Too Many Wives (1937)

• 56%
• 1937
• Comedy
• Ben Holmes
• Anne Shirley
• John Morley
• Gene Lockhart

Betty Jackson, a socialite, and Barry Trent are attracted to each other upon first sight. They met running into each other in the park as they walked their respective dogs day after day. Betty doesn't know what Barry does for a living, but because he has different dogs on each walk, he implies he works in his family's dog breeding business. In reality, he is a poor dog walker, he only doing this job as he, a recent journalism graduate, can't get a job as a reporter, despite he constantly at the offices of the Evening Star newspaper trying to work his way into speak to the editor/publisher, Horace Mansfield, about that job. Although Mansfield tells him that there are no reporter jobs available at the newspaper, Barry is able to convince Mansfield to hire him in another capacity: as the fall guy. Whenever a disgruntled subject of a story or article comes into complain to Mansfield and to have the head of the person who wrote the story or article, Mansfield trots out Barry as the author, who, using his charms, is able not only to placate the disgruntled subject, but have that person feel sorry enough for him not to have him fired. Mansfield comes up with a further back story for Barry to be married with a child, so that the disgruntled person will feel even more sorry for Barry. Part of Barry's employment is not to tell anyone about the nature of his job. Problems arise when one of those disgruntled subjects is Winfield Jackson, Betty's father, she who accompanies her father into the newspaper office and meets "married" Barry. Further complications ensue as Barry tries to win back Betty without divulging the nature of his work, all the while Betty, her father and others within their circle make wildly inaccurate assumptions about his life, and others stand to benefit from perpetuating the lie that Barry is indeed married.