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My Favorite Wife is a 1940 screwball comedy that tells the story of a woman returning home to her husband and children after being shipwrecked on a tropical island for seven years. It is a reworking of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'Enoch Arden'; in tribute, the main characters' last name is Arden. Garson Kanin directed.
20th Century Fox began filming a 1962 remake starring Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin under the working title of Something's Got to Give, which was to be directed by George Cukor. There were problems from the beginning, most involving Monroe's failure to make her shooting schedule. Monroe was released and Martin backed out when the studio attempted to recast the role. Following Monroe's death in August, 1962, Doris Day and James Garner were cast; the inferior version debuted in 1963 as Move Over, Darling.
Synopsis
Ellen Wagstaff Arden (Irene Dunne) returns to her beloved husband Nick (Cary Grant), just as he has her declared legally dead (seven years being the minimum period required), so he can marry the high strung Bianca (Gail Patrick). Ellen reaches Nick just before he embarks on his honeymoon. Further complications ensue when Nick discovers that the virile Stephen Beckett (Randolph Scott, Grant's longtime housemate in real life) was alone with Ellen on the island all those years.
External links
"My Favorite Wife"