As Good As It Gets

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

Clearly, this movie is screwball comedy. It has all the elements of the standard definition. The domineering female who challenges the man's virility. The fast and witty dialog with rejoinders and clever ripostes. The farcical scenes and antics. "Double Wedding" veers off in places, and seems to chop off scenes with poor segue. But, these few instances that might be a distraction or fault in any other film, fit perfectly with the zaniness of this movie. It's not the best of the screwball films, but it still rates 10 stars for laughter. The cast are all outstanding in their roles. The sets, filming and other technical aspects are very good. The IMDb Web site gives the plot and other reviewers discuss it and the script. I'll just give some of the funniest lines. Myrna Loy's role is one of her biggest dialogs in her pairings with William Powell. She seems to have more lines as Margit Agnew than does Powell's Charles Lodge. Margit gives this gibberish genealogy to Mrs. Bly, about the young man she has chosen to marry her sister, Irene. Margit, "Waldo's a sort of distant relative of ours. Mother, you know, was a Leslie. The son of her brother, Edward Leslie, married one of the Boyer girls, Anne Boyer. Anne's sister Hermione married Steve Carroll, divorced Steve and married Elmer Beaver who had three brothers, Andrew, Paul and Alexander. Andrew was married twice. His first wife was a Brewster. His second wife was the widow of Morton Thomas, nee Caroline Cook. Andrew and Caroline were the parents of Waldo. Get it?" Mrs. Bly, "Nope!" Obviously, a viewer wouldn't be able to get it either – to write it down like this, without DVD technology. This must be the longest silly genealogy recitation in filmdom.Margit has some of the funniest lines in the film. She delivers persiflage at will toward Powell's Lodge. She calls Lodge's living style, "adolescent Bohemianism." The ending is one of the funniest, zaniest scenes of mayhem and pratfalls I can think of from any film. Here are some more very funny lines. Irene Agnew (played superbly by Florence Rice) to Charles, "You just don't understand her. She's different form you and me. She's a businesswoman. We're Bohemians." Waldo (played very well by John Beal), "Why do Bohemians have to stay up all night?"Mrs. Kensington-Bly (played excellently by Jessie Ralph), "It's beginning to look more and more like a hot house." Margit, "Or a nut house."Charles, "I was a professional guide in Paris at the time. I used to show people through the sewers." Margit, "I can think of no one better qualified."Judge Blynn (played wonderfully by Donald Meek), "Would the bride and gloom please join hands." (sic)Waldo, "To know Charles is to love him. He's got yumpf." Irene, "He's got a monopoly on it."Margit, "You were the best (police detective) on the force, Keough?" Keough, "Yes, Miss Agnew." Margit, "My, my! How we all missed being killed in our sleep."Charles, "Did you want to talk about something?" Margit, "Yes. Do you take dope?"Mrs. Bly, "I 'angeled' this joint for only one reason …to put one over on the income tax, to lose money. You make profits. Do you want to ruin me? I know! I'll double your salary."Here's another dialog sequence that's hilarious prattle between Margit and her gardener, Angelo (done very well by Henry Taylor). Margit, "Angelo?" Angelo, "Yes, Miss Agnew?" Margit, "The paper says cloudy, probably rain. You won't have to water the garden today. How's your bambino?" Angelo, "Don't water the lawn. The bambino? Oh, he's fine." Margit, "So you can use that time to get rid of all these weeds. Be sure he gets his cod liver oil." Angelo, "Yes, Ma'am. Pull the weeds and oil the bambino. Yes, Ma'am."Some reviewers have noted the delay in completing this film, and the strain particularly on William Powell and Myrna Loy over the death of Jean Harlow. She and Powell were planning to be married, and Loy was a close friend. Harlow was just 26 years old when she died June 7, 1937, from kidney failure. She had been ill on and off for the past year, but her illnesses had variously been diagnosed as influenza and an inflamed gallbladder. Only toward the end was she diagnosed with kidney failure, for which there was no treatment at the time. Her kidney problems may have stemmed from the Scarlet Fever she had as a child. For her short career, Harlow was well liked by people all across the movie industry. MGM closed its studio the day of her funeral. At the time of her death, she was starring with Clark Gable in "Saratoga." The film was finished using three doubles for distance shots and some revisions. It was a box office hit when it came out in July. And, Harlow's close friends in the cast of "Double Wedding" completed it under emotional duress for its release in October of that year.

Love the two leads, Powell and Loy, and think they are terrific actors. But here the script and/or direction or both let them down. I thought the film was somewhat "flat" and lacked "yumph" the very word they mention in the film. To put it succinctly, it was often boring (although there were some good moments). Maybe it was due to Harlow's death that other commenter's have mentioned, I don't know. This is a film that fans of Powell and Loy will want to watch, but it certainly isn't a "classic". Powell seems to me to be a little more subdued than I think he usually is and Loy doesn't seem to be really interested. Again maybe due to Harlow's death but the script is a mess and the plot meanders all over the place and never gains traction. I really think Powell and Loy did the best they could with a lousy script and lackluster direction. Still, Powell and Loy are worth watching, IMHO, in anything.

Powell is an artist, a free spirit who disrupts the well-made plans of Loy, who controls the lives of her kid sister (Rice) and the latter's fiancé with an iron fist. Like the dozen other teamings of Powell and Loy, it is fun to watch the two pros match wits. Beal is funny as Rice's milquetoast fiancé, whom Powell tries to make a man out of. Powell is an aspiring writer/director who coaches Beal and Rice in acting out a love story; unable to arouse passion out of Beal, Powell demonstrates by passionately kissing the lovely Rice, who falls in love with him. Of course, Powell falls in love with Rice's sister, Loy, setting the stage for comic situations.

A very funny, romantic movie. I enjoyed all the little creative pieces of "business" and lines such as "...you rang my gong." I enjoyed the treat of Sidney Toler as Keough.I enjoyed the beautiful, wonderful cars of the 1930s, and the background scenes of beautiful, wonderful downtown Los Angeles of the '30s and into the 1950s. I was born there in 1934 and remember it well when it was a beautiful place to live. Ah, nostalgia!! This is what it really did look like then.