Review of It's a Wonderful World

. . . (and Humphrey Bogart would have gotten this role if Bogie worked for MGM), but at least Stewart is a more straight-forward Evil Doer in IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD than the devious types he played for director Alfred Hitchcock in ROPE, REAR WINDOW, & VERTIGO. Though his private eye character here is dumber and greedier than his later P.I. portrayal for VERTIGO, at least Guy in WORLD doesn't make love to his client's wife. And Guy is only half as bad as Stewart's misanthrope professor in ROPE, since Guy's merely a misogynist. The same can be said for Stewart's characters' treatment of their volunteer female sleuths, as Princess Grace must do ALL the dirty work in REAR WINDOW, whereas Guy allows his WORLD co-star Claudette Colbert (as poetess Edwina) to do only HALF the fighting in this film. Still, the chemistry between Stewart and Colbert seems a catalyst short, and the overall tone of this flick is uneven at best. Made by MGM around the same time as the WIZARD OF OZ, Colbert's line to Stewart, "From one wizard to another," is a double reference to the greater film, echoing Wizard Frank Morgan's "from one dog to another" comment as Toto steals his hot dog in the black & white prologue of that movie.