Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

I watched a delightful film the other day called “The More the Merrier”. Filmed in 1942, it stars Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn. Charles Coburn is that elderly fellow you always see in old Looney Tunes wearing a monocle. Or did you? I can’t find a single picture of his caricature. Might be another example of the Mandela Effect I just discovered.

Anywho, this movie is just cute and the humor is before it’s time. Charles Coburn is hilarious. I don’t feel like we see people his age being funny in movies these days. We need more of that. Jean Arthur was a bombshell in the silent film era but when she debuted in talkies (movies with sound for those born this decade) the audience heard for the first time her incredibly nasally shrill voice. While it might have dampened the bombshell image she had procured, she embraced her newly unfurled voice as an asset and took to comedy quite naturally. Joel McCrea is in the movie too I guess.

This is a rom-com before rom-coms we’re a thing. Charles barges his way into this woman’s life and plays matchmaker. Hilarity ensues. She sublets her apartment during a housing crisis in Washington DC and then Charles sublets his sublet. So the new tenant is getting a quarter of an apartment. Great.

I don’t recall much antiquated notions beyond a few arbitrary concerns of chivalry. The film took place during the war with Japan but nothing said struck me as overtly disrespectful except one mention of the oft abbreviated word for a person from Japan.

If you’re in the mood for a charming film about two people who are obstinately willfully forced against their better judgement to consensually fall in love like they never knew they always wanted to through pure manipulation from a third party, The More the Merrier is the film for you. Enjoy.