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The More the Merrier is a 1943 American comedy film directed by George Stevens for Columbia Pictures. The picture stars Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn. The film script — from "Two's a Crowd", an original screenplay by Garson Kanin (uncredited) — was written by Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster, Frank Ross[Note 1] and Robert Russell.[1] Set in Washington, D.C., the film presents a comic look at the housing shortage during World War II.[6]

The More the Merrier
Theatrical poster, with a fanciful imagining of the characters' relationships.
Directed by	George Stevens
Screenplay by	Richard Flournoy Lewis R. Foster Frank Ross Robert W. Russell
Based on	Two's a Crowd screenplay by Garson Kanin (uncredited)[1]
Produced by	George Stevens
Starring	Jean Arthur Joel McCrea Charles Coburn
Cinematography	Ted Tetzlaff
Edited by	Otto Meyer
Music by	Leigh Harline
Color process	Black and white
Production company	Columbia Pictures
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	May 13, 1943 (1943-05-13)[2]
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$878,000[3]
Box office	$1.8 million (US rentals)[4]

The film received six nominations at the 16th Academy Awards, among them Best Picture, Best Director for Stevens, Best Actress for Arthur, Best Writing (Original Story), and Best Writing (Screenplay). Coburn won Best Supporting Actor.[7]

This film was remade in 1966 as Walk, Don't Run starring Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton. The setting was changed to Tokyo which had experienced housing shortages due to the 1964 Summer Olympics.

Plot

Retired millionaire Benjamin Dingle arrives in Washington, D.C. as an adviser on the housing shortage and finds that his hotel suite will not be available for two days. He sees an ad for a roommate and talks the reluctant young woman, Connie Milligan, into letting him sublet half of her apartment. Then Dingle runs into Sergeant Joe Carter, who has no place to stay while he waits to be shipped overseas. Dingle generously rents him half of his half.

When Connie finds out about the new arrangement, she orders them both to leave, but she is forced to relent because she has already spent the men's rent. Joe and Connie are attracted to each other, though she is engaged to bureaucrat Charles J. Pendergast. Connie's mother married for love, not security, and Connie is determined not to repeat her mistake. Dingle happens to meet Pendergast at a business luncheon and does not like what he sees. He decides that Joe would be a better match for his landlady.

One day, Dingle goes too far, reading aloud to Joe from Connie's private diary, including her thoughts about Joe. When she finds out, she demands they both leave the next day. Dingle takes full blame for the incident. Connie allows Joe to remain in the apartment as he has only a few days before being shipped out to Africa. Joe asks Connie to go to dinner with him. She is reluctant to do so, but decides to go if Pendergast does not call for her by 8:00 that evening. At 8:00, she and Joe are ready to leave, but her nosy teenage neighbor seeks her advice and delays her until Pendergast arrives. Joe spies on the two of them from the window. When the young neighbor asks what he is doing, Joe flippantly tells him he is a Japanese spy.

Dingle calls Joe to meet him for dinner. There, Dingle bumps into the couple (Pendergast and Connie) and pretends he is meeting Connie for the first time, forcing Joe to do the same. Dingle engages Pendergast in talk about his work, eventually maneuvering him up to his hotel room so that Connie and Joe can be alone together.

Joe takes Connie home. The two talk about their romantic pasts and even kiss. From their separate rooms, Joe confesses that he loves her. She tells him she feels the same way, but refuses to marry him, as they will soon be forced apart when he leaves for Africa. Their talk is interrupted by the arrival of the FBI, who have been called to investigate Joe for spying, thanks to the young neighbor. Joe and Connie are taken to FBI headquarters. They identify Dingle as a fellow apartment occupant who can testify that they are only roommates. Dingle arrives, bringing Pendergast as a character witness. It comes out during questioning that Joe and Connie live at the same address. When they ask Mr. Dingle to tell Pendergast that their living arrangement is purely innocent, he denies knowing them.

Outside the station, Dingle says he lied to protect his reputation. Taking a taxi home, they discuss what to do to avoid a scandal. Connie grows angry when Pendergast thinks only of himself. When another passenger in the shared cab turns out to be a reporter, Pendergast runs after him to try to stop him from writing about the cohabiting situation. Dingle assures Connie that if she marries Joe, the crisis will be averted, and they can get a quick annulment afterwards. The couple follow his advice and wed after flying to South Carolina, where a license can be more quickly obtained than in DC. Returning home, Connie allows Joe to spend his final night in her apartment. As Dingle had foreseen, Connie's attraction to Joe overcomes her prudence; the intimacy is facilitated by the fact that the wall separating Connie's and Joe's bedrooms has vanished, presumably thanks to Dingle. Outside, Dingle puts up a card on the apartment door, showing that it belongs to Sgt. and Mrs. Carter.

