The More the Merrier (1943)

I'm tickled pink every time I watch this film. Charles Coburn plays a meddling businessman who invades the apartment of a young woman during WWII's Washington D.C. housing crisis. The trio cast including Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea is stellar. This is a doting film that takes its time with details, yet is warmly effective. The chemistry between Arthur and McCrea is heart pounding (especially the side walk scene!) The magic shared between them permeates the screen. (There's something about McCrea that makes a girl want to fall into his lap.) Coburn's antics as the sly matchmaker are hilarious. "The More the Merrier" is cleverly written and humorously acted. For classic film lovers, this one's a gem.

Fmovies: In her one and only recognition of sorts from the Motion Picture Academy, Jean Arthur got a nomination for Best Actress for The More the Merrier, a screwball comedy based on the housing shortage in Washington, DC. It was a tough field with veteran players like Greer Garson for Madame Curie, Ingrid Bergman for Casablanca, and Joan Fontaine for the Constant Nymph. But a fresh faced newcomer with only two previous film credits under a different and real name of Phyllis Isley copped the big prize. Spiritual and ethereal beat out funny and sentimental that year as Jennifer Jones won for The Song of Bernadette.

Arthur's well known stage fright manifested itself in non-cooperation with those that give out the awards. There are all kinds of Jean Arthur stories about her running and hiding from fans, her getting physically sick before shooting a scene and then giving a great performance, her total non-cooperation with the press that covers the film industry. It didn't redound to her benefit at Oscar time. Still The More the Merrier is one of her great roles.

My mother's older sister was also one of those government girls who went to work for a flock of new agencies that sprung up during World War II. The country and its people were mobilized to a degree never seen before or since. Would that this president could show the leadership now that FDR showed then against a group of people who would destroy our way of life.

My aunt met her husband in Washington who was deferred from military service because of tuberculosis he had suffered. If she were alive she could attest to the things shown in The More the Merrier. Washington, DC simply did not have the housing available for all the folks now working in the capital.

Jean Arthur is one of those women and to show her patriotic spirit she offers to take in a roommate for splitting the rent. She gets quite a roommate in Charles Coburn, a millionaire who's been caught without a reservation at a hotel.

Coburn was the only one who took home an Oscar from The More the Merrier as Best Supporting Actor. He's one roguish grandfatherly type who decides Arthur needs some male involvement even though she has an engagement of sorts to bureaucrat Richard Gaines. If he was 30 years younger he'd do the deed himself.

So when homeless soldier to be Joel McCrea shows up, Coburn gets his matchmaking skills honed to a fine edge. Dolly Levy could have learned from this man.

McCrea was at the high point of his career, he was taking a break from westerns and doing some of the best comedies around with Preston Sturges and this one with George Stevens. This was his third and final film with Jean Arthur. He had done the Silver Horde a Victorian melodrama with Arthur as the other woman and Adventures in Manhattan where he was miscast. This one however was a winner in every way for him.

Best scene in the film is after Coburn as sublets half of his half of Arthur's apartment to McCrea and they haven't broken the news to Arthur yet. He gets into the shower and while some of us sing, McCrea likes to imitate a seal. Arthur's expressions on hearing the seal noises is priceless.

The More the Merrier got a remake in the Sixties with Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar and Cary Grant in his final film in the Charles Coburn part. It was good, but not nearly as good as the original.

Don't believe me, see both and compare.

The comic side of George Stevens at his best, meaning everybody in it is at the top of his or her form. Charles Coburn is irresistible, and Jean Arthur gives one of her best performances; the chemistry between Joel McCrea and Arthur is a

thing of beauty.

The More the Merrier fmovies. The scene with Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea on the steps of the apartment is more erotic than anything you will see in an "R" rated film today, or probably even an NC-17 film. The desire that they have for each other, and are barely suppressing, is overwhelming. And the lingerie she wears in the last scene is surprisingly suggestive for 1943. This whole film is an amazing piece of work. Much credit goes to legendary director George Stevens. Charles Coburn was always great, but who knew he had the comic chops he shows here? Jean Arthur's voice alone makes her one of sexiest actresses ever in films. She and Joel McCrea are both terribly underrated. This film deserves to be much better known than it is.

A brief historic note: On August 5, 1864 a Union fleet commanded by Vice Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, attacked the Confederate Gulf Port of Mobile, Alabama. Farragut had a flock of new monitors in his fleet (although he was aboard his flagship, U.S.S. Hartford), and one of the monitors, the U.S.S. Tecumseh, hit a mine (called a "torpedo" back then) laid by the Confederates. Except for the ship pilot the entire crew of the monitor was lost. There was a wave of uncertainty following this disaster, and the Union ships began seeming to fall apart rather than keeping their lines as planned. Farragut, surveying the disaster from the rigging of his ship, yelled through a megaphone, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" The line became immortal - like John Paul Jones' "I have not begun to fight" or George Dewey's "You may fire when ready Gridley" or Oliver Perry's "We have met the enemy and they are ours." Farragut won the battle, and it remains the greatest naval battle of the American Civil War (outside the "Monitor-Merrimac" duel: see IRONCLADS). The victory happened to be the first good news the North had had in months of stalemated fighting (or worse) in Virginia and Georgia. It was the first of a series of victories that helped change President Abraham Lincoln's certain defeat to reelection victory in November of that year.

I know that it is odd to begin a discussion of a World War II comedy with a brief explanation of a Civil War battle some eighty years earlier, but Farragut's quote is frequently mentioned in the course of THE MORE THE MERRIER - indeed it is sung at one point in an old song by the real star of the picture, Charles Coburn. The song and the quote show his philosophy of life - to get to the heart of the problem and take care of it effectively.

Benjamin Dingle is a millionaire, now doing a "Dollar a Year" job in wartime Washington. There is a housing shortage that Dingle is confronting everywhere, but he finds that there is an advertisement for a roommate that he is determined to grab. It was put into the newspaper by Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) and Dingle lies his way into getting ahead of anyone else into the apartment. When Milligan points out the obvious sexual problem (male/female roommates?) Dingle points out he's too old for her, and he would actually not be as much of a pest as another woman would be (who might try to borrow her clothes). Subsequently Dingle discovers a young engineer named Joe Carter (Joel McCrae) who also was interested in renting part of the apartment. Dingle decides to rent to Carter, without immediately telling Milligan. There is a great moment when (before Dingle has a chance to tell her) Connie and Joe are able to go through the narrow apartment several times just missing each other.

Connie does not mind the problems of renting to two men, as the presence of two men protects her. But she has an understanding with a bureaucrat, Charles Prendergast (Richard Gaines), who is very image conscious and ambitious - so she hopes to keep the renting of the rooms regarding Joe Carter from him. This becomes more and more difficult as time goes by, as she and Joe find they like each other. Dingle notes this and is soon playing matchmaker.

The film was a great comic showcase for Coburn. Charles Coburn had been a successful Broadway actor in the period 1910 - 1930s, frequently appearing with his wife in Shakespearean roles. If one goes to the 42nd St. Public Library'

I have always wanted to see The More the Merrier because I heard good things about it. I finally saw it, and I would recommend it to anyone. Not only is it a funny, funny film, it is also so sweet and tender. The scene on the porch between Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea is very romantic and funny at the same time. Charles Coburn, as the older room renter, is very, very good and gives a hilarious performance that won him an Academy Award. Jean Arthur, in a nominated performance, was as funny as usual, she also has many cool hairstyles. Joel McCrea is also excellent in his role. This was one of the best movies I have ever seen. I suggest that anyone who has wanted to see it, go do so.