Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Another of the movies that has recently shown up in the FXM rotation is the 1948 version of Unfaithfully Yours. It's going to be on again tomorrow afternoon at 1:10 PM, and then again Friday at 8:55 AM.

Rex Harrison plays Sir Alfred De Carter, a prominent British conductor who is returning to America after a tour abroad. He married an American woman, Daphne (Linda Darnell); Daphne has a sister Barbara (Barbara Lawrence) who married industrialist August (Rudy Vallee). Alfred has always had a bit of contempt for August because he thinks August's family makes a product not really suitable for talking about in polite society.

Anyhow, while Alfred was away, he wanted August to look after Daphne and just see that she wasn't having any problems. August took it more seriously, however. He had to go down to Florida to visit his sick mother; since he wasn't able to check in on Daphne, he hired a private investigator to tail Daphne and see that nothing happened. The detective has a repot for Alfred, but he's so enraged he couldn't be bothered to believe it.

That is, until he hears a report from the hotel detective of the apartment hotel the De Carters stay in. Apparently, Daphne was up in the rooms of Tony (Kurt Krueger) one night. Tony just happens to be Sir Alfred's personal assistant, but when he gets that news, he starts to think that perhaps Daphne and Tony are having an affair.

Still, Alfred has a concert to conduct. But while he's conducting, his mind wanters to his perhaps unfaithful wife, and how he's going to deal with her. Conducting three different pieces of music, Alfred concocts three revenge scenarios in his mind. And then the concert ends, and Alfred decides he's actually going to put one of those plans into motion....

Preston Sturges directed, and he was known for his outrageous comedies -- you'll recall that Vallee had already appeared in Sturges' The Palm Beach Story. However, Unfaithfully Yours doesn't quite reach the heights some of his earlier comedies did. I wonder how much his drinking was taking its toll, but another problem is the presence of Rex Harrison, who I felt was badly miscast. This sort of comedy really needs somebody like a Terry-Thomas, although he was a good ten years away from becoming a big enough name to get a role like this. Maybe Alec Guinness, who was at the beginning of his career. But Harrison just seemed wrong for the role.

Still, classical music fans may enjoy this one, and I'm sure there are fans of some of the stars who will like it too. After all, the movie's critical reputation has risen over the past 70 years. Fox remade it in the mid 80s, also with the title Unfaithfully Yours and starring Dudley Moore as the husband. The Harrison version got a Criterion release and is also available from Amazon Prime video; the Moore version is out of print and not on streaming video as far as I'm aware.