Meet the Missus (1937) Poster

(1937)

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5/10
Nothing Great But Worth a Look
utgard1426 May 2014
Victor Moore plays Otis Foster, the henpecked barber husband of Emma (Helen Broderick), who is always entering contests. She manages to become a finalist in a contest to determine "Mrs. America," the model American housewife. The winner of the contest is determined by the best homemaker. The problem is Emma can't cook, clean, or do anything around the house. Her poor husband Otis does all of that at home. So Emma schemes to win the contest by having Otis do all the work for her.

Good chemistry between vets Moore and Broderick. Beautiful Anne Shirley plays their daughter. Sadly, she's largely wasted here. See Anne of Green Gables or Chatterbox for how good she can be with comedy. Here she's stuck as the romantic subplot with handsome Alan Bruce. They make a pleasant couple and don't detract from things, but I wish she had been given more to work with. All in all, it's a nice little B comedy. Nothing I would go out of my way to see again but worth watching once.
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7/10
Innocuous, Silly Fun
reader430 June 2010
This movie is actually a satire of the Miss America Pageant, although it's rather heavily disguised, especially at the beginning.

Victor Moore has the lead in this movie, a situation I don't think I've ever encountered before. He is the perfect model of a henpecked husband. In addition to providing for his wife and daughter in his job as a barber, he must do all the cooking and housework while his wife spends all her time entering contests and sweepstakes.

She finally hits pay dirt when the Happy Noodle Company selects her as a finalist in its Mrs. America contest. She and Otis must go to Atlantic City for the finals. The irony is that she can't cook or even make a bed, but the contest is determined by how well the contestants can do these things. So of course the unwilling Otis has to bail her out, time and time again.

I wouldn't exactly call them plot twists, but a lot of unexpected things happen as Emma heads towards victory and Otis grows more and more resentful, finally actually becoming assertive! (I wonder if Elmer Fudd was inspired by this character?)

The parodying of Miss America intensifies towards the end, culminating in Moore prancing around in an old-fashioned striped one-piece bathing suit! That one scene is worth the price of admission.

There is actual comedic "chemistry" between Moore and the acerbic harridan played by Helen Broderick. They play very well off each other, trading off which is the "straight man" at the moment.

The romantic subplot is handled better than such things usually are by Anne Shirley and Alan Bruce.

Needless to say, everything comes out right in the end, although not for the reason you would expect. A harmless, enjoyable and rather mindless way to spend an hour.
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5/10
Meet the Missus, Ignore the Mister.
mark.waltz9 April 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Tired of her hum-drum housewife life, Helen Broderick spends every waking free moment of her existence involved in trying to win one contest or another, sometimes to the consternation of her sometimes in the shadows husband (the adorable Victor Moore). The contest she desperately wants to win concerns "Happy Noodles Soup", and this takes Broderick and Moore to Atlantic City where, in typical early sitcom fashion, lots of amusing things happen as Moore proves himself more the homemaker and Broderick simply lousy at making a bed. This doesn't sit well with their daughter (Anne Shirley, who got an Oscar Nomination the same year for "Stella Dallas") who thinks this is beneath them, but uses the situation to finds romance. Moore, who hates "Happy Noodles", uses the situation to try to find a little fun outside of his regular life as a barber, but thanks to Broderick's pragmatic thinking, avoids getting into trouble until he convinces the beleaguered husbands to get revenge against their social climbing wives.

Moore and Broderick, teamed together the previous year with Astaire and Rogers in "Swing Time", have a nice, if amusingly antagonistic, chemistry together, and play off each other's temperaments perfectly. They got together one more time the very same year for "We're on the Jury", and proved that you don't have to be young and beautiful to headline a story. RKO programmers like this were amusing second features which paved the way for television sitcoms in the 1950's. Broderick, one of the great wise-crackers of the 1930's, has a magnetic smile, and Moore, with that sad old dog look of his, gets laughs just by opening his mouth and sighing. The sight of Moore in an old fashioned men's bathing suit being measured as a contestant in the "Mr. America" contest is hysterical, as is the men's march they do to stick their thumb to their nose against the ultra proud wives. Shirley really has little to do, tossed in for some young box office assurance, but Moore and Broderick would have gotten laughs and won over the younger crowd even without her.
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7/10
You really have to feel sorry for poor old Otis!
planktonrules2 September 2023
Otis (Victor Moore) is married to a rather terrible wife, Emma (Helen Broderick). After all, he works a regular job and she expects him to come home each day and do ALL the housework! But mousy Otis puts up with it and is a dandy 'housewife'. So what does Emma do with most of her time? She listens to the radio and enters all sorts of contests...something that has NEVER paid out in the least. One day, however, she is picked to be a finalist for a contest put on by a noodle company. What is the contest? To find the best housewife in America! And, despite being pretty worthless in that department, she gets poor old Otis to do most of the work to help her win the contest. But eventually, even the mild-mannered Otis has had enough...enough of her lying and taking the credit for all of his hard work. Where does this go next? See for yourself!

The movie is, I admit, a bit uneven. The first portion is just okay...but it does get better and the swimming suit portion near the end is a real hoot! Well worth seeing because Moore and Broderick are terrific...and the script is much better than you'd expect from a B-movie.
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6/10
Mr. Mom
SnoopyStyle30 September 2023
Otis Foster (Victor Moore) is a barber college professor. His wife Emma Foster (Helen Broderick) is obsessed with coupons and contests. He's tired of noodles, noodles, noodles. That's when the noodles company calls. She's been invited to Atlantic City to compete in the Mrs. America contest for the $10k grand prize. It turns out that he does the cooking and all the house work. Louise Foster (Anne Shirley) is their daughter.

I can't tell if they actually love each other. I'm not saying that they hate each other. They need an early scene where their love is definitive. I really like the house work switcharoo idea. I just think that the premise would work better if they are more committed to each other. The movie generates more comedy in the second half. It's harmless and the Mr. Mom idea is almost forward thinking.
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5/10
Charmed, I'm Sure
boblipton30 September 2023
Barber Victor Moore is married to Helen Broderick. She is so addicted to radio competition, she never has time to do any housework, leaving it to Moore. She never wins any of these competition, but finally is a finalist in one, earning her and Moore a trip to Atlantic City, where she will compete to be proclaimed the greatest home maker in the United States.

Moore brings his mild-mannered persona covering a temper to this movie, while Miss Broderick swans around. Most of the humor concerns the stratagems employed to get Moore to do the work required, although there are subplots with attempts to fix the competition, and Moore's encounter with a stripper.

It's a mild little second feature that depends on the comedic abilities of its two lead. With Anne Shirley and Willie Best.
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