When contract stars Barbara Hale and Bill Williams decided to get married in 1946, their studio, RKO, didn't just send a nice gift. It cast them opposite each other in this decidedly offbeat attempt to revive the screwball comedy. Williams is a veteran suffering from PTSD who's about to throw himself off a bridge, where he bumps into failed artist Hale. Instead of jumping, he falls in love. Trying to boost her career, he gets mixed up with gangster Nestor Paiva, who keeps trying to bump him off. Contemporary audiences weren't buying it, and the film lost money. The studio teamed them in one more picture, the film noir The Clay Pidgeon (1949), but with RKO's fortunes fading, the couple would find more success on television, Williams in the title role of The Adventures of Kit Carson, and Hale as secretary Della Street on Perry Mason, which brought her an Emmy in 1959. Today, A Likely Story is of special interest to their fans, offering a rare chance to see the husband-and-wife team playing the dawn of a romance just as their own love story was starting.

By Frank Miller