Feb 10, 2023
Our Valentine's Day 2023 episode is all about loves from the past who have inconveniently returned. In My Favorite Wife (1940), Irene Dunne is newly remarried Cary Grant's presumed dead wife, while in Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), James Caan is Sally Field's actually dead, or undead, husband, interfering with her engagement to the (ostensibly) less charismatic Jeff Bridges. We apply Stanley Cavell's concept of the "comedy of remarriage" to these movies and conclude that the comedy of My Favorite Wife really has nothing to do with its premise, whereas Kiss Me Goodbye does perform some interesting twists on comedy of remarriage tropes. In Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, two more movies about love pick up these themes: Stanley Kwan's Rouge (1987) and Dorothy Arzner's Merrily We Go to Hell (1932). Happy Haunted Valentine's Day!
Time Codes:
0h 0m 45s: MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940) [dir. Garson Kanin]
0h 29m 59s: KISS ME GOODBYE (1982) [dir. Robert Mulligan]
0h 49m 58s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – ROUGE (1987) by Stanley Kwan & MERRILY WE GO TO HELL (1932) by Dorothy Arzner
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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring
* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”
* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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