Here comes Gary Cooper again, this time as the title character of CASANOVA BROWN, a film that bills itself as "the greatest romantic comedy of all time" and then falls short.The story involves Cooper's marital mishaps -- after a failed marriage to Teresa Wright (in which he burnt down her parents' house), Cooper announces to Anita Louise's father (Frank Morgan) that he wants to marry her. Morgan's against this -- he doesn't think much of his daughter -- but Cooper is soon summoned away on a mysterious trip to see a doctor in Chicago where it turns out that he has a baby child.
See, he knocked up Wright before the marriage was annulled and now he has to do something about it. Unfortunately he thinks the right thing to do is to kidnap the baby, and all sorts of "madcap hilarity" ensues.
You might notice "madcap hilarity" is in quotes above. That's because the movie's not nearly madcap or hilarious enough. The premise is outrageous, especially for its time, but the movie doesn't do a whole lot with it and beyond the sequence in which Cooper accidentally destroys his first wife's home, a lot of the jokes fall flat. This might not be a fair assessment, I guess, since I watched it in fairly close proximity to another screwball, NOTHING SACRED, that fires on all cylinders seemingly effortlessly. Maybe in a less marathon-like viewing session, this lesser comedy would stand more of a chance. I'll probably watch it again some day and find out.
As usual, it's good to see Cooper, and he does his best here with a pretty thankless role. The other standout is Morgan as Louise's cranky father, not too far removed from his famous performance as the Wizard in OZ.
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