I Love You Again (1940)

For me, Myrna Loy is never better than when she's playing verbal volleyball with William Powell and I Love You Again is another fantastic demonstration of the pair's chemistry: chock full of sass and those droll one-liners that Loy and Powell both do so well.  

Released in 1940 by MGM Studios, the film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke (who directed Powell and Loy in the first four movies of The Thin Man series) and went on to be a big success. 

I Love You Again stars William Powell as stuffy, penny-pinching businessman Larry Wilson...at first.  The film opens at the bar on a vacation cruise and here we meet Larry, whose uptight personality has earned him quite a reputation with his fellow passengers, who call him Grape Juice Man in reference to his signature drink: ginger ale and grape juice.

On the last night of the cruise, an inebriated man named 'Doc' Ryan (Frank McHugh) hassles Larry for being too high-and-mighty to have a drink with him, but when Doc slips and falls into the ocean, Larry jumps in after him and winds up saving his life, taking an oar to the head while he's at it. 

   

The blow knocks him unconscious and when he comes to, Larry Wilson is no more.  Doc is there in his room with him, wishing to befriend the man who saved his life, but the two of them soon discover that he is not the same man that just rescued Doc from drowning.  

Larry Wilson is really George Carey, a suave conman who suffered amnesia for the past nine years after he took a blow to the head.  Unfortunately for George, he has no memory of his life as Larry Wilson - he doesn't know what he does for a living or even where he lives, but a quick glance at his bank account balance indicates that he has saved up a sizable chunk of money ripe for the taking.

So, in typical swindler fashion, he decides to go "home" to Habersville, New York and collect his money, which he agrees to share with Doc in exchange for his assistance in pulling it off. 

He doesn't count on the surprise waiting for him at the pier, though: turns out he's married to a beautiful woman named Kay (Myrna Loy) and he thinks it's his lucky day, but he soon finds out that he and his wife are separated and she is ready to make the separation legal.  So much so that she's already seeing other people.

George doesn't care all that much, at first.  After all, Kay is really Larry's wife, not George's, and he doesn't feel one way or the other about her or anyone else in Habersville.  All he wants is the money.  Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy and he learns that the hundred grand he thought was his is, in fact, money held in trust for community projects.  He only has a modest savings to call his own.

So George, ever the enterprising fellow, cooks up a scheme to bilk some of the town's wealthier men out of their money.  But when the best laid plans mix with the worst of intentions, George finds himself in spot after spot of trouble, all the while falling in love with his own wife.  

Will George go through with it or will he choose Larry's life over George's?

There are so many fantastic scenes in the film: George dancing with himself, Kay dumping eggs on George's head, George tramping through the woods with a troupe of reverent Boy Scouts.  William Powell is very funny as debonair George Carey, especially in scenes that put George out of his element.   Powell delivers his lines with perfect timing and inflection, but this role also showcases his skill as a physical comedian, which is an absolute treat.  

Myrna Loy is fantastic, as always.  She doesn't get as much screen time here as in some of her other pairings with Powell, but she is effective and engaging in every one of her scenes.  She is the perfect counterpart to Powell's character: wholly (and often humorously) unimpressed with George, who is using every trick in the book to win her back.  

The supporting cast is good.  Frank McHugh as Doc, George Carey's partner of sorts, is funny and gets a lot of good lines.  I enjoyed his performance a lot. The film also features Nella Walker as Kay's mother,  Donald Douglas as Kay's boyfriend and Edmund Lowe as the "villain of the piece".

I Love You Again is a wonderful film.  The story is original, fast-paced and immensely funny.  I love every minute of it.