The Awful Truth (1937)

A husband (Cary Grant) arrives home from a trip to Florida (where he really wasn't) and finds his wife (Irene Dunne) not at home. When she arrives in the morning in an evening gown with her music teacher (Alexander D'Arcy) and states his car broke down and they were forced to spend the night in the country. Neither believes the other and the result is divorce. But there's an impediment to the divorce ... they still love each other. I'll make no bones about it, this is my all time favorite screwball comedy! Everything falls into place and it's one of those rare films that are just about perfect. Grant had come into his own earlier in the year with TOPPER but this is the first where he's the Cary Grant that made him one of Hollywood's legendary Stars. Dunne is one of the screen's crackerjack comediennes and she gets the opportunity to put aside her innate elegance and do a hilarious spin as Grant's tawdry "sister". Throw in Ralph Bellamy (in an Oscar nominated performance) as Dunne's Oklahoma yokel boyfriend and that prince of canine thespians, Asta and you've got sheer bliss. Directed by Leo McCarey, who won the best director Oscar for his work here. Also in the cast: Cecil Cunningham, Esther Dale and Joyce Compton as a Southern belle who does a nightclub act with a wind machine under her skirt.