deaf boss Judge Doolittle implies taking a big case away from him. Doolittle promotes co-worker Carter as partner over him. The couple has a boy and they struggle to make ends meet.The pairing of Stewart and Lombard is very promising. In the end, this lacks a structure for the drama. It's more like a run-on sentence of a family drama. It also doesn't help to be missing the courtship. It needs a meet-cute and a good relationship progression. It feels like a laundry list of melodramas rather than a good flowing plot. Their difficult marriage leaves any chemistry with the leads in a precarious position. At its core, I find it hard to feel the love sometimes. Their individual screen presence is undeniable but this movie fails to capitalize on them.

It was love at first sight. John(Jimmy Stewart) and Jane(Carole Lombard) meet on the street, sparks fly, and within a day, they are married. We will find out if they were really made for each other. They return to Stewart's small apartment in NYC, where John's meddling mother(Lucile Watson) is shocked at this development. She was hoping he would marry the boss's daughter, as a step toward acceptance as a partner in his law firm. Jane wants a 2 week honeymoon on a Normandy cruise ship. John has trouble getting his boss(Doolittle)to approve this, but he finally gives in. They get on the ship, and immediately, things go wrong. They have one small bunk in their cabin that the two of them can barely fit on, let along move around on. Then, one of his fellow lawyers arrives with the news that Doolittle orders their trip cancelled, since he needs John for an important case. Caught between a rock and a hard place, John finally acquiesces to Doolittle's demand. They return to their apartment to find John's mother criticizing many things that Jane does. In turn, Jane and the various housekeepers don't get along, so she keeps changing them, until Louise Beavers shows up and offers the sage advice "Don't let the seeds spoil the watermelon". Their financial position doesn't improve, as John is passed over for promotion to a junior partner, and he has to accept a 25% pay cut as an economy measure in a shrinking market. About the same time, Jane has a baby, which gives her a lot more to do, but increases their financial strain. Jane says she can't take any more meddling by her mother -in-law, and the marriage looks in trouble. Things get worse, when the baby comes down with a bad case of pneumonia, and is said to require a rare serum, which must be flown 2000 miles through a blizzard. I leave you to discover the ending, if you can't guess.Yes, as others have noted, this screenplay bears a passing resemblance to that of the subsequent "Penny Serenade", with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn. You may find both of these quite boring if you must have fast action. However, if you like stories of how the sexes can get through difficult times without falling apart, these may be satisfactory. Available at You Tube at present

... even if you are made for each other. This was quite a more serious role for Carole Lombard versus her typical screwball comedy roles. She was a lot less manic and I actually found her quite charming. James Stewart is his familiar every-man, and he and Lombard made a great pair.This was an interesting story about a couple who marry after only knowing each other for one day. Stewart's mother, a delightfully crabby Lucile Watson, of course does not approve of Lombard. She wanted her son to marry Eunice Doolittle (what a name), the daughter of Charles Coburn, a prominent judge in town and Stewart's boss. Marrying into the Doolittle family would lend prestige (and presumably a bump up the social ladder), but Stewart doesn't love Eunice Doolittle. Stewart, a lawyer at a local law firm, feels like he and Lombard will have it made. Unfortunately, his career seems to be at a standstill. Lombard then announces that she's having a baby which further strains and complicates Stewart and Lombard's marriage.This was a nice dramatic film about a whirlwind romance and a couple trying to succeed despite facing odds at every corner. I thought Lombard did a great job, and had she not died in 1942, she would have gone on to do even more great things in her career. James Stewart was excellent as the newlywed who wants nothing more than to provide for his wife and get his mother to accept her. Charles Coburn provides great support for the film as the clueless curmudgeon of a boss demanding employees take pay cuts when Stewart is ready to ask for a raise. I especially liked the scene between he and Stewart when Stewart shows up on his doorstep begging for help in buying serum to help his baby's pneumonia. And never has the delivery of pharmaceuticals had me more on the edge of my seat.The fllm overall, minus the rather sensational finish that is good although it really doesn't seem to belong, is about the mundane things that make a marriage - dealing with super critical live-in in-laws that will not admit that they are super critical, making ends meet and cutting back where you can and even sometimes where you can't, even trying to find a babysitter on New Year's Eve. At least this couple got to sleep in a double bed rather than the virginal twin beds that were the standard in the production code era. I'm still not sure how they managed to get that past the censors back in those days. Highly recommended and amazingly in the public domain, it can be found just about everywhere including some just awful DVD prints and on youtube due to its lack of copyright protection.

I decided to watch this movie because I'd not seen Carol Lombard before in any movie. I'm sorry it had to be this one because, quite frankly, this is a dog – and even with Jimmy Stewart and Charles Coburn, both of whom were great actors.The problem with the film is simple: it tries to put too much, too quickly, in to a story about a young lawyer (John Manson played by Stewart) who marries Jane (played by Lombard) within an hour of meeting her. What's that cliché? Marry in haste, repent at leisure... In short, the story is a series of episodes that show the couples' worsening financial status, their troubles with John's live-in mother, their struggles to pay the bills, John's diminished status at the office, the arrival of their baby son, John Jnr (unexpected and causing additional friction at home with mother), the couples' angst about their marriage, the baby's sickness which worsens, thus necessitating an heroic flight by a lone pilot (in a fierce storm) to bring a special serum to save the child, and finally John being accepted as a junior partner at the law firm.How many more clichéd situations could the writers include? Maybe Mother dying soon after? There wasn't much comedy; the drama was lacklustre, at best; the dialog was painful to hear. Only the acting of the four main players was adequate.This was the period at the end of the Great Depression with the USA coming out of its long downturn – during which many people experienced all of the events portrayed in the movie.So, it made sense for Selznick to reaffirm good ol' home spun American values of family, relationships, heroism, perseverance, and initiative – all against the backdrop of the "average" American family. Who better to use than Jimmy Stewart and Carol Lombard? And, it should be noted that the film was released in early 1939; so, it was planned in 1938 – soon after the USA began to get production going for the coming World War II. Hence, this sort of film was a great booster for the general public, at that time, many of who would soon have to join England in war. As many here would know, Hollywood and Washington formed an uneasy alliance before, during and after the war.However, I'm glad I saw it – as a piece of disguised socio-political propaganda. But, I'll have to see other Lombard films to gain a better appreciation of her acting range.As another reviewer noted: see this one just to say that you've seen all of Stewart's movies; otherwise, don't bother.