The Bigamist (1953)
Finishing up a trio of social dramas dealing with controversial subjects directed by Ida Lupino. She didn't co-write this one, but she stars in it. We start with Edmund O'Brien and Joan Fontaine as a married couple, unable to have children, applying for adoption. The guy investigating their situation is Edmund Gwenn. (There are a couple of in-jokes about Gwenn. Somebody says he looks like Santa Claus. Later, on a tour bus in Hollywood, the guide points out the home of Edmund Gwenn and reminds the tourists that he played in Miracle on 34th Street.) O'Brien flies to Los Angeles on a regular basis for business. Gwenn tracks him down there, and finds out he's got another wife (Lupino) and a baby. Flashback time. We find out how O'Brien met Lupino and their romance began. In an interesting touch, he phones Fontaine and tells her that he's cheating on her, but they both take it as a joke. In another example of Lupino testing the limits of how far she can go, her character becomes pregnant. Gwenn marries her, planning to divorce Fontaine after the adoption goes through. It all ends with O'Brien going to jail for bigamy, with the unsettled question of who will be waiting for him when he gets out. It's pretty much a classy soap opera. O'Brien isn't played as a scoundrel, but as a decent, flawed guy who gets himself into a mess. All three of the Lupino films in this trilogy have a film noir visual style that adds to things.
I might have seen this film, but I know I have seen a similar
oh, he resembles that movie guy thing, but that was Karloff, not Gwenn.
Ninotchka (1939) as one of a days worth of films starring
Melvyn Douglas, this was likely the best & most famous one. Here, he is Count Léon d'Algout, the love of Grand Duchess Swana (
Ina Claire), whose confiscated jewels three Soviets had been sent to Paris to sell, so food can be supplied to hungry comrades back home. The three inept guys are Iranoff (
Sig Ruman), Buljanoff (
Felix Bressart), and Kopalski (
Alexander Granach; the only one unfamiliar to me); they want to place the large suitcase containing the jewels in the hotel safe, but it is too small for such a large piece of luggage, so they end up in the royal suite, which has its own safe. MD overhears their telephone call to a jeweler, in which the jewels are mentioned. He gets a court order halting any sale, etc. Time passes, and these three guys have been living rather extravagantly for Soviets, dreading being sent to Siberia, for their failure, etc.
The USSR sends Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (
Greta Garbo) to do what they failed to do, and MD begins seducing her, after they meet by chance, neither knowing who the other is. She is no nonsense straight to the point, much like a robot would be in contemporary films. She has no desire for nice things, wants to eat and drink the same dull things as back home. Once they realize one another's identity and role, GG wants nothing to do with MD, but MD is more interested in pursuing GG.
Once back in the USSR, Commissar Razinin (
Bela Lugosi) is chewing out the three. Minor role, but Lugosi is cool!
Their 1st comedy together, though MD & GG had been in several others before this.