LOVE NEST

US, 1951, 84 minutes, Black and white.
June Haver, William Lundigan, Frank Fay, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Paar.
Directed by Joseph M. Newman.

A short American domestic comedy whose name is more titillating than the film itself! June Haver and William Lundigan were top stars at 20th Century Fox in the forties and early fifties and are at home in this kind of domestic comedy. Frank Fay is a very entertaining comedian and presents a charming con man with overtones of W.C. Fields. He steal the show. T.V. comedian Jack Parr has a small role. So does Marilyn Monroe and one can note the comic talent as well as the emphasis on sex that was to be the trade mark of her films. The film was written by I.A.L. Diamond who was to collaborate over several decades with Billy Wilder. His ironic and humorous dialogue is evident here, especially in some of the comments by Frank Fay. Negligible but entertaining and an influence on American T.V. series and situation comedies.

1. The appeal of such American domestic comedy? Its transition to the television world? The main basic ingredients?

2. The black and white photography, New York locations and atmosphere, the stars? Marilyn Monroe's impact in the small role?

3. The quality of the screen play, the basic situations and their ordinariness and their irony? The various sub-plots and the way theme are interwoven?

4. The atmosphere of the forties: the war, the return home from the war, marriages starting afresh? The perspective of the late forties?

5. Domestic romance and comedy? The characters of Jim and Connie? Jim and his role in the war, Paris, Bobby, his writing, trying to be a handyman, preoccupation with money, with his marriage? Connie as the typical American housewife, managing with the apartments, her mistakes, her curiosity about Charlie, the failures in the marriage? The presentation of the house, the neighbours?

6. The portrait of the various neighbours and the irony, the softness in the American character, hard streaks?

7. The portrait of Charlie with his charm, leaving the initial apartment, the quality of his dialogue and his attractiveness to the ladies, his plans for money, his keeping of accounts? The F.B.I. investigation? Connie and Jim seeing him in action at the restaurant? The genuineness of his romance and wedding? The arrest, the irony of the book, the twins as finale? The ironies of the American con man and his charm?

8. Roberta and Ed? A romantic sub-plot with innuendo?

9. The stereotypes of characters, situations, American values? How attractive and entertaining? How have they changed over the decades, remained the same?