Tonight's Movie: I Love You Again (1940) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

A couple of days ago I reviewed MANHATTAN MELODRAMA (1934), in which William Powell and Myrna Loy costarred with Clark Gable.

The Warner Archive Collection has also just released another Powell and Loy film, I LOVE YOU AGAIN (1941).

Unlike MANHATTAN MELODRAMA, I LOVE YOU AGAIN is a comedy, and quite a giddy one at that, but the Loy-Powell chemistry shines just as brightly as in the earlier film.

As this goofy film begins, staid, uptight businessman Larry Wilson (Powell) falls off a cruise ship...it's a long story. Larry is then accidentally hit over the head with an oar, and suddenly Larry's penny-pinching persona is revealed to be due to several years of amnesia. Larry, it turns out, is really a conman named George Carey.

When George/Larry returns home, new best friend Doc (Frank McHugh) in tow, he discovers his wife Kay (Loy) is on the verge of divorce. She's tired of the humdrum, fiscally tight Larry, though her mother (Nella Walker) defends him. And given Kay's unimpressive choice for her next husband (Donald Douglas), mother probably knows best.

Soon, though, Kay notices that Larry is unexpectedly a little more...exciting...even willing to spend a signficant amount of money to buy her a beautiful negligee. Kay is baffled. What happened to her boring husband?

A swindler from Larry/George's past (Edmund Lowe) shows up to complicate things, but Larry/George has decided marriage to Kay and smalltown life looks quite appealing...he just won't be the same tightwad Larry used to be.

My records show I saw this movie a good many years ago, but it's the fairly rare film where absolutely nothing seemed familar. It was a time in my life when I was parenting an infant, so that probably explains my own "amnesia" of sorts. No matter, as consequently I had the treat of seeing a Powell-Loy film for the "first time," as it were.

The screenplay by Charles Lederer, Harry Kurnitz, and George Oppenheimer was from a story by Maurine Watkins and Leon Gordon, based in turn on a novel by Octavus Roy Cohen. It's clever and fairly easy to follow, despite the complicated plotting regarding Larry's two personas.

There are some laugh-out-loud funny moments, with the most hilarious scene being Powell and McHugh in bed together hiding from the cops. Scenes with Powell faking his way through things he's forgotten from his most recent "life" are also quite amusing.

Was anyone on film ever quite as charming as Myrna Loy in a comedy? Her reactions and line readings are quite simply delightful, and she looks marvelous in gowns by Dolly Tree.

I also appreciated Powell's reunion with Frank McHugh, his costar from ONE-WAY PASSAGE (1932) many years before.

My one complaint about the film is that I would have ditched the prolonged slapstick sequence with Larry and a group of Scouts, although it does play into the storyline for the finale. This sequence is overly long and in turn makes the film too long at 99 minutes. The movie needed no Scouts and more Myrna Loy. Other than that, no complaints!

The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke and filmed by Oliver T. Marsh.

The cast also includes Pierre Watkin, Charles Arnt, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Robert "Bobby" Blake, Morgan Wallace, Charles Halton, Harry Hayden, Paul Stanton, Gladys Blake, and Ray Teal.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray print is from a 1080p HD master from 4K scans of the "best available preservation elements." Picture and sound quality are excellent.

Disc extras consist of the trailer; the Traveltalks short CAVALCADE OF SAN FRANCISCO (1940); a cartoon, THE MILKY WAY (1940); and best of all, the Lux Radio Theater production of this story with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant.

I love getting to enjoy "alternative casting" of films via these Lux Radio productions, and I'm looking forward to hearing Cary Grant in this, he should be great in it. It was broadcast nearly a year after the movie was released, on June 30, 1941.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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