Too Many Husbands

1940 film by Wesley Ruggles

Too Many Husbands

1940 theatrical poster

Directed by| Wesley Ruggles
Screenplay by| Claude Binyon
Based on| Too Many Husbands
1919 play
by W. Somerset Maugham
Produced by| Wesley Ruggles
Starring| Jean Arthur
Fred MacMurray
Melvyn Douglas
Cinematography| Joseph Walker
Edited by| William A. Lyon
Otto Meyer
Music by| Friedrich Hollaender

Production
company

Columbia Pictures

Distributed by| Columbia Pictures

Release date

* March 21, 1940 (1940-03-21)

Running time

| 84 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English

Too Many Husbands (released in the United Kingdom as My Two Husbands) is a 1940 American romantic comedy film about a woman who loses her husband in a boating accident and remarries, only to have her first spouse reappear—yet another variation on the 1864 poem Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The film stars Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas, and is based on the 1919 play Home and Beauty by W. Somerset Maugham, which was retitled Too Many Husbands when it came to New York.[1] The film was directed by Wesley Ruggles.

A couple of months after Too Many Husbands was released by Columbia, RKO put out a movie that was more popular both then and now, My Favorite Wife, a variation on the story with Cary Grant as the remarried spouse whose former wife Irene Dunne returns from sea. Too Many Husbands was remade as a musical, Three for the Show (1955), with Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable. My Favorite Wife came back yet again as Move Over, Darling (1963), with Doris Day and James Garner[2] after an uncompleted 1962 version entitled Something's Got to Give starring Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin was aborted upon Monroe's abrupt death.

## Plot[edit]

Vicky Lowndes loses her first husband, Bill Cardew, when he is lost at sea, presumed drowned, and declared legally dead. The lonely widow is comforted by Bill's best friend and publishing business partner, Henry Lowndes. Six months later, she marries him. Six months after that, Bill shows up, after having been stranded on an uninhabited island and then rescued. Vicky has a tough choice to make.

## Cast[edit]

* Jean Arthur as Vicky Lowndes
* Fred MacMurray as Bill Cardew
* Melvyn Douglas as Henry Lowndes
* Harry Davenport as George, Vicky's father
* Dorothy Peterson as Gertrude Houlihan, Henry's secretary
* Melville Cooper as Peter, the Lowndeses' butler
* Edgar Buchanan as Detective Adolph McDermott
* Tom Dugan as Lieutenant Sullivan

## Nomination[edit]

John P. Livadary was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording.[3]

## See also[edit]

* My Favorite Wife, another 1940 film, in which it is the wife (played by Irene Dunne) who returns, just as her husband (Cary Grant) embarks on his honeymoon.
* Move Over, Darling, the 1963 remake of My Favorite Wife, starring Doris Day, James Garner, and Polly Bergen.

## References[edit]

1. ^ Mordden, Ethan (2007). All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, 1919–1959. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-312-33898-5.
2. ^ http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/93595/Too-Many-Husbands/articles.html[bare URL]
3. ^ "The 13th Academy Awards (1941) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-13.

## External links[edit]

* Too Many Husbands at IMDb
* Too Many Husbands at the TCM Movie Database
* Too Many Husbands at AllMovie
* Too Many Husbands at the American Film Institute Catalog

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Wesley Ruggles

* Outcast (1917)
* The Winchester Woman (1919)
* The Leopard Woman (1920)
* The Desperate Hero (1920)
* Love (1920)
* Sooner or Later (1920)
* Uncharted Seas (1921)
* Over the Wire (1921)
* The Greater Claim (1921)
* Wild Honey (1922)
* Mr. Billings Spends His Dime (1923)
* The Remittance Woman (1923)
* The Heart Raider (1923)
* The Age of Innocence (1924)
* The Plastic Age (1925)
* Broadway Lady (1925)
* A Man of Quality (1926)
* Beware of Widows (1927)
* Silk Stockings (1927)
* Finders Keepers (1928)
* The Fourflusher (1928)
* Scandal (1929)
* Street Girl (1929)
* Condemned (1929)
* Honey (1930)
* Cimarron (1931)
* Are These Our Children (1931)
* Roar of the Dragon (1932)
* No Man of Her Own (1932)
* The Monkey's Paw (1933)
* College Humor (1933)
* I'm No Angel (1933)
* Bolero (1934)
* Shoot the Works (1934)
* The Gilded Lily (1935)
* The Bride Comes Home (1935)
* Accent on Youth (1935)
* Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936)
* I Met Him in Paris (1937)
* True Confession (1937)
* Sing You Sinners (1938)
* Invitation to Happiness (1939)
* Too Many Husbands (1940)
* Arizona (1940)
* You Belong to Me (1941)
* Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)
* Slightly Dangerous (1943)
* London Town (1946)

* v
* t
* e

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Enoch Arden (1864)

Films|

* Enoch Arden (1911)
* Enoch Arden (1915)
* The Bushwhackers (1925)
* My Favorite Wife (1940)
* Something's Got to Give (1962, unfinished)
* Move Over, Darling (1963)
* Nirmon (1966)

Related|

* Too Many Husbands (1940)
* Three for the Show (1955)

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