I started watching this 1941 film on TCM and as I got 10 minutes in I thought, “Have I seen this before?” Finally, I looked it up and realized it was a remake of Goodbye again (see previous blogs).
Ken Bixby (George Brent) is a successful author and former playboy getting ready to marry his secretary Anne Rogers (Ann Sheridan) when a young woman (Osa Massen) shows up at their hotel claiming to be the muse of his bestseller. Although Bixby doesn’t remember this Julie ,who is now married, but still pines for Bixby, his ego and curiosity gets the better of him. As he spends the day with Julie while her cousins (which includes a young Jane Wyman) beg Anne to stop any scandals from occurring. By the way, I want to punch Wyman’s husband in the movie so badly. He’s a condescending moron who needs a good smack. Anne seems to agree with me as she tears up his business card with force. Then Julie’s husband, Harvey (Charlie Ruggles), shows up to get a look at Bixby. Anne spends the day trying to distract Harvey as Bixby cancels his book engagements to be with Julie. All of this leads to miscommunications and court subpoenas.
As a famous writer, Bixby has hotel maids stealing copies of his book and fans waiting to see him in the lobby including a woman who named her baby after him. Anne helps him dodge most of these annoyances while trying to keep him down to earth. As his secretary, she is also one of his editors and when he tries to quote her from it, she has the great line, “That in total, is the love scene from page 77 of' ‘Silent Woods’. I typed it. . . You worked three days polishing that speech and it still sounded phony.” She has a larger vocabulary than him and states the typing for him is enough punishment in her life.