The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940)

The Doctor Takes a Wife is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring Loretta Young, Ray Milland, Reginald Gardiner, Gail Patrick and Edmund Gwenn. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Young and Milland portray a best-selling author and medical school instructor, respectively, who find it convenient to pretend to be married, even though they initially loathe each other.

Young had recently left 20th Century Fox after turning down Darryl F. Zanuck's offer of a new contract and going freelance, it was her first film at Columbia since Man's Castle in 1933.

Plot

June Cameron is the celebrated writer of a feminist book while medical instructor Doctor Timothy Sterling is a slightly misogynist cynic. After she badgers him into giving her a lift from the isolated Connecticut hotel in which they are both staying, a misunderstanding leads to the newspapers declaring that she has turned her back on her beliefs and married him. Both naturally want to deny it, but her publisher and fiancé convinces her that her former angle is now ruined and that she must now write a pro-marriage book. After a certain period she can then go to Reno and get a divorce. Timothy wants nothing to do with this scheme until he learns he has been made a professor by his college, based solely on the fact that he is now a married man rather than a bachelor.

Timothy plays along with the scheme, concealing from June that this arrangement also benefits him and portraying it as a sacrifice done entirely for her sake. Complications ensue when his own long-standing fiancée Marilyn arrives back in town. She becomes jealous despite his attempts to portray his (non-existent) relationship with June as a marriage of convenience. Timothy tries desperately to juggle his pretend fiancée and his real fiancée, even as he begins to develop feelings for June.

Cast

Loretta Young as June Cameron

Ray Milland as Dr. Timothy Sterling

Reginald Gardiner as John R. Pierce

Gail Patrick as Marilyn Thomas

Edmund Gwenn as Dr. Lionel Sterling

Frank Sully as Louie Slapcovitch

Gordon Jones as O'Brien

Georges Metaxa as Jean Rovere

Charles Halton as Dr. Streeter

Joseph Eggenton as Dr. Nielson

Paul McAllister as Dean Lawton

Chester Clute as Johnson

Hal K. Dawson as Charlie

Edward Van Sloan as Burkhardt

Virginia Sale as a school teacher (uncredited)

Vernon Dent as man in drugstore (uncredited)

Dorothy Appleby as woman in drugstore (uncredited)

Critical reception

Variety felt it was "a light comedy with farcical trimmings that depends on punchy dialog and semi-slapstick situations for a good supply of laughs" while the New York Times review noted "thanks to Mr. Milland's genteel clowning and a couple of dependable farce situations - one of which is the frantic business of keeping two unsuspecting parties going in adjacent apartments at the same time - the comic pace is generally maintained".

References

Bibliography

Dick, Bernard F. Hollywood Madonna: Loretta Young. University Press of Mississippi, 2011.

Milberg, Doris. The Art of the Screwball Comedy: Madcap Entertainment from the 1930s to Today. McFarland, 2013.

McKay, James. Ray Milland: The Films, 1929-1984. McFarland, 2020.

External links

The Doctor Takes a Wife at IMDb

The Doctor Takes a Wife at the TCM Movie Database (archived)