AllMovie

Coincidentally, Warner Bros. contractee Jane Wyman made her starring debut in the same year as her husband-to-be Ronald Reagan. In Public Wedding, Wyman plays Flip Lane, one of five young and healthy carnival workers. Broke and jobless, the five "carnies" concoct a publicity stunt to get work: a phony wedding, staged in the mouth of a stuffed whale. Flip is chosen to be the bride, while Tony Burke (William Hopper) is selected as the groom. The fun begins when Flip and Tony, between whom no love is lost, discover that they're really married after all. Without the benefit of foresight, critics in 1937 had no way of knowing that pert little Jane Wyman would one day win an Academy Award, so they lavished their praise on "dumb-blonde" supporting player Marie Wilson (then the wife of Nick Grinde, the film's director).