The story is fun even if predictable, but I have to wonder, what was Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas) thinking? But I'll get back to that.
Margot Sherwood (Myrna Loy) is the editor of a magazine who has a fictitious husband - Tony Merrick - so that she won't get hit on by all of the men who work for the magazine back at a time when smoking and sexual harassment were acceptable in the workplace. It works, but then along comes somebody - artist Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas) - that she would like to see romantically, so she goes out on the town without telling Jeff about the husband. Unfortunately, a drunken would be suitor is also out on the town too and mentions said husband. Jeff is shocked, and Margot explains it was an impulsive never consummated marriage that she intends to end in divorce, but that she cannot find Tony and he is in Argentina somewhere. Jeff uses his journalist contacts in Argentina - funny thing for an artist to have - and discovers there is no husband.
And that is why I ask, what was Jeff thinking when he barges into Margot's home and claims to be said husband? Her dad calls the press, because Margot's family is a prominent one it ends up in the newspapers, and he introduces himself to all of her friends. This could end several ways - For sure Margot is going to cool to him for doing this, maybe she might even announce he is a fraud - there is just no easy out. She does have a bit of fun at his expense when they run into his friends from Ohio and she does her best Jean Harlow as Jeff's saucy hard boiled wife, shocking the small town Ohioans.
So all of this is why Jeff is awful. Margot is awful because, to get out of this predicament legally, she convinces an attorney friend of hers that she is in love with him and would marry him if free of the pretend Mr. Merrick AKA Jeff, and to accomplish this she needs his talents as an attorney. The actors are what make this film, but it is really hard to look at them as nice people after all of the using that both leads do in service of the plot.
One thing nice about the old studio system - MGM had a deep bench of contract players in 1940, not the least of which is Felix Bressart and his homely puss, dishing out homespun compassionate advice in a great supporting role. Also possibly the earliest American film with an African American attorney as a plot device.
