Cheap The More the Merrier (Video) (George Stevens) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The More the Merrier

Good Work All Around, But It's Charlie's Show
This underrated 1943 comedy stars Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and the fabulous Charles Coburn. Set in Washington, DC during World War II, it's the story of a young woman (Arthur) forced by the drastic housing shortage to take in two male boarders. Or, I should say, she agrees to rent to Coburn, who then takes it upon himself to sublet half of his half to McCrea. The film then evolves into a question of whether Coburn will be able to orchestrate a union between Arthur and McCrea. (If the plot sounds familiar, it's because it was remade in 1966 as "Walk, Don't Run," Cary Grant's last film). <
> <
>While the ending isn't hard to see coming, the ride is great fun. Joel McCrea was either immensely limited as an actor or just very subtle, but in any case his deadpan delivery serves him well here. The real star of the show, though, is Coburn. Arthur displays her trademark agitation through the entire picture, in this case no doubt because she knows Coburn is going to steal every one of their scenes together. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this, and deservedly so. With a single performance at the age of 66, he cornered the market in kindly but devious elder statesmen.

"You've Soushed Your Last Soush!!!"
THE MORE THE MERRIER was one of the biggest hits of 1943 and one of the very best comedies of the 1940's. It received many Oscar nominations and won the Best Supporting Actor award for Charles Coburn as well as earning the great Jean Arthur her only nomination (a crime!) for the Best Actress Academy Award. This is a truly amazing comedy that touches on virtually every comedy genre from slapstick to romantic to verbal bantering. Coburn is great fun although I do agree with one reviewer his character at times really pushes the envelope and comes close to being out of line but fortunately the film is so light-hearted, well acted and directed the character's presumptuous edges never become unpleasant. As great as Colburn is this movie really belongs to Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea, two great stars who may have just missed being superstars by a hair but here (as on many other occasions) showing they had the talent and charisma to equal their more celebrated contemporaries. Neither of them have ever been as sexy as they are here, Jean's sloppy brushing of her teeth not withstanding. One of the most amazing things about the movie is practically a three-person play despite running 104 minutes, quite long for a comedy from the era. Richard Gaines as Jean's nerdy steady has the only sizable supporting role, everyone else virtually plays a bit part. This movie has some of the best laugh outloud gags of any film I've ever seen with a tender romance nicely bubbling under the surface. <
> <
>I own the VHS release and while most of the print is quite flawless, it has many bad spots in it with lines, dirt, and scratches. I'm very disappointed to read in another review that the DVD version is not much better, perhaps the same. This seems to be a consistent problem with vintage Columbia films released on video or DVD, I've noticed similar problems with MISS GRANT TAKES RICHMOND and THEODORA GOES WILD. Hasn't it ever crossed these people's minds to use multiple prints of a film and cut out the bad bits in a superior print and splice in the same scenes that are not damaged in a second print? That would really not be much of an effort. It seems as if Columbia doesn't even screen some of the prints they use as their masters. As I said most of the picture quality is fine but there is really no excuse for poor quality scenes when you know the studio owns multiple copies of the films.