My Favorite Wife

Romantic comedy in which Irene Dunne plays Cary Grant’s deceased wife, who returns from the dead to discover that he has married again., Screwball comedy about a woman who reappears after being shipwrecked to find that her husband has remarried. While he desperately tries to conceal her existence from his new bride, his first wife has her own secret – namely the handsome hunk who was her companion on a desert island for seven years., A woman returns home to her husband and their children after being marooned on a desert island for seven years. But she has been declared legally dead, and he now has a second wife., Screwball comedy about a woman who reappears after being shipwrecked to find that her husband has remarried. While he tries to conceal her existence from his new bride, his first wife has her own secret – namely the handsome hunk who was her companion for seven years., Leo McCarey was supposed to both produce and direct My Favorite Wife, but an illness forced him to relinquish the director’s chair to Garson Kanin, who did a splendid job. This hilarious retread of the old “Enoch Arden” legend stars Irene Dunne as Ellen, who returns home to her husband Nick (Cary Grant) and children Tim (Ann Shoemaker) and Chinch (Mary Lou Harrington) after being marooned on a desert island for seven years. Thing of it is, Ellen has been declared legally dead, and Nick has taken unto himself a second wife, the bitchy Bianca (Gail Patrick). Upon discovering that Ellen is still alive, Nick is on the verge of a tender reunion-until it discovers that she spent those seven lost years in the company of handsome Mr. Barkett (Randolph Scott). The superb supporting cast includes Granville Bates as a flummoxed judge, Chester Clute as a meek shoe salesman whom Ellen tries to pass off as Barkett, and Donald MacBride as a beetle-browed honeymoon-hotel clerk. My Favorite Wife was remade in 1963 as Move Over Darling, in which Irene Dunne and Cary Grant were replaced by Doris Day and James Garner.