Don't Tell the Wife

Now strongly associated with the Warner Bros. stock company, the portly and jovial actor Guy Kibbee is best remembered as a gullible sugar daddy in 42nd Street and a colonial governor in Captain Blood. But Kibbee also had a starring run in comedies for RKO. In the 1940s the studio featured him in a series of "Scattergood Baines" films, as a country philosopher with an adage for every occasion. Sourced from a play called Once over Lightly, 1937's Don't Tell the Wife is a farce about city slickers, country bumpkins and a stock market swindle. Retired racketeer Steve Dorsey (Lynne Overman), can't resist re-teaming with his former gang to sell worthless gold mine shares. To convince his wife Nancy (Una Merkel) to let him invest their jointly owned savings, he fakes an endorsement from a non-existent tycoon called "Wall Street Winthrop." Tasked to produce the man in the flesh, the gang locates Yonkers newspaper editor Malcolm J. Winthrop, a gullible innocent, and draws him into the scheme as their patsy. But Malcolm turns out to be more financially savvy than the crooks give him credit for. Don't Tell the Wife compensates for its unoriginal storyline with sprightly performances. The animated Kibbee receives strong support from the delightful Una Merkel but also colorful contributions from William Demarest and Lucille Ball. Dimwitted gang member Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams handles the low slapstick. The director Christy Cabanne began his career behind the camera as an assistant to D.W. Griffith. Cabanne turned out quality work at a breakneck pace; in 1937 alone he directed eight feature films.

By Glenn Erickson