January 11 movie: The More The Merrier. This was delightful! Due to a wartime housing shortage in DC, Jean Arthur rents half her apartment to Charles Coburn. Coburn turns around and rents half of his half to Joel McCrea, and then spends the rest of the movie playing matchmaker between Arthur and McCrea. (If that sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of the remake Walk, Don't Run, starring Cary Grant.)
All three principals were marvelous. I already knew Arthur and Coburn were great together from The Devil and Miss Jones, and here I especially loved the friendship between McCrea and Coburn. They laugh and hoot and read the funnies together in such natural way, they had me believing they must have been friends in real life. Charles Coburn was just fantastic in everything he did. Too bad his age put him into "character actor" territory. I bet he could have been a top comedic star if he'd been thirty years younger when talkies were invented.
And why wasn't Joel McCrea a bigger star in his day? There's a basic decency about him that's immensely likeable. He comes across like a regular guy, but a really good guy. Kind of like Jimmy Stewart. In this movie McCrea does a great job of selling his growing feelings for Arthur. The plot is contrived, but the love story feels totally natural. You can see him falling in love with her. This movie made me feel good.
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