You Can't Fool Your Wife

Some time back, when I reviewed one of Lucille Ball's RKO films -- I think it was Beauty for the Asking -- I brought up the Star of the Month piece on Lucy that Carol Burnett narrated. In it, Burnett said that the studios just didn't know what to do with Lucy. Another movie where it really seems like the studio didn't know how to use Lucille Ball properly is You Can't Fool Your Wife. It's coming up tomorrow (Oct. 15) at 11:30 AM as part of TCM's Star of the Month salute to Lucy.

The movie starts off with senior yearbook headshots of Andrew Hinklin (James Ellison) and Clara Fields (Lucille Ball). Clara looks rather plain and not like what you'd expect from Lucille Ball from the days of Du Barry Was a Lady. But there's a reason for that which we'll get to later. Andrew and Clara get married, and as Preston Sturges put at the beginning of The Palm Beach Story, "And they lived happily ever after.... Or did they?"

Fast-forward five years. Andrew is working as an accountant and the couple lives in a relatively small apartment with Clara's mom (Emma Dunn). Andrew is a faithful husband, if a bit boring, in that his one vice is his work at the firm. The next day, the partners in the firm are talking about picking up old Battincourt, a senior partner from another part of the firm, as he's coming in on one of the transatlantic boats. None of them want to do it, so when Andrew barges into the office, the partners "volunteer" him for the thankless task.

The only thing is, it's not Old Man Battincourt who shows up, but his son "Batty" (Robert Coote). After young Battincourt and Andrew make their acquaintances, Andrew takes him to where he's going to be staying while in town. Battincourt also organizes a party with lots of pretty young women, and drinking. It's the first time Andrew gets drunk in his life, and he doesn't return home until 2:30 AM, leading Clara's mom to start putting the seeds of doubt in Clara's ear.

A conversation with partner J.R. Gillespie leads to another meeting, and another long night out, and when Andrew gets home and tries to explain, things go wrong because Gillespie is at the door with two beautiful women. Clara and her mom won't give Andrew a chance to explain. Battincourt, feeling as though he's somewhat responsible for this, lets Andrew stay with him. And when Clara shows up at another party to talk with Andrew, Battincourt decides he's going to play matchmaker of sorts to bring Andrew and Clara back together.

Battincourt's plan, which sounds like it wouldn't have been out of place on I Love Lucy a dozen years later, involves an Argentine-themed party in which Battincourt is going to make Clara over (at which point she looks like the Lucille Ball we're used to, which is why she had to look so different in the first half of the movie) and have her be a rich Argentine heiress, to test Andrew, who will of course be faithful.

One of Battincourt's other women lets Andrew in on the secret plan on the way to the party, so Andrew is definitely going to be faithful. But there's one small problem, which is that Gillespie brings a different Argentine heiress who just happens to be the model for who Battincourt made Clara over to look like. So we've got two women who look exactly alike, and since part of the party involves everyone wearing Lone Ranger-style masks, telling the two apart isn't going to be easy.

Things get predictable from here, as You Can't Fool Your Wife is only a B movie. It's not bad, although there's definitely a clash of styles as the first half is too skewed to drama and the second half is nothing but comedy. One also can't help but think that if these characters talked seriously, there wouldn't have been a real issue.

You Can't Fool Your Wife is a movie that's really mostly going to be of interest only to Lucille Ball completists. It's the sort of thing that might have ended up on one of those four-film TCM box sets, if Warner Home Video were still in the business of making such sets. But they're not, and it seems never to have gotten a Warner Archive release either.