This is a well made movie with a good cast, particularly Frank Morgan as a gold-digging husband. Gary Cooper does a good job with the character of Casanova Brown. The problem is that his character is so monumentally stupid that he tries your patience--or at least he tried mine.
Comedies often revolve around some unlikely gimmick, contrivance, or misunderstanding, but in this movie there is one unlikely gimmick after another--all of them totally unbelievable.
For example, Casanova burns down the house of his fiancé and her parents by stuffing a burning cigarette into a wadded-up handkerchief because his future mother in law disapproves of smoking. Next thing you know, the entire enormous mansion is engulfed in flames.
Then there's the long sequence in the maternity hospital, where Casanova submits to an extensive medical examination, after just showing up from off the street, without asking why it was happening.
Next, literally one minute after being charmed by the cuteness of a baby in the maternity hospital, he proceeds to kidnap the child, hole up in a hotel room with it, and teach himself infant care--all without giving a thought to what the consequences might be.
Not that Casanova has a monopoly on stupidity. His former wife Isabel has created an elaborate plot, involving moving to Chicago to have her baby and falsely putting it up for adoption, all so she can win Casanova back. But hey, who cares about the adoptive couple on their way to the hospital to see their new baby! For that matter, who cares about Madge, the woman left stranded in her wedding dress by Casanova. She comes to Chicago, presumably to get her groom to come back and marry her, but we never hear what happens to her either.
Stupidity sometimes makes good comedy, but not monumental, serial stupidity that exists only to move along a preposterous story.
Comedies often revolve around some unlikely gimmick, contrivance, or misunderstanding, but in this movie there is one unlikely gimmick after another--all of them totally unbelievable.
For example, Casanova burns down the house of his fiancé and her parents by stuffing a burning cigarette into a wadded-up handkerchief because his future mother in law disapproves of smoking. Next thing you know, the entire enormous mansion is engulfed in flames.
Then there's the long sequence in the maternity hospital, where Casanova submits to an extensive medical examination, after just showing up from off the street, without asking why it was happening.
Next, literally one minute after being charmed by the cuteness of a baby in the maternity hospital, he proceeds to kidnap the child, hole up in a hotel room with it, and teach himself infant care--all without giving a thought to what the consequences might be.
Not that Casanova has a monopoly on stupidity. His former wife Isabel has created an elaborate plot, involving moving to Chicago to have her baby and falsely putting it up for adoption, all so she can win Casanova back. But hey, who cares about the adoptive couple on their way to the hospital to see their new baby! For that matter, who cares about Madge, the woman left stranded in her wedding dress by Casanova. She comes to Chicago, presumably to get her groom to come back and marry her, but we never hear what happens to her either.
Stupidity sometimes makes good comedy, but not monumental, serial stupidity that exists only to move along a preposterous story.