Merry Wives of Reno (1934) User Reviews (8)

Fun cast in nutty comedy of errors and indiscretions

[csteidler · 6/10 · 11 December 2013]

Three couples head for Reno divorces and cause each other mischief along the way in this wild and witty comedy.

Donald Woods and Margaret Lindsay are the cute couple: As the picture opens, they are celebrating their first wedding anniversary. It's all lovey-dovey to start with but things quickly go wrong when her anniversary gift to him goes missing.

Their neighbors, Ruth Donnelly and Guy Kibbee, are the bickering couple: "In the 19 years I've been married to you," Kibbee complains as they sit down to eat, "I've never gotten a chance to find out whether you could cook or not. You've always started a quarrel before I got started eating."

Glenda Farrell and Hugh Herbert are the wacky couple. Herbert is a sheep fancier who takes a sheep named Eloise around with him everywhere, including their ritzy apartment; Farrell finds amusement other ways, such as inviting over handsome boat salesman Donald Woods, who mistakenly thinks he's there to sell her a boat.

The entire cast is excellent; perhaps best of all is Frank McHugh as a smooth-talking bellboy with many talents. The script is full of snappy dialog and a rather delightful disdain for anything remotely serious, although eventually the many divorce and infidelity jokes start to show the film's age—it aims at being naughty but seems a bit labored instead.

It's pretty much pure silliness, and very entertaining for those of us who love to see a great cast of character actors cutting loose.

The Women head out west for a divorce, and are met by their men!

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 16 December 2014]

In "The Women", Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine and Mary Boland all joined up "on the train to Reno", and here, some other New Yorkers pretty much end up on the same train, some five years before. Two of the women are neighbors, but like most New Yorkers, they've never met. Young wife Margaret Lindsey admits she's heard the older wife, Ruth Donnelly, before, because while Lindsey and her husband (Donald Woods) were being romantic, Donnelly and her husband (Guy Kibbee) were sharing the only thing they had in common-their hatred for each other. But it is the lame story over the disappearance of their husband's overcoats which causes suspicion. Ironically, they end up in the hands of the same person, slutty Glenda Farrell's naive husband, Hugh Herbert, whose best pal is a grown sheep.

Other than the idiotic attempt of humor from the stuttering Roscoe Ates, this pre-code comedy is very funny. A montage of various women of all ages and races (including Louise Beavers) seeking advice from their attorneys is filled with subtle innuendo that the code would have eliminated, but when all of a sudden, Ates comes on (as the only man present seeking a divorce), the dialog goes from smart to stupid with his complaining of his wife leaving him for an Eskimo fish peddler. Hugh Herbert's sheep gets more laughs than he does, and all the sheep gets to do is screech "baaa" and chase around bellhop Frank McHugh.

There's also a very funny recurring gag concerning Donnelly and Lindsey's attorney who gets more and more frustrated as the two women keep changing their minds about the divorce. Between the three major couples, there's enough sophisticated comedy to keep audiences laughing, particularly Donnelly's crack at the seemingly tougher Farrell, threatening to scratch her initials into Farrell's face. The trailer of the film ironically mentions this being funnier than "Convention City", the notorious pre-code film that ended up being destroyed by the Warner Brothers' demand. Oh how I wish a miracle could bring that film back to life so classic film audiences could see what all the uproar concerning that film was about.

"The mice will inherit the Earth . . . "

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 30 November 2018]

. . . the writers at the always eponymous Warner Bros. paraphrase The Sermon on the Mount to warn America about what will happen if Pachyderm Party Predators are allowed to prey upon our normal, traditional Commander-in-Chief's nuptial purity. MERRY WIVES OF RENO is carefully crafted by Warner's prescient prognosticators to remind our USA Homeland that we will continue to proper until the conclusion of TWO "American Centuries," thanks to our unbroken string of Presidents faithful to one bride and True to one Nation. RENO suggests that we all might as well start pairing up with sheep (as "Col. J. Kingsley Fitch" does here) IF this Sacred Compact with Heaven is ever allowed to slip, since a guy who'd jilt a wife would surely back-stab his country, as well. When RENO was released, its title city was synonymous with Divorce, American Style. Warner's seers know that if you give a mouse a cookie, it will ask for a cup of Koolaid; if you allow the top Pachyderm TWO wives, the next elephantine leader will demand THREE! Warner warns of a contagious chaos over-taking the U.S. if the Russian Red Commie KGB--symbolized by the ill-spoken "Trapper" character in RENO--is allowed to infest our White House, spreading immorality throughout our land via a deplorable base of core supporters.

