Saturday, June 25, 2011

Affectionately Yours (1941)


“Ever since they been married, she squawked at all his foreign assignments.”

            Affectionately Yours is not a good film. I had so many issues with this film it got almost unbearable to sit through.
            Ricky Mayberry (Dennis Morgan) is a foreign correspondent. He is a married man but he plays the field with pretty girls. While he is in Lisbon on assignment he gets a cable telling him his wife has divorced him. Ricky panics and does everything he can to get back going so far as to fake a head injury and a sprained ankle. The lady Ricky was flirting with in Lisbon, Irene Malcolm (Rita Hayworth), travels back with him and kind of makes his life a little difficult.
            Now Ricky’s mission is to get Sue (Merle Oberon) back before she married some guy she had known in high school named Owen Wright (Ralph Bellamy).
 Affectionately Yours
            If I went on any further it would mean remembering the film and I really do not want to do that. Rita Hayworth is the only enjoyable character/actress. I was so mad that Irene did not end up with Ricky. I adore Dennis Morgan he is so adorable and so handsome. He was not too bad but at some points in the film he just got too much. Merle Oberon… the first time I ever watched her in anything was Wuthering Heights. I hated the film because I despised the story. I wanted to see Oberon in another film I figured she is a classic actress who made many films in the Golden Age. I could not believe how annoying and stiff Oberon was. I could not believe that someone like Ricky would ever fight for a woman like her. There was a cute scene when Ricky basically kidnaps Sue and takes her to a pier by a lake where they used to go. He takes her out of the car and Oberon is supposed to be fighting and kicking and I cannot even describe how unbelievable she was.  I cannot blame Oberon for her poor casting though. Jack Warner and his studio were comically challenged they could not put out a good comedy film or get really good actors to be in them. He chose Oberon as the lead and she did not even work no matter how much she threw herself into the role. I have other films with Merle Oberon in them and I am hoping she is better those. Ralph Bellamy just as always played the poor sucker who never gets the girl and here it is the same thing. He annoys me as the perpetual dummy who never wins. Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen play the domestics. It is like whoever cast the film thought it would be fitting to have both of these women together since they also starred in Gone with the Wind. McQueen is another reason why I did not like this film so much. She was so damn annoying!!! Even worse in this film than in GWTW!! She was such a whiny pain in the rear.  
            Now the whole film was not ridiculously awful there were SOME good scenes. When Ricky takes Sue up to the pier he ties her leg up really good so she cannot get out of it and runaway. For a few moments Sue remembers why she loves Ricky and kisses him. In a huff of embarrassment she forgets she has the rope around her ankle and she trips over the pier side falling into the water. Another scene is when Ricky asks Irene to come over as a blind date which Sue thinks she has set up through a lonely hearts type club. The whole scheme is to make Sue so jealous she will want to come back to Ricky. Hayworth was excellent she was totally adorable and very funny. The whole thing worked for a while. Hell, if I was Oberon acting or not I would have been totally jealous of Hayworth she was gorgeous.
            What I found enjoyable other than Hayworth was the musical score. Also had a good time seeing Oberon’s clothing all her dresses were very pretty and low cut.
            Affectionately Yours could have been a good film. The story was really cute if not over used. I feel the film could have been better if Merle Oberon, Ralph Bellamy, and Butterfly McQueen had not been in it. At times Oberon was alright but as I said she was really stiff. The whole film would have been great if Morgan and Hayworth had ended up together but I guess it was good that they did not it made the film different from all the others like it but the two actors were so good together it was a shame for them to not end up with one another. Watch the film only if you like Dennis Morgan or Rita Hayworth other than those two do not even bother. 
           

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