Day-Time Wife (1939)

Day-Time Wife starred Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell together for the first time, they went on to do two more films and much better ones, The Mark Of Zorro and Blood And Sand. Look very closely at Darnell she was only 16 at the time playing a relatively new bride with only two years of marriage under her belt. Back then Darnell's mother added a couple of years to her resume so she would be hired and it worked. In fact this was only Linda Darnell's second feature film all together.

The story involves the age old gambit of the spouse starting to suspect the husband is cheating on her. In this case Darnell has a candidate with the flirtatious Wendy Barrie who is Ty's secretary and would love to have him nail her. Darnell also has a confidante in the older much married Binnie Barnes who is functioning as Eve Arden here. She feeds Darnell's suspicions with a good wisecrack or three.

So Linda goes out in the working world and becomes a secretary to another man with a roving eye, Warren William. Of course that Power and William are business associates she doesn't know and finds out after she's taken the job. That's when the film gets interesting.

Joan Davis is in Day-Time Wife as the receptionist at William's office and she's somewhat subdued and a bit wasted here. Her zaniness was not all that in evidence.

Day-Time Wife will never make the list of best screwball comedies of the era nor of the top ten films of Tyrone Power or Linda Darnell. Still it's a pleasant and none too taxing diversion for the viewer.