The More the Merrier

Really funny movie! Joel McCrea, Jea Arthur and Charles Coburn are hilarious. It's very entertaining and always cheers me up!

Love this movie. Love the cast.

At the height of World War II there was an acute housing shortage in our nation's capital. Being the patriotic sort Constance Milligan (Jean Arthur) decided to do what thousands of other Washingtonians did during those hectic years.....sublet her apartment. She put a small ad in the local newspaper and dozens of folks showed up on her doorstep to inquire. Now Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) was a retired millionaire who was in town to advise government officials on how to ease the housing crunch and paradoxically found himself without a place to stay. Mr. Dingle also saw Constance Milligan's ad in the paper and through a combination of deception, persistence and persusion was able to finagle his way into sharing this apartment against the better judgement of his landlady. Constance's instincts were dead on. Dingle would prove to be a meddling old busybody and a constant thorn in her side. George Stevens' 1943 madcap comedy "The More The Merrier" tells the hilarious story just what happened over the next few days. And in the end Constance Milligan would get more than she bargained for....much more!Benjamin Dingle had barely settled into his half of the apartment when he started asking Constance some pretty personal questions. She had just recorded the following entry into her diary: "Wednesday... just rented half of apartment to funny old man named Dingle. At least someone around to break the silence." It seems as though Dingle had sized up his new roommate pretty quickly and fairly accurately. He wondered why Constance was not married and opined that she should hook up with "a high type, clean-cut young fellow". Then Dingle asked her if she kept a diary. She answered with an emphatic "No!". To which Mr. DIngle replied "There are two kinds of people Miss Milligan. Those who don't do what they want to do so they write down in a diary about what they haven't done and those who are too busy to write about it because they are out doing it." Ouch! The plot thickens the next day when one of those them there "high type, clean cut young fellows" shows up looking for a place to stay. Dingle takes matters into his own hands and sublets his half of the apartment to a soldier named Sergeant Joe Carter (Joel McCrea) who is in town for just a few days before shipping out to an overseas assignment. And as you might expect all hell breaks loose when Constance learns of this arrangement. After she catches Dingle reading her diary she tosses him out on his ear but winds up agreeing to let Joe Carter stay for just a few more days. It turns out Benjamin Dingle was right. Sparks fly and Joe and Connie fall in love."The More The Merrier" turns out to be yet another extremely entertaining film from Hollywood's Golden Age. Once again, Jean Arthur turns in a stellar performance. I could not take me eyes off her. She really is the classic "girl next door" and I have become a huge fan over the past few years. I now own most of the films she appeared in. Charles Coburn is delightful as Dingle and Joel McCrea does a workmanlike job in the role of Joe Carter. If you love films from this era you will certainly enjoy "The More The Merrier". Highly recommended!

Clear,love story, kinda silly but enjoyable.

Written with the wonderful Jean Arthur in mind, this warm and often funny take on the housing and male shortage during WWII has a perfect cast and a romantic charm all its own. Charles Coburn won an Academy Award in support of Arthur and McCrea, who gives another of his very fine but often overlooked performances from the 1940's.Unlike the bold and zany tilt of Carole Lombard or the swanky sophistication of Constance Bennett, Arthur's magic in comedy was her serious reactions to often very funny situations. She was more down-to-earth than many other contemporaries and there was almost a Chaplinesque pathos, if you will, to some of her best performances. The viewer might know everything was going to turn out okay for her, but Arthur's characters always seemed to have their doubts, their happiness hanging by a very precarious, though often very funny, thread.What Lombard and Arthur did have in common, at least in "The More the Merrier," was Lombard's photographer, Ted Tetzlaff. Director George Stevens brought out her vulnerability while Lombard's favorite cinematographer gave the audience glimpses of Arthur's more subdued but still palpable "wow" factor. It may have been only a fleeting glance, as in the rooftop beach scene, but it was certainly there, even if she joined Claudette Colbert in not exploiting it.Here Jean Arthur is Constance Milligan, a working girl in Washington doing her patriotic duty during wartime by renting out a portion of her apartment. But the girl she'd had in mind instead turns out to be the hilariously pushy Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn). Dingle is a hoot trying to stick to Constance's rigid by-the-second schedule for everything. When he rents out half of his space and decides to play matchmaker, the film takes on a charm all its very own.Joel McCrea is terrific as regular guy Joe Carter, about to head for Africa courtesy of Uncle Sam. He makes seal noises in the shower and is half the train trying to stick to Connie's schedule; choo choo sounds included! When Dingle discovers she's been engaged for a very long time to someone she doesn't even love, he goes full speed ahead trying to soften her heart in Joe's direction.Her gradual submission to her own feelings for Joe is highlighted by his charming and tender confession of love for her and proposal of marriage through the partition which separates their living quarters. The stars are both warm and real here, making for a memorably touching scene not easily forgotten by romantics.A kicked-out Dingle won't be deterred from what he knows is best for both of them. When propriety gets in the way, the sly Dingle nudges them towards each other where they belong. They make a fabulous threesome in this true film classic. You won't want to miss Coburn and McCrea reading Dick Tracy on the "beach" while a distracting Arthur, in high heels none the less, gets a tan. A marvelous reminder of just why we love the movies.

This movie actually made me laugh out loud. It was fun to watch.

A fun little movie. I’d recommend to my friends

MY movie DVD cover came damaged,pices broken off. Lucky the disc was not broken.

I honestly love this movie! It isn't just fun, but it also has such great charm. I love George Stevens movies, and his comedies were something special. I love his dramas as well, but his comedies are so great. Woman of the Year is one of my favorite movies! And this is another favorite. Jean Arthur is the great talent that she is, always great. This is only one of the two movies that I ever saw with Joel McCrea, but hey, he's so handsome and he could sure play along with Jean Arthur. Cogburn is such a great character actor, he's so great in comedies too! Well, what more can you say than, a great war-time comedy? I loved it!

While I love romantic comedies from the Classic Era, as well as Stevens as director, and Arthur and McCrea as actors, and had high expectations for this, I still found it a bit forced. Character motivations weren't always understood, and there was little chemistry between the leads. Stevens rushed making this, as he was off to war.However, I'll still give it four stars, as the copy itself was excellent, and the delivery service was quick, as it arrived well within schedule.

I'm grateful to my sister for recommending this movie to me. This item was well packaged, as described and arrived in a timely manner. Jean Arthur was one of the finest actresses of her day and she has the wonderful Charles Coburn to heap up the laughs as her co-star again (as in 'The Devil And Miss Jones').

A really enjoyable film with my favourite actress

agreable picture