This week’s mystery movie was the 1941 RKO picture “Father Takes a Wife,” with Adolph Menjou, Gloria Swanson, John Howard, Desi Arnaz, Helen Broderick, Florence Rice, Neil Hamilton, Grady Sutton, George Meader, Mary Treen and Ruth Dietrich. The screenplay was by Dorothy and Herbert Fields, the musical director was Roy Webb, photography by Robert de Grasse, art direction by Van Nest Polglase and Albert d’Agostino, Miss Swanson’s gowns by Rene Hubert, other wardrobe by Edward Stevenson, set decoration by Darrell Silvera, jewelry designed by Laykin and Co., dialogue director Peter Godfrey. Produced by Lee Marcus and directed by Jack Hively.
This was Swanson’s first movie since she retired from the screen after making “Music in the Air” in 1934. Her next film was “Sunset Boulevard.”
“Father Takes a Wife” is available on a Region 2 DVD from Amazon.
I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We’re at the point in the story when police have questioned Robert M. “ Red” Manley, the last person known to have been with Elizabeth Short.
ladailymirror.com 