The beginning of "You Can't Fool your Wife" shows us Clara and Andrew Hinklin's yearbook photos, and their wedding, where the Chaplain advises the groom "You might as well make up your mind from the start - You Can't Win!" We see that time passes, and they are having their fifth anniversary, and thats when the trouble starts. In one of Lucy's first lead roles, we see the typical husband and wife misunderstandings and mistaken identity that would become usual fare for Lucy and Ricky fifteen years later in "I Love Lucy". When this film was made, Lucy had been in movies for about seven years, but mostly uncredited, deleted, or minor roles. Lucille Ball and James Ellison had worked together in "Next Time I Marry" in 1938. Robert Coote is the client Mr. Battincourt, who gets Andrew into all sorts of trouble at home. Emma Dunn is the blustering, interfering mother in law, stirring up the pot. The cast list on IMDb shows Charles Lane, scenes deleted, which is a shame, since he was a great character actor from the 1930s and 1940s. The sound effects play a role here... the toaster and the rocking chair add the only comedy in the first half of the film. Virginia Vale plays a supporting role "Sally". Vale has an interesting bio on IMDb - she had won a contest to come to Hollywood, but it appears she retired from movies at the ripe old age of 25 and didn't appear in films after 1945? In the plot, Battincourt cooks up a scheme that may or may not get Hinklin out of all his troubles... and all neatly wrapped up in a 68 minute RKO shortie. The whole way through the film, it borders on being a comedy, but no-one cracks jokes or falls down - it's a situational low-key comedy that's really more of a love story. This one does NOT appear to be a remake of the 1923 film of the same name.
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ksf-23 April 2008
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Andrew and Clara Hinklin (James Ellison and Lucille Ball) are an old married couple. While they aren't chronologically old, their marriage is routine and Andrew is a mousy man with little excitement in his life....and he likes it that way. However, when the boss drafts him into entertaining an important client, his life changes dramatically. Andrew arrives home....late and drunk. The next night, he arrives very late as well...but sober. While he tries to explain it to Clara, she is having none of this and doesn't believe him. It's made much worse by her mother, who lives with them, as she keeps throwing gasoline on the fire and does whatever she can to keep the two apart. Instead of tossing 'mother' out on her ear, Andrew leaves and stays away from home for a few days.
In the meantime, Clara is having second thoughts and decides she needs to fight to keep her man...and a makeover is in order as a start. Unfortunately, both Mr. and Mrs. Hinklin don't realize that another woman will show up at the same costume party they both attend....and with her mask on, she is the spitting image of Clara!
This is a very unusual film because I have never seen Lucille Ball less attractive and plain...and this was necessary for the plot but must have posed a challenge for her. Most actresses DON'T want to be plain or dowdy! But here she seems to take to the role and it works. In her other persona (with a mask), however, she's less convincing...and sports a very strange accent. A but more subtlety and some dialect coaching would have helped....though the movie still is modestly enjoyable despite this. Overall, a film that started off very well and sort of lost its way when Ball decided on the alter ego. -
boblipton23 January 2003This RKO second feature stars Lucille Ball and James Ellison, starts out amusingly -- particularly the scene where Ellison is hung over and the toaster is very noisy -- but ends in very predictable fashion. The leads can't hold this fluff together: Ball is unconvincing and Ellison is too montonous. Robert Coote, in support, is excellent.
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lestmore16 May 2000Lighthearted and engaging. Special notice to actress Emma Dunn who plays Mother Fields, funny and gifted. Highly recommended!!! A chance to see a movie that is from the golden age of films. Lucille Ball plays 2 characters towards the end and is highly engaging.
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mercycroft26 December 2005If you're a Lucille Ball fan and want to see a bit of her dramatic range (even though this is a screwball comedy--kind of), this is a great little film that shows off more of her depth. I was incredibly impressed, being only familiar with her TV shows and comedy movies like Fancy Pants, Yours Mine, etc., and the pretty bad Desi/Lucy movies. It helps that this film is actually very well written--although it does, as the other commentator on this board points out, have a "sloppy" ending. Still, the dialogue is witty and intelligent, especially the lines slung by Ball's "mother," and Ball herself gets to do more than just character impressions--which she gets to do as well, and here you'll see the early Lucy Ricardo shining through in all her comedic glory.
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bkoganbing16 November 2017Half the problems in the marriage of James Ellison and Lucille Ball are due to the fact there's the mother-in-law from hell living with them in the person of Emma Dunn. I could identify with that, my parents had one of the grandmas living at home and it wasn't pleasant for the odd one out.
Taken partly from The Guardsman and partly from The Awful Truth, You Can't Fool Your Wife is an amusing domestic comedy showing some of the talents of Lucille Ball in that direction. She plays a dual role here, Jimmy Ellison's who fears the marriage has gone stale after a year and a South American bombshell. No need for a voice coach to get the accent right, she had the best teacher in the world in that newlywed husband she had at home.
Also in the cast is Robert Coote playing a droll English visitor who runs the London office at Ellison's business. The man likes to party hearty and wants a companion to share the romping with. He really unknowingly starts all the marital discord.
The last 15 minutes with the two Lucys at a masquerade party has a lot of good laughs in it.
You Can't Fool Your Wife holds up pretty well after almost 80 years. -
mark.waltz8 December 2011Playing two roles that would later influence some of Lucy's slapstick moments in her lengthy TV career, Ms. Ball plays a dowdy housewife whose husband (James Ellison) gets caught up in the social world of his boss and some influential clients. She also wears a disguise and plays an Argentinian spitfire whom her housewife character also dresses up as in an attempt to fool her husband, whom she believes (thanks to one of the nastiest mothers-in-laws in the movies) has been unfaithful. The opening scene shows a college yearbook with Ellison's and Ball's photos then transition to their wedding. Ball's yearbook photo is sadly not a flattering one, difficult to believe, because in the 1930's and 40's, she was one of the most glamorous "B" actresses in the business. It is obvious from the moment you see the Lupe Velez like character Ball briefly portrays that it is her under the dark wig and Carmen Miranda like garb she is wearing.
