Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Lack of good storyline.

Excellent, a Must See

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Since I watched her in the Hitchcock film, "The 39 Steps (1935), I have admired Madeleine for her cool blond, sophisticated skill as an actress. "Honeymoon in Bali" was a very enjoyable film which did not telegraph its ending until the final scene, a tribute to the intelligent screenplay and writer.In some ways the plot is modern despite it being over 70 years old.There are still many career girls working in New York who are bright, but are emotionally lonely and always on the lookout for "Mr Right", I worked for an American Bank and met quite a few bright American girls in our London office (and was even propositioned by one).Madeleine Carroll is her own boss and has a highly successful well paid career and is loath to surrender it all up for a mere man!She has the sophisticated NYK accent off pat and plays her bright, intelligent and attractive self.Love comes knocking in the shape of Fred MacMurray whom she meets in an expensive boat showroom in the heart of Manhattan.Madeleine has a best friend (Helen Broderick) who incautiously reminds her that her opera singing boyfriend (Allan Jones) has not put enough candles on the cake.The singing telegram scene is flat and without emotion despite Allan Jones giving an operatic version of "Happy Birthday".You sense Madeleine needs emotional fulfillment at this point.As to the candle discrepancy, in a bit of repartee worthy of Oscar Wilde, Madeleine retorts,"I always think one shouldn't have people around you know for too long".Fred is the legal guardian of a little girl and asks whether Madeleine would temporarily look after her, but Madeleine must put her career first.Fred has worked in Bali and has a platonic relationship with a foreign girl who is already contemplating marriage to him.A window cleaner played by Akim Tamiroff cleans Madeleine's office windows and appears something of a philosopher who rates Fred but not Allan Jones.Gradually Madeleine becomes emotionally attached to Fred's little girl and even treks to his home in Bali when she realises she really loves him.Although we cannot have a sad ending, in a denouement worthy of the great Jane Austen herself, the film ends leaving us with a feel-good factor, (although we are kept guessing right up to its end).A triumph for the great Madeleine Carroll sufficient to make Robert Donat really jealous!!

Can't you see them on Bali when the war in the Pacific heats up? Does our hero join the US military and leave, or stay on Bali to help in the defense? Do his wife and little girl flee successfully or get captured? There would be the big reunion scene where he is injured but still the same fellow no matter what the war has done to him externally. I can hardly watch a Pacific island movie in that era without picturing gunships and islands soon to be overrun by soldiers.I liked the little girl. Her not being able to sing the ditty right was a cute answer to Shirley Temple's extreme acumen. But kids in movies are a matter of taste.The part about a woman without a husband and child being like someone missing an arm was grim and insulting to her friend who was single and childless. What the priest and the window washer said, though, was quite good. In the Forties the message would be much more in favor of strong independent women, but during the war, movies didn't want to discourage Rosie the Riveter from performing her duties.On the whole I'd have to say some of it was good, some awful, and all of it predictable. The French woman and the window washer were the only characters I found interesting. What a plot device! Laying the movie out in the first few minutes with a psychic reading. Talk about a spoiler! And the little girl was just sort of thrown into the storyline without any preparation or foundation for her being there except as a way to show that a real woman is emotional and motherly. Of course women and men actually come in many variations. I think the movie tried to engage in a discussion of male and female roles in society and failed miserably because it was the same old story of a bossy repressed woman dominated by a strong unrepressed man who takes her from her career and turns her into a wife and mother, which is her happy ending. It makes me long for His Gal Friday, out the next year in 1940.

Back in the days of the New Deal, America's effort to deal with the Depression, the movies were a way of escaping your problems. Films like Honeymoon in Bali were just what people wanted to see. The women in the audience certainly envied Madeleine Carroll who got to go to Bali in pursuit of Fred MacMurray.A similar film had been done the year before, Joy of Living, with Irene Dunne leaving New York and the theater to sail off to the South Seas with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. A nice group of songs by Jerome Kern were also in the score for Irene to sing.Honeymoon in Bali also had some real nice singing in the person of Allan Jones. He was part of a trade with Universal studios who got the services of Bing Crosby for two of their films. Jones is only in support here, he's a rival of MacMurray for Dunne. He plays a tenor with the Metropolitan Opera and gets to sing O Paradiso from L'Africana by Meyerbeer. He also sings Happy Birthday with singing telegraph boy Bennie Bartlett.This film is typical work for Fred MacMurray, the light leading man in many Paramount comedies. He was more often teamed with Carole Lombard during this period, but Madeleine Carroll was every bit the able substitute for Lombard. I do get the feeling that this film may have originally been written with Lombard in mind. There's also a very droll performance by Akim Tamiroff as the wise and philosophical window washer.Honeymoon in Bali is a very nice escapist type film that still holds up well today. What woman wouldn't want to spend their lives in Bali away from the stress of civilization with Fred MacMurray.

I also found this movie at a $1.00 bin. What a beautiful surprise! The movie was quick,romantic,funny,with an intelligent plot. The characters were all individually unique, from the window washer,fortune teller, to the singing telegram boy. I love little Rosie so much in this movie I tried looking up her biography. The emotion conveyed in this movie lead me to watch it over and over again. Each scene can stand alone. The intrigue with the fortune teller's predictions, Allan Jones' voice was marvelous. Fred MacMurray's acting continues to amaze me. His character has such sex appeal and magnetism. It makes me wonder how many of these movies are out there that haven't been seen.