John Cromwell's Double Harness may seem an improbable comedic subject, its story steeped in marital guilt and impending divorce, as well as lots of implied infidelities (which clearly places it very much before time when the Production Code took over Hollywood) -- but it works all the better for those improbabilities. Cromwell, a Broadway veteran brought to Hollywood when talkies came in to deal with the new need for spoken dialogue, shows himself to be one of the coolest, smoothest cinematic hands of the era in this sophisticated romantic comedy/drama -- his camera is always on the move, and the performances he gets out of a top-notch cast are the equal of the best theater work of the era, without ever seem stagey or artificial. Ann Harding gives the kind of performance that she may have made look too easy for her own good, as a loving but guilt-driven wife who manages to maintain a sardonic detachment and cheerfulness -- reminiscent in some ways of the kind of work that Eve Arden would turn in more broadly at the other end of the decade -- even in the face of impending personal disaster; and William Powell, working with a bit more of a sharp edge than his better-known performances at MGM a little later in decade, makes a charming wastral, who laughs perhaps a little too easily at himself and his life for his own good. The beauty of this movie is that across eight decades since it was made, these and most of the other actors are totally convincing in their roles and their characters are sufficiently complex to be totally involving -- all of that, and Cromwell's juggling act balancing the comedy and the drama, and the highly skilled and animated camera work and editing, help Double Harness remain a highly entertaining and rewarding viewing experience some three generations hence. Sadly, Double Harness, except for a very brief time on New York television in the second half of the 1950's, went unseen from the time of its original release in 1933 until 2007, some 74 years later; although it was made at and originally distributed by RKO, this movie -- along with five others from the 1930's -- became the property of executive producer Merian C. Cooper, and simply disappeared from distribution until the people at Turner Classic Movies began doing some detective work, and cleared a lot of legal obstacles. In February of 2007, Double Harness was shown publicly for the first time in over seven decades at New York's Film Forum to sell-out audiences, and was introduced on the day of its twenty-first century premiere by James Cromwell, the Oscar-nominated actor-son of director John Cromwell.
by Bruce Eder
review