As I mentioned, the film contains one of the nastiest mothers-in-laws in films, and she is portrayed rather one dimensionally by Emma Dunn, who usually played sweet characters, such as Lew Ayres' mother in the "Dr. Kildare" series. The recurring "old goat" gag concerning Dunn is humorous, but there isn't enough payback in my opinion for the hag she plays. For the most part, the film is a mediocre sitcom episode like film, but it is fast moving and harmless. -
rshawis17 February 2018Fans that have only seen Lucy in screwball comedy roles may be surprised that she was a very fine actress and can handle drama with great pathos. This film sort of tries to be a screwball comedy, popular in that era, but fails due to a choppy pacing, erratic editing and direction. It's occasionally feeble script doesn't help yet this is still an entertaining film for fans of Lucille Ball. Watch this film and you'll root for Lucy, wishing she had a better film success as you see her real talent in one of her first leading roles.
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saps489 December 2017This recently popped up on TCM and since it starred Lucille Ball I decided to give it a look, but it turned out to be an interminable slog, one tedious situation after another at an over-long 68 minutes. All the plot contrivances could have been cleared up if the characters took one minute to actually speak to each other, but then it would have been too short even for the bottom of a double bill.
Inexplicably, Bosley Crowther in the Times found it mildly palatable, but I found it indigestible. Ball is a mouse but does come alive a bit in her dual role, the male lead is instantly forgettable, and Emma Dunn's one-note performance as the meddling mother-in-law is without a shred of wit or charm. I'm always glad to see a new Lucy movie but this one strained my patience. -
SnoopyStyle16 November 2017Andrew Hinklin (James Ellison) and Clara Fields (Lucille Ball) graduate from college in 1935 and get married. Neither are social people and she's concerned about their stale marriage. It doesn't help that they're living with her bitter mother. He's a meek straight-laced accountant forced by his superiors to take out wild boss' son Battincourt from the London office. Clara is not happy with drunken Andrew. Battincourt has his own idea of helping.
This is an old comedy which isn't that funny. Humor is a fickle master and it doesn't always age well. The most fascinating aspect is a young Lucille Ball. She's in her late twenties here. This is one of her numerous B-movies before finally climbing to the top. Clara is a bit of a wet blanket but she gets to grow and Ball also gets to play doppelganger Mercedes Vasquez. I just can't get over how young she looks. She is so different here that it's hard to say that her future is inevitable. All I can say is that she has a compelling presence and a good range. -
nycritic24 November 2006One of the many B pictures Lucille Ball made during her stint at RKO, YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE has a premise that wouldn't be out of place as an "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy would get caught in one of her many schemes to irritate Ricky. (And as an observational note, the black wig she dons late in the movie is rather close to the one she, as Lucy, would use in the aforementioned show.) Clara feels like an outsider in her own marriage and decides to leave her husband, a move that her mother-in-law (Emma Dunn) cheers. However, wouldn't you know -- she still loves the guy and undergoes a radical change, becoming the Latin vamp Mercedes Vasquez. The question remains if her husband will fall for the new Clara or will he fall for her Mercedes persona. And that's it. This is a breeze of a movie, clocking in at a neat 69 minutes, and one that has elements of the screwball in it but remains a little stiff. Strictly for fans of Lucille Ball, outside of her Lucy-universe.
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Doylenf23 November 2006Strictly a B-film programmer, YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE would have more accurately been titled YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR HUSBAND, because it's the hubby who has the wool pulled over his eyes by a plan that backfires when his wife attempts to disguise herself as a Latin beauty.
It's one of those light-hearted romantic comedies with a screwball touch that LUCILLE BALL got to do during her RKO days. And fortunately, although he has a rather thankless role, JAMES ELLISON has good chemistry with her and is a bit less bland than usual in a role that reveals he had a flair for this kind of romp.
EMMA DUNN has the kind of mother role that was a forerunner of the parts THELMA RITTER would play in the '50s--quick with the sarcastic one-liners that have her treating her son-in-law like a bum. ROBERT COOTE has a fine time as a gentleman who comes up with the scheme to save Ellison's marriage.
It spins its tale in just a little over an hour and ends up with a rather bittersweet ending on a false note, and much too abruptly. -
moonspinner5519 July 2008Second-biller from R.K.O. is an early, creaky vehicle for the young Lucille Ball, who had yet to make a big impression in Hollywood. Certainly this picture wasn't going to do it for her, however she's pretty good in the film's early moments. A plain-Jane housewife, whose workaholic accountant husband is assigned to entertain one of the young executives, senses hanky-panky and kicks her spouse out; the executive (for reasons unclear, perhaps guilt) plays matchmaker and devises a plan to bring the lovebirds back together via a ruse: dress Lucy up as a vivacious millionairess from South America! 68-minute throwaway does manage to pack a lot of zany mix-ups into its scenario, but aside from a few amusing sight-gags, it's a dud. This couple doesn't seem to be suffering from the marital blahs at all--they appear to be suffocating under the thumb of the wife's meddlesome mother. Lucy, at one point appearing in a dual role, gets to wear a black wig and talk with an accent, but the writing stymies her (as it does the gaggle of supporting characters, each with his or her own agenda). Director Ray McCarey, brother of Leo, attempts something akin to screwball, but this script has two many screws, none of which are fastened. *1/2 from ****