And now’s it’s time for us to get into the 1944 movie Casanova Brown, starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright and Frank Morgan.
Gary Cooper plays Casanova “Cass” Brown, who is about to be married to Madge Ferris (Anita Louise), when he receives a letter from a maternity hospital in Chicago, which makes him nervous. He confides in his future father-in-law (Frank Morgan) that he had actually been married before on a previous trip to New York, to Isabel Drury (Teresa Wright), although the marriage was annulled. Per Mr. Ferris’s advice, Cass goes to the hospital. There, he finds out that Isabel was pregnant, and gave birth to a baby girl, although she is planning to give her up for adoption.
Now, most of the fun here is from Frank Morgan (best known as the wizard in the classic The Wizard Of Oz). As the father-in-law advising against the marriage, he is a real hoot! Of course, it’s not Cass he is objecting to (since he likes him), but his own daughter! Of course, a lot of this is because it seems he *might* have married his wife at least partly for her money, which he maybe got to spend some of before she and her family put him on an allowance, making it much harder (especially after they had kids and at least one grandkid) for him to have any hope of getting any of the money.
Of course, the film is worth watching for more than just Frank Morgan. It’s nice seeing Gary Cooper teamed up with Teresa Wright again (his co-star from the classic The Pride Of The Yankees). Now, I will admit that this movie might be a little harder for some to enjoy, since a lot of the plot essentially has to do with Teresa Wright’s Isabel deceiving Gary Cooper’s Cass to get him to the hospital about the baby, when she could just as easily tell him, and so avoid a lot of the mess that happens. In defense of this idea, though, not all people are perfect, and we sometimes can (and do) make the mistake of deceiving people because we aren’t always sure how they would react to the truth (otherwise, why do so many people lie to others). This is a movie that I enjoy, and would recommend at least trying, as I think it should be worth a few good laughs!
The movie is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Classicflix.
Film Length: 1 hour, 31 minutes
My Rating: 8/10
Audience Rating:
List Of Actor/Actress Filmographies/Collections
Sergeant York (1941) – Gary Cooper – Along Came Jones (1945)
Broadway Melody Of 1940 (1940) – Frank Morgan
Thoughts From The Music(al) Man 