Trouble With Husbands, The (1940)
*** (out of 4)
Nice Robert Benchley short that had him away from MGM and with Paramount, although the structure of the film is pretty much the same. Benchley is sitting at his desk talking to the audience and tells a few stories about things men do that makes their wife want to poison them. Examples include the husband playing mechanic and trying to fix something only to make matters worse. Another example is how he'll wait until dinner is ready to serve before he puts the paper down to get ready for dinner. We also see how the wife sends her husband to the store to pick up an item only to have him return with countless things except for what she sent him there for. This was the first Benchley short I watched from his Paramount days and I must admit that I found it better than most of the MGM stuff for some reason. The type of humor is certainly the same and they're both played out in the same fashion but perhaps it was the lower budget that helped. We've seen this type of lecture film from Benchley before but his performance here as the husband is a lot better than I had seen from him in the past and I thought Ruth Lee did a pretty good job as the wife as well. The best sequence is certainly the one with the husband waiting too long to get ready for dinner.