I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

Film: I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Stars: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan, Marion Marshall
Director: Howard Hawks
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Ann Sheridan-click here to learn more about Ms. Sheridan (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We continue on with Ann Sheridan's run as our Star of the Month with arguably her last major hit.  In 1949, Sheridan was 34, starting to approach a dangerous age for actresses, especially those who had been marketed for the bulk of their career based on their sex appeal (which was true of Sheridan), and she had just ended her long-running contract with Warner Brothers, becoming a freelance star.  Sheridan's period as a freelancer between her time at Warner and her shorter, less-successful run at Universal resulted in one of the biggest hits of her career, I Was a Male War Bride, with Cary Grant.  Sheridan & Grant had made a few films together in the early 1930's, but that was when Grant was a major leading man & Sheridan was a bit player, taking tiny parts before she'd become a proper star.  Male War Bride, despite a troubled shoot (both Sheridan & Grant had grave illnesses during the run of the film), became the highest-grossing film for FOX that year and served as something as a career-capper for Sheridan before she slid into smaller roles and television at the end of her career.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is pretty much entirely a duet between Sheridan as Catherine Gates, a lieutenant in the American army, and Grant as Henri Rochard, a French captain who is working with the Americans (no, there's no attempt by Grant to do a French accent...Grant, as ever, has the same affectation in his voice).  Initially the two despise each other, seemingly because Henri at one point had made a pass at Catherine in a previous mission (which he denies), but are forced to find a lens maker before he is recruited by the Nazis.  Along the way, they suffer a series of mishaps, including nearly going over a waterfall and Henri crashing into a haystack, before they inevitably fall in love and get married.

The first half of the film is a bit tedious, which is a bummer because there is a lot of conviction by Sheridan to make this work.  Both actors are at their best when given patter and snappy dialogue to exchange, but they are so instantly compatible it's hard to understand why they didn't like each other in the first place.  The plot of the entire film is pretty thin, and as a result it only really succeeds when they aren't relying on the plot to drive the dialogue between the two actors, which is sparkling if they get into a good flow.

Unfortunately, that charm wears off entirely once they actually get together, and Sheridan is relegated to just being a straight woman for Grant rather than a wiseacre star in her own right.  The second half of the film is dependent on you finding it funny that Grant is constantly treated like the woman in their relationship (yes, as pictured above, Grant wears a woman's army uniform and a feminine wig), and the script is so thin here that it's a struggle to find much humor, even dated humor, in this portion of the movie.  Grant, who even at his worst is eminently watchable, occasionally finds moments of hilarity (there's a great bit with a hotel clerk who needs Grant to help her with her knitting I quite enjoyed), but by-and-large when you eliminate the patter between Sheridan & Grant, and relegate her to doting wife rather than his equal, the film loses whatever panache the first half was (slowly) leading toward.  As a result, this is arguably one of the least impressive Hawks' films that I've seen and the first proper disappointment in our Saturdays with the Stars series, though considering the leading actors involved I'm not surprised this was a hit for FOX.  Next week we will close our discussion of Sheridan's career with one of her films at Universal, where she took a role not only in front of the camera, but behind the scenes as well.