A Great Cast Delivering a Comic Gem

[Michael_Elliott · 25 April 2012]

Merry Wives of Reno (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Delightful gem from Warner about three couples (Guy Kibbee-Ruth Donnelly, Donald Woods-Margaret Lindsay, Glenda Farrell-Hugh Herbert) who keep running into each other, which just leads to one mistake after another and soon the three wives are in Reno trying to get divorces. At just 64-minutes this pre-code comedy flies by at a very quick pace and there are enough laughs here to make you wonder why it isn't better known. With a terrific cast of stock players from the studio, this picture really is the true definition of a gem and it's really too bad that it isn't better known with comedy fans. I think the best thing the film has going for it is the wonderful screenplay, which offers up some terrific situations and great comedy lines. Some of the best moments happen at the start of the film when Kibbee and Donnelly, a married couple for nineteen years, start to go after one another and throwing some terrific insults. This early sequence in their apartment really gets the film going and it really never slows down. There's some very funny bits between Woods and Lindsay as the "new" couple who get going in a lie and can't get out of it. The performers really do a wonderful job in their roles with Kibbee easily stealing the film as the drunk husband who wants nothing more than a divorce. I thought the actor did a fantastic job with his drunk scenes and his comic timing was right on the mark. Lindsay is also very good in her role of the wife who can't make her mind up on what she wants. The supporting cast also includes Frank McHugh, Roscoe Ates, Herbert Cavanaugh and Hattie McDaniel. MERRY WIVES OF RENO doesn't end as well as one would hope but with the terrific cast and great laughs it comes highly recommended.

Four stars, four hooves!

[TomInSanFrancisco · 4/10 · 30 July 2007]

I Tivo-ed this one because it features Margaret Lindsay -- I've liked her in all her movies, but they're aren't that many of them.

About a half-hour in, though, I was about to give up it -- it has a great cast, but you've seen them all playing the same parts in better movies.

Then, suddenly, one fleecy performer took this movie into her hooves and made it her own. Who was that talented sheep thespian who portrayed Eloise, the Hugh Herbert character's pet sheep?

I sheepishly admit that she won me over -- she had me "Baaaaaaaahhh." If Asta the terrier could make so many movies, why not Eloise?

So tune in, if only to enjoy perhaps the only screwball comedy with a Merino movie star.

A silly premise for a funny movie with a wonderful cast.

[bethelagcy · 8/10 · 5 June 2004]

Ruth Donnelly, a solid supporting actress in literally dozens of films, went to Hollywood when the Great Depression hit Broadway [where she was established as a young character woman (GOING UP et al.)and near where she had made a few silent films] with a plan to try movies for six months to a year. She came back to the East Coast some three decades later, figuring that her career was over ... and replaced Patsy Kelly in NO, NO, NANETTE on Broadway. Ruth was a true lady ... and one of the best friends anyone could have! I adored her. You haven't lived until you've sat next to Ruth during a special screening of THE MERRY WIVES OF RENO and listened to her asides about the film and the other actors in it. No bitchiness; that was not Ruth's style. But ... funny?! You know it! Guy Kibbee played her husband and Glenda Farrell was a co-star. Ruth, who had not seen the film (this screening was sometime in the '80s) since its initial release, could remember every scene and every moment. She was truly a remarkable talent, a remarkable lady, and a remarkable friend. I miss her greatly.

Wry, Cynical, Hilarious

[LouisaMay · 8/10 · 30 July 2007]

Like other Warner Brothers comedies of the early 30s, pacing and sarcasm make this film. Here, it's the wry take on why marriages succeed or fail that makes the movie so funny. Never mind love, communication, or fidelity. What makes or breaks a marriage is how willing you are to admit you're an idiot too. So funny and so true-- just thinking about the premise makes me laugh. The acting is very good, the script, with asides too funny and too numerous to trivialize out of context, is even better. There is a whole philosophy here, a whole view of life that dispenses with the psychobabble prominent even then in a storm of hastily delivered truths. Slapstick abounds, although the sophisticated wit is the best thing about this movie.

This would make an interesting double-feature along with "The Women".

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 28 February 2021]

"Merry Wives of Reno" is a comedy about love and divorce. The story focuses on three couples in particular. Two of the couples live next door to each other but are quite different. One is a couple that hate each other (Guy Kibbee and Ruth Donnelly) and they can't wait to divorce. The other is a younger couple (Margaret Lindsay and Donald Woods) who are deeply in love....though the husband, in hindsight, is pretty dumb! And, the third couple...well the wife (Glenda Farrell) is a bit of a tramp...and her husband a clueless idiot with an unnatural affection for a sheep (Hugh Herbert...and I am NOT exaggerating!!). How do all these couples come together in the story? See this comedy and find out for yourself!

This Warner Brothers comedy is quite enjoyable and clever. And, while the comedy is broader and the film less star-studded, it sure reminds you a lot of "The Women" (from Warner Brothers' rival studio, MGM). In fact, both would make a dandy double-feature.

By the way, although I liked this movie quite a bit, I really hated Roscoe Ates in the film and am at least glad he wasn't in the movie much! His stuttering shtick just was never funny and really grates on you!