Review of Unfinished Business

Any picture which brings Irene Dunne and Robert Montgomery together, with direction by Gregory La Cava has something to recommend it. Right? There is some charm and humor here but it's as if the whole project can't make up its mind and the dramatic elements flirt with dare I say it – the unhappy ending. SPOILERS: It is nice to see lovely Miss Dunne (but as a spinster?) and the worldly Mr. Montgomery toss witty and pithy observations as if they didn't care only to marry on the day they meet? It is fun to have Eugene Palette mixing in as a blunt butler, speaking his mind now and then. And it is good to know that their happiness is assured in the end, if they'd just get out of their own proud ways. But this oddly "Unfinished Business," in which they are so desperately involved, is something to tax the believability of even the most open mind. For it makes the assumption that an innocent girl from the Ohio sticks could be so emotionally impressed by a Pullman-car romance with a sleek sportsman that her subsequent marriage with the same fellow's brother would be badly jeopardized thereby. Furthermore, it assumes that the brother would be such a dolt that a term of army service and a chance to clip his fraternal rival on the jaw would clear his mind of all doubts. In brief, like many another picture, it makes a romantic plot but not much sense. Under the circumstances, the actors do well. Miss Dunne, even though she must combine the naïveté of Cinderella with the devastating wit of a Dorothy Parker, is charming; Mr. Montgomery, as the slobbering playboy is nice. And Mr. Palette, Preston Foster, Walter Catlett and several others round out a good cast. Mr. La Cava has done a lot to disguise a foolish script with glib action, but the trick doesn't quite come off. The unfinished business here lies dead in someone's typewriter.