ROUGHLY SPEAKING combines laughter and bathos with good doses of Americana, telling the story of a free-spirited woman (Rosalind Russell) whose positive outlook helps her through hard times after her marriage to stuffy Donald Woods collapses. In a short amount of time, she finds another like spirit in Jack Carson, who has great chemistry with Russell and turns in one of his most heartfelt performances.
The story covers a lot of ground so the coverage may seem a bit episodic at times, but in all it's smoothly directed by Michael Curtiz, who gets a good balance of tears, laughter and sentiment from the script. Russell has a tendency to get into her "Auntie Mame" mode at times, but overall her performance is splendid, especially in the final farewell scenes at the train station where she has to see her sons leaving for war service.
The good supporting cast includes Robert Arthur, Robert Hutton, Mona Freeman and Andrea King.
Although it has several dramatic sequences, the overall feeling is that you've witnessed a "good feeling" kind of movie with a certain kind of nostalgic charm.
The story covers a lot of ground so the coverage may seem a bit episodic at times, but in all it's smoothly directed by Michael Curtiz, who gets a good balance of tears, laughter and sentiment from the script. Russell has a tendency to get into her "Auntie Mame" mode at times, but overall her performance is splendid, especially in the final farewell scenes at the train station where she has to see her sons leaving for war service.
The good supporting cast includes Robert Arthur, Robert Hutton, Mona Freeman and Andrea King.
Although it has several dramatic sequences, the overall feeling is that you've witnessed a "good feeling" kind of movie with a certain kind of nostalgic charm.