Never a dull moment

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Movie
Original title Never a dull moment
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1950
length 89 minutes
Rod
Director George Marshall
script Doris Anderson, Lou Breslow
production Harriet Parsons for RKO
music Friedrich Hollaender
camera Joseph Walker
cut Robert Swink
occupation

Never a Dull Moment is an American comedy film from 1950 starring Irene Dunne and Fred MacMurray .

action

The well-known composer and songwriter Kay Kingsley falls head over heels in love with the cowboy Chris Hayward and both marry on an impulse. Leaving her glamorous New York City life behind, Kay follows Chris to his Cougar Rock ranch in Wyoming. It was there that Kay met her two young daughters, Nancy and Tina, who at first had little inclination to accept their stepmother. As soon as she arrives, Kay becomes involved in the long-smoldering dispute over water rights with neighbor Mears. It takes Kay to reasonably cope with the demands of a farmer's wife. Eventually, misunderstandings lead to a temporary rift between the couple and Kay goes back to New York disappointed. But Chris and the children convince Kay that their real place is in Wyoming.

background

Irene Dunne's career slowly came to an end from the mid-1940s. After two successful appearances as the great mother of an extended family in Life with Father from 1947 and I Remember Mama , which came into distribution in 1948, it became increasingly difficult to get suitable engagements for the actress. The producer Harriet Parsons, daughter of the well-known society columnist Louella Parsons and responsible for I Remember Mama , finally offered Dunne the female lead in Never a Dull Moment . Irene Dunne, who was already 52 at the time, accepted, also because she felt that she could finally play a glamorous role again.

The sometimes hair-raising experiences of - preferably female - city dwellers, who suddenly have to cope with the countryside, have always been a popular film subject. In 1938 Merle Oberon found herself, a spoiled daughter from a good family, after her marriage to Gary Cooper on an impulse in My husband, the cowboy, suddenly among ranchers and cattle drovers. Jean Arthur volunteers on her husband's farm out of love for John Wayne in A Lady Takes A Chance 1942. The basic idea of ​​the city dweller in the country reappeared a few decades later in the successful television series Green Acres , in which Eddie Albert, a successful investment banker, moves from New York into the wilderness and there together with his anything but enthusiastic Hungarian wife, played by Eva Gabor , a new life starts. Never a Dull Moment is based closely on the film Das Ei und Ich , which presented Claudette Colbert in 1947 as a rich New Yorker who follows her husband Fred MacMurray on his chicken farm in the Midwest and struggles with the circumstances there. The script is based on the autobiographical tale Who Could Ask for Anything More? from 1943, in which the successful composer and songwriter Kay Swift reported on her experiences as the wife of a rodeo rider in Wyoming.

For Irene Dunne it was the second collaboration with Fred MacMurray, with whom she had already directed the comedy Invitation to Happiness in 1939 . MacMurray's two daughters are played by child stars Natalie Wood and Gigi Perreau. While Wood made the leap into the adult profession, Perreau's career came to an end soon after.

Theatrical release

The film ended up grossing $ 1,475,000.

Reviews

Most critics pointed to the irony between the claim of the title and the script, which was actually perceived as old-fashioned and not very original, as well as the overly predictable nature of most of the gags.

The New York Times even said that most funny situations are actually as funny as stepping on a rusty nail.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Movie Review - Never a Dull Moment on nytimes.de , November 22, 1950.

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