What a great title – I WAS MALE WAR BRIDE. They don’t name ‘em like that anymore.
Cary Grant stars as the titular male war bride in this Howard Hawks screwball comedy, apparently based on a true story about a French officer who fell in love with an American nurse while on a mission shortly after World War II in Germany and had to disguise himself as a woman to get out of Europe and into America.
Grant is accompanied on his final mission in the army by a female lieutenant (Ann Sheridan) who he has some history of bickering with. On their mission, they continue to bicker, and are forced into several emasculating situations for Grant, who has to suffer indignities like riding in a sidecar while Sheridan drives the motorcycle.
If a screwball comedy has any rules, it’s that the man and woman who argue all the time eventually fall in love and this movie is no exception. The first half of the film deals with their bickering, the second half deals with their attempts to stay together after their multiple weddings (complicated thanks to lots of military red tape). Every time you think the couple will have a chance to consummate, they’re hurried along into another disaster. In the end, Grant has slept almost everywhere except in a bed, including a bathtub and an out-of-control motorcycle.
The other rule of screwball comedies, in my opinion, is that they should be fast, and this is where I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE drops the ball. Even though Hawks helped invent and perfect the genre, the machinations of the comedic set pieces seem a little overly labored and lack the payoff they should have. Instead of moving ahead at a breakneck pace, encouraging subsequent viewings, this flick is content to stop a moment and give the audience time to laugh, as if it’s a sitcom missing a laugh track.
That doesn’t make this a bad movie, just a mediocre one. It definitely has its moments, most of them provided by Grant’s deft line delivery.
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