This has the same director as Hands Across the Table, and a very similar plot, but is so much better. Obviously the director (Mitchell Leisen) had perfected the formula. Well, that and the fact that this one is written by Preston Sturges and is as good (and this is very high praise) as any of his own movies.
As with so many of Sturges' films, the American class system and the different lives of the rich and the poor in it is the backdrop. We begin at the meal table of "The Bull of Broad Street" - vastly wealthy financier J.B. Ball (an excellent Edward Arnold), where he snipes at his son John Jr. (Ray Milland) over a receipt for a car to the extent that he storms out, intent on getting a job. Then Ball spots an obscene receipt for a fur coat ($58,000 - and this is in 1937!) and storms up to confront his wife. After a series of pratfalls where she tries to keep him from returning it (she has a closetful - but this one is a "Kominsky" (or something) which apparently means it's the "sablest sable that ever sabled"), they end up on the roof and in a fit of pique he throws the coat off. It lands on Jean Arthur's Mary Smith, who is on the top floor of an open-top bus, and breaks the feather in her hat. (Her turbanned co-passenger explains this as "kismet".)
She gets off and tries to return it, but bumps into Ball who insists she keep it, and indeed offers to buy her a replacement hat. She reveals she doesn't have a dime for another bus, so he takes her, and in the car they get into an argument about how advisable it is to buy things in installments. She thinks 12% interest just means 12% extra at the end of the year, and he tries to convince her otherwise, but fails miserably. He gets very peevish to which she retorts (in that amazing Jean Arthur voice) "don't get upset - it's not my fault you're stupid!"
In the hat store, the owner realizes how valuable the coat is and finds out that it's Ball paying for everything, and becomes convinced that Mary is Ball's woman-on-the-side. This becomes very important later, but meanwhile Mary returns to her job at The Boy's Constant Companion (a boy's magazine apparently entirely staffed by elderly ladies plus Mary) only to be thrown out because she can't give a satisfactory answer about where the coat came from, and this is apparently evidence of moral iniquity of a sort incompatible with the mission of that noble organ. She leaves, but not before busting a portrait of the founder over the editor's head. MEANWHILE, we meet Louis Louis (played by the amazing Spanish comic actor Luis Alberni) who used to be a chef (it's strongly implied he was Ball's personal chef) but then started up his own luxury hotel on credit (3 mortgages) from Ball, and is coming to Ball begging him for an extension. He asks for 6 months - he gets a week. The trouble is, nobody comes to his hotel. But then he bumps into the hat store owner who tells him about Ball's "mistress" Mary. So he sends a telegram inviting her to the hotel. She sees it poking under her door as she's on the floor picking up the pieces of the piggy bank she had to smash. He shows her round the most palatial suite it is possible (even in this day and age) to imagine
and then ends up offering it to her for the amount she's currently paying for her digs - $7 a week, plus breakfast (1 egg), because he thinks it will help him out to have her ensconced in his place. The suite does lack one thing, though - any food, so Mary sets out for an Automat (I love these things - are they making a comeback?) where, as chance would have it, John Jr. has got his first job.
Seeing how little money she has, he offers to pop open the windows for her from the back, but gets caught by the store detective. A feisty sort, he doesn't go quietly, and in the process opens all the little hatches causing the mother of all food fights to break out. (Sturges was, by his own admission, inordinately fond of pratfalls, and there are plenty in this script.) Eventually he makes good his escape, dragging Mary with him. They set up joint shop in the palatial suite and a romance kindles. MEANWHILE, rattling around in a mansion sans son and wife (who has decamped to Florida in a huff) Ball decides to go stay in the Hotel Louis, just to mess with Louis. But of course, Louis thinks it's because Mary is there and that it confirms the mistress theory. Word gets around (via a gossip columnist, "Wallace Whistling," played by that staple of all Sturges films, William Demarest) and suddenly the Hotel Louis is the hottest place in town. Things are going peachy, with more and more businesses offering Mary various free samples, from a chauffeured car to king's ransoms in jewels
until a rival financier comes and asks Mary what Mr. Ball thinks about steel. At this point Mary knows that John Jr., who indeed is in the room with her, is called Ball, but still doesn't know who her initial benefactor is. So she asks John Jr. what will happen to steel, and as a sort of joke he says that because the weather's changing, steel will fall. Well, this triggers a collapse in steel that has his father on the brink of bankruptcy. And, of course, this isn't good for Louis. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ball returns from Florida to news of her husband "stepping out"...
But don't worry, everything ends happily. And it even has somebody new getting her hat broken by the same flying fur coat. All-in-all, the first serious contender (with that other Sturges script, The Good Fairy, for favorite film of 2021. I must confess, I was not at first a fan of Jean Arthur when I first encountered her in Only Angels Have Wings, but even Cary Grant wasn't very good in that, so I have to blame the director. I am now a total convert, and she may be my favorite screwball actress. She certainly has a wonderful way of delivering Sturges' outrageous dialogue. And Ray Milland was so much more winning than Fred MacMurray in last night's effort. I've already said Edward Arnold was great, and it being a Sturges film, there are any number of wonderful small parts. A particular favorite is the droll Butler (Robert Greig - who, besides being in two of Sturges' self-directed films, was also in Animal Crackers).
Pretty close to a perfect film!
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