When I first saw this movie, I thought it was fair at best. On the second viewing, I really, really liked it. I'm almost afraid to see it for the third time, as I could almost dislike it again since I seem to flip-flop on this.
THE GOOD: The film has "charm" written all over it. Although Irene Dunne has some Grace Allen-type gag lines, William Powell is the one who provides most of the laughs in this tale of upper-crust family life in the 1880s. However, both Powell and Dunne are excellent and play off each other well. The story revolves around the personal and business life of the Clarence Day family, a true family in the sense of the word it, which is nice to see. Every character is interesting and the supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn and Zasu Pitts (love that name!). Nice Technicolor, too.
THE BAD: The romance between Jimmy Lydon and a young Elizabeth Taylor gets a little sappy. Powell's constant exclamation "Gad!" is very annoying as a close as screenwriters apparently could get to saying "God" all the time in 1947.
All in all, it's a nice period piece that takes you back life a little over a century ago, and provides us another one of these more-innocent family stories. To my knowledge, there has never been a good print made of this, either on tape or DVD, which doesn't make sense considering the fine cast and good reputation of this movie.
