Unfaithfully Yours was one of the last Hollywood comedies from producer/director/writer Preston Sturges. He had a string of successful films with Paramount from 1940 through 1944, the most famous of which are The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story. But his association with Paramount ended with disagreements over The Great Moment (1944).
The career of Sturges was troubled thereafter. His best chance of reclaiming past glory was Unfaithfully Yours, a wicked, original comedy set to an overwhelming orchestral score. Praised by critics ever since, it is the only later Sturges film placed in the same glory as his earlier work at Paramount. Its reputation eventually led to a 1984 remake, starring Dudley Moore.
Rex Harrison plays Sir Alfred de Carter, a witty if imperious symphony conductor. His lovely and much younger wife is Daphne (Linda Darnell). Thanks to the suspicions of his brother-in-law August (Rudy Vallee), Alfred becomes convinced that his wife is having an affair with Anthony (Kurt Kreuger), his personal secretary. These suspicions are confirmed by August's fawning detective (Edgar Kennedy), who idolizes Alfred.
That evening, Alfred conducts three symphony pieces, each of them with a contrasting style. Inspired by the music that he is helping to create, Alfred fantasizes differing acts of revenge on his wife. It would spoil too much to describe these in detail. However, the first fantasy is so wicked and hilarious that it may provide the best ten minutes of any Sturges film. The second fantasy is equally exaggerated, but dull in comparison. The third fantasy is nearly as original as the first, but not as inspired.
After the concert, Alfred decides to set these dubious plans into motion. In a lengthy slapstick sequence, he finds that they work better in fantasy than in practice. The same could be said for the comedy itself. Harrison seems miscast for such silliness, with gags of broken chairs and off the hook phones repeated over and over.
Many supporting players who became familiar faces in earlier Sturges films appear again here. Bandleader and singer Rudy Vallee is the foremost among them.
Unluckily for Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours was a box office flop, as his The Sin of Harold Diddlebock had been the year before. Part of the problem was simply bad luck. Rex Harrison, at the time married to Lily Palmer, was associated romantically with the suicide of Carole Landis on July 6, 1948. The resulting scandal didn't help the film, especially with Harrison's screen character constantly scheming to murder his wife.
The comedy of Unfaithfully Yours is wildly inconsistent. The first of the three fantasies is undeniably hilarious, but elsewhere the humor lags. Poor Daphne has to put up with all sorts of verbal abuse from Alfred. Also, it is hard to reconcile the characters of Alfred the Great Man, Alfred the Good Husband, and Alfred the Attempted Murderer. The slapstick doesn't always work either, with the film sometimes resembling a Jerry Lewis vehicle.
But at its best, Unfaithfully Yours is as wicked and original as any comedy can hope to be. (54/100)
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