Movie Review - We're Not Married

We're Not Married (1952)

Starring Ginger Rogers, Fred Allen, Marilyn Monroe, David Wayne, Eve Arden, Paul Douglas, Mitzi Gaynor, Eddie Bracken, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Louis Calhern, and Victor Moore

Directed by Edmund Goulding

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

We're Not Married is absolutely mindless entertainment, but goshdarnit, it won me over shortly after it started.  Admittedly, I knew nothing about this flick, but simply added it to my Netflix Instant queue after I watched My Week with Marilyn earlier this year since this happened to star Monroe.  Little did I know that this short eighty-minute film would be a series of short ten to twenty minute vignettes revolving around the central premise of a newly appointed justice of the peace (a delightfully semi-senile Victor Moore) failing to properly marry five couples during his first week on the job.  Two years later, it's unearthed that these initial marriages are nullified and we soon discover what happens to each of the five couples after they get the letter detailing that they aren't really betrothed.  Will they want to stay together?  Or will they discover that this is an easy way out of an unhappy situation?

Not knowing this wasn't a full movie, but rather a series of short stories, I was surprised when the film shifted to a completely different "married" couple thirty minutes in and I worried that the movie wouldn't be able to sustain the humorous success it achieves in the first tale featuring Ginger Rogers and Fred Allen as a bickering twosome who only married in order to make a significant profit hosting a radio show posing as a lovingly hitched couple.  Fortunately, my worries were irrational and, for the most part, each tale manages to be amusing (although none quite match the comedic levels Rogers and Allen reach in the opening act).

You must keep in mind that you're watching a 1950s version of romance here...we're not delving deep in any shape or form, but we are treated to amusing sketches that are different enough to hold interest.  Sure, the flick could've maybe been trimmed by one tale (the third act in particular starring Eve Arden and Paul Douglas doesn't really add much to the movie as a whole), but We're Not Married is charming nonetheless and definitely worth a look if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned comedy.

The RyMickey Rating:  B