Ostensibly set in Greenwich Village but actually never leaving the confines of Eagle-Lion's studios, OUT OF THE BLUE's basic plot-line adumbrates better-known comedies such as THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH and THE ODD COUPLE. Arthur Earthleigh (George Brent), a put-upon husband, has to fend for himself while his spouse Mae (Carole Landis) goes away for the weekend. He encounters serial drunk Olive (Ann Dvorak) in a club, takes her back home but finds his adulterous dreams frustrated by a combination of conscience and drunkenness. Meanwhile his neighbor David (Turhan Bey) appears to be continuing his career as a serial womanizer with dog-breeder Deborah (Virginia Mayo), but his romantic dreams are frustrated by Olive.
Leigh Jason's production is distinguished by contrasting performances. Once Warner Brothers' leading man but now sporting middle-aged spread, Brent is quite happy to play the well-meaning but clueless husband led a merry amatory dance by Olive, apparently unable to cope with rapidly changing situations. Turhan Bey acts the sophisticate, dressed in a white tuxedo and showing his perfect manners to Mayo - while successfully seducing her - but even he has no real answer to Olive's machinations. Ann Dvorak enjoys herself with a madcap role as Olive, as she sups vast quantities of brandy and flops lifelessly down on the sofa in a series of drunken stupors.
Playing a couple of old women reminiscent of those in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (released three years previously), Julia Dean and Elizabeth Patterson have great fun playing cards but showing far more interest in their neighbors' affairs. It's clear that in this tight-knit Greenwich Village society - where an unidentified murder is on the prowl - everything that happens is everyone else's business.
Needless to say the comedy ends happily with Brent reasserting patriarchal authority over his wife Mae, while Deborah establishes mastery (or should it be mistressy) over Turhan Bey's David, even though such authority is only skin-deep.
Leigh Jason's production is distinguished by contrasting performances. Once Warner Brothers' leading man but now sporting middle-aged spread, Brent is quite happy to play the well-meaning but clueless husband led a merry amatory dance by Olive, apparently unable to cope with rapidly changing situations. Turhan Bey acts the sophisticate, dressed in a white tuxedo and showing his perfect manners to Mayo - while successfully seducing her - but even he has no real answer to Olive's machinations. Ann Dvorak enjoys herself with a madcap role as Olive, as she sups vast quantities of brandy and flops lifelessly down on the sofa in a series of drunken stupors.
Playing a couple of old women reminiscent of those in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (released three years previously), Julia Dean and Elizabeth Patterson have great fun playing cards but showing far more interest in their neighbors' affairs. It's clear that in this tight-knit Greenwich Village society - where an unidentified murder is on the prowl - everything that happens is everyone else's business.
Needless to say the comedy ends happily with Brent reasserting patriarchal authority over his wife Mae, while Deborah establishes mastery (or should it be mistressy) over Turhan Bey's David, even though such authority is only skin-deep.