The Mad Monk Of Music-Preston Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours   

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Unfaithfully Yours, starring Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, 1948

Those readers familiar with my music, book and film reviews in this space know that when I come across musicians, authors and movies that I go crazy over I tend to go out and grab every available other piece of material done by them. So in a short period of time, for example, you would get maybe ten reviews running of the legendary hard-boiled detection writer Dashiell Hammett’s work (and maybe more for older work as some previously unknown work like some of Hammett’s very early writing see the light of day whether they should have or not). Right now I am “hot” on the trail of the “king” of the 1930s and 1940s romantic screwball comedy writers and directors Preston Sturges after having viewed his classic Sullivan’s Travels with Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake (she of that then 1940s fashionable tuff of hair hanging over the right eye). The film under review, Unfaithfully Yours, and as time goes on will be true of other Sturges’ efforts, not in the same league as the formerly mentioned film, had a fine performance by lead actor Rex Harrison and enough subtle and witty dialogue to, well, fill a concert hall.    

That concert hall reference is no accidental remark since this film centers on the ups and downs of a world famous English conductor, Sir Alfred, played with dry wit by Mister Harrison who having arrived back in the States after a tour of his native England is given confidential information that his much younger wife, Daphne, played by Linda Darnell, has been having an “affair” with his younger male secretary. Of course the theme of the older man-younger women, the theme of intergenerational sex to put it plainly, has a long history, a long history of suspicion and wonder, wonder on the part of the older man about whether he can keep up with the younger set. Whether a younger man will cut his time. That situation is the case here as well. The twist: the information gathered by Sir Alfred’s brother-in-law who was married to Daphne’s sister gathered by a hired private investigator was erroneous, had been based on “appearances being deceiving” information a well-worn literary and cinematic trick to move a plot along. The rest of the story hinges on resolving the how and what to do about the situation with that wrong information.               

Despite the erroneous information at the time before discovery of the real facts, despite all good sense, Sir Alfred began to believe the allegations against his “unfaithful wife.” Began to let that affect his conducting as well since his choice of musical performances for an upcoming important concert would descend into three separate pieces reflecting three separate ways in which he could resolve his problem. Three fantastic ways. The first one obviously a frame up murder which was plotted with the idea of letting the male secretary take the fall-and take the big step off as well. The second involved the modern concept being a man of the world, of letting fate take its course and wishing the couple well with a big check to keep them in the style Daphne had become accustomed to. Third, a theatrical act of despair at a world not worth living in without his Daphne and a bout of suicide via Russian roulette.    

But hold on a minute this is after all a romantic comedy, a black romantic comedy, a Sturges’ black comedy to boot, and so as Sir Alfred tried to really do Daphne in he is so incompetent that the whole thing turns into a comedy of errors, all three ways out of his dilemma way beyond his powers of commission, before he is told the error of his ways. That was how the deal went down, a little sophomoric, but the Sturges dialogue and clever interweaving of arcane social commentary make this one worth a watch if you can’t get hold of Sullivan’s Travels as a primer.