Come Live With Me. Clarence Brown. 1941.
This is another pro-immigration movie, with a refugee from Austria who’s being deported, and the very odd hi-jinx that ensue. (Which include her married boyfriend frittering and his wife (and her boyfriend) and you know.)
It’s obliquely making references to the Situation in Europe.
It’s very risque, and Verree Teasdale’s dialect is so perfectly mid-Atlantic that I would have taken this for a much earlier movie if I didn’t know better. And she’s wonderful.
I had a look at James Stewart’s imdb listing, and it’s empty after this film until 1946. So I thought, wha? They sent as famous people as James Stewart into the military? Not only that, but:
In October 1940, Stewart was drafted into the United States Army but was rejected for failing to meet the weight requirements for his height for new recruits—Stewart was 5 pounds (2.3 kg) under the standard. To get up to 143 pounds (65 kg), he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s muscle man and trainer Don Loomis, who was noted for his ability to help people gain or lose weight in his studio gymnasium.
He got in, became a fly boy, and finally convinced the powers that be that he should do real service and flew a number of raids.
I had no idea.
ANYWAY! You have to admire Hollywood movies like this: They have such clarity of vision. Instead of cluttering things up with extraneous characters and complications, they keep the focus on what matters: The love story, and how to bring the star-crossed lovers together for real, somehow.
Popular movies in January 1941 according to IMDB:
| Poster | Votes | Rating | Movie |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 11859 | 7.6 | High Sierra |
 | 3375 | 7.3 | Buck Privates |
 | 695 | 7.2 | The Face Behind the Mask |
 | 203 | 7.1 | Play Girl |
 | 1270 | 7.1 | Come Live with Me |
This blog post is part of the Decade series.