Cast

Production

Jean Arthur got the ball rolling on The More The Merrier, paying Garson Kanin $25,000 to adapt his short story "Two's A Crowd" into a screenplay. She hoped to take the role of Connie and serve out her contract with Columbia Studios, which had become irksome due to her deteriorating relationship with studio boss Harry Cohn.[8] Kanin co-wrote the script with Robert Russell and Frank Ross, Arthur's husband. Arthur also brought director George Stevens (with whom she had recently worked on The Talk of the Town (1942)) and co-star Joel McCrea to the project.[9]

Principal photography took place between September 11 and December 19, 1942, with additional "inserts" filmed in late January 1943.

George Stevens, known as a perfectionist, filmed many takes of each scene and shot from multiple angles. McCrea recalled that studio boss Harry Cohn approached him during production, saying “‘What’s that son of a bitch Stevens doing, making all that film? He used more exposed film in one picture than in any five pictures I’ve ever made.”[10]

Stevens was working under a three-film contract at Columbia Studios, and completed the terms of his contract with The More the Merrier. He had previously shot two Cary Grant vehicles at Columbia – melodrama Penny Serenade (1941) and comic drama The Talk of the Town (1942).[11] Immediately after finishing work on The More the Merrier he went to North Africa with the Army’s combat photography unit. The More the Merrier was Stevens' last comedy, as he turned to drama and westerns after the war.

In early drafts, The More The Merrier was titled "Two's a Crowd". Other titles considered included "Washington Story", "Full Steam Ahead", "Come One, Come All" and "Merry-Go-Round", which actually tested best with audiences. Washington officials, though, objected to a title and plot elements that suggested "frivolity on the part of Washington workers". The More the Merrier was finally approved as the title.[11]

Joel McCrea was exhausted by fall 1942, having already shot three movies that year, and signed on to The More the Merrier only at Jean Arthur's request.[12] The pair had a working relationship dating back more than a decade, having met on pre-code romantic melodrama The Silver Horde (1930). McCrea was initially suspicious that the studio was willing to cast him as Joe Carter, feeling that if it was a good part they would have pursued Cary Grant or Gary Cooper, however the role later became his own favourite of his comic performances.[13]

Reception

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times enjoyed The More the Merrier, calling the film "as warm and refreshing a ray of sunshine as we've had in a very late spring".[14] He praised all three leads, the writers, and the director, singling out Coburn as "the comical crux of the film" who "handles the job in fine fettle".[14]

Variety called it "a sparkling and effervescing piece of entertainment."[15]

Harrison's Reports wrote, "Excellent entertainment! George Stevens' masterful direction, and the fine acting of Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, make this one of the brightest and gayest comedies to have come out of Hollywood in many a season."[16]

David Lardner of The New Yorker wrote, "As is the case with a lot of madcap comedies, this one tends to fall apart somewhat toward the end, when all the accumulated mixups are supposed to be resolved without a complete sacrifice of logic but by no means are. As long as these mixups are purely being established, however, and nobody's worrying about clearing them up, everything is fine."[17]

TV Guide characterizes it as "a delightful and effervescent comedy marked with terrific performances" and praises Coburn as "nothing short of superb, stealing scene after scene with astonishing ease".[18] Time Out Film Guide notes, "Despite a belated drift towards sentimentality, this remains a refreshingly intimate movie."[19]

It has a 94% fresh rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website based on 16 reviews.[20]

Awards

Coburn won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. There were also four nominations:

• Best Picture
• Best Actress in a Leading Role - Arthur
• Best Director - Stevens
• Best Writing, Original Story - Frank Ross and Robert Russell
• Best Writing, Screenplay - Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster, Ross and Russell

Stevens won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.

Home media

The film was released on Region 1 DVD.^{[citation needed]}

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links

• The More the Merrier at IMDb 
• The More the Merrier at AllMovie
• The More the Merrier at the TCM Movie Database
• The More the Merrier at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The More the Merrier at Rotten Tomatoes
• The More the Merrier at Box Office Mojo

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