“I'm
too old.”
“Or
the, the veterans' home?”
“I'm
too young.”
“Well,
I don't know what to think.”
“Well,
sooner or later I'm going to rent half this apartment. Suppose I have a look at
it, eh?”
During World War II there was a shortage of everything. In
Washington D.C. there was a massive shortage of housing since everyone was
moving to the Capital to work for the War effort. People were living three or
four to an apartment and carpooling with half the city. The 1943 film The More
the Merrier hilariously parodies the housing shortage in Washington D.C.
An older man named Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) is
looking for a place to stay in the Nation’s Capital. He is there on business
for a few weeks and every place has no vacancy. Somehow Dingle manages to talk
his way into renting out a room from a woman named Connie Milligan (Jean
Arthur). Connie is furious and not very comfortable with the thought of having
to share her apartment with a man but she gives in. Before they go to sleep for
the night Connie shows Dingle her plan for the morning. It is a very strict
minute by minute schedule for the both of them to follow in order to not be in
each other’s way and to be out the door by 7:30am.
Connie’s plan does not work out so well. She manages to
somehow get out the door on time but Dingle gets left behind. As he is heading
out the front door he sees a young man with an airplane propeller in his hands
a suitcase looking desperately for a vacancy. Dingle decides to give the man
named Joe (Joel McCrea) the other half of his room. He has no plans on telling
Connie about Joe.
You should know that Dingle’s plan does not work out too
well and Connie eventually crosses paths with Joe in the apartment. She wants
them both out but only Dingle leaves to stay somewhere else.
You should also know that of course Connie and Joe fall
in love and it should be no shock whatsoever that they get married.
The cast was very good. Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea made
a great couple. Arthur has been fabulous in everything I have seen her in so
far. McCrea is ridiculously handsome I cannot handle it! I love both Arthur and
McCrea as actors the more of their films I see them in. Charles Coburn was a
good actor but I am never really impressed with him to me he is just another
unimpressionable.
There was one scene in this film that I loved. Joe walks
Connie home from a restaurant and they sit on the stoop to their place. It was
beautiful because you can see the lust and desire and want not only on their
faces but in their body language. McCrea and Arthur nailed that scene they were
wonderful.
The More the
Merrier was a cute film. There were some scenes that were dragged out and
towards the end the story starts to get a little too much. The More the Merrier is a classic film worth seeing once especially
for Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur.
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