Masterful Movie

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

June Bride was not a big hit for Warner's at the time. Watching it now it seems no worse than many other films of it's type made during the late 1940's. The problem with the film is Robert Montgomery who in 1948 is way past his days playing dapper playboys or world weary correspondents. He looks old and tired in the film and he calls in the performance, there is no life to it. His chemistry with Bette is MIA, and poor Bette has to pull him along with both hands and deal with a sad script. Bette on the other hand looks great and she gives a good performance, again the only thing wrong here is the sappy script. The great supporting cast including Mary Wickes and Faye Bainter are wasted. The film is worth a watch but it is a weak Warner Bros production and Bette's second to last film for the studio.

Bette Davis proved in this film that she was certainly adept in comedy as well as her magnificent dramatic performances. She is not dominant in this film, but she matches co-star Robert Montgomery beautifully in this 1948 production.As a magazine editor, lusting for love with Montgomery, she gets her opportunity when he returns to the states following World War 11.The picture isn't only about the two of them. While covering a wedding in Indiana, Montgomery discovers that the bride-to-be is on the rebound from the groom's brother and he decides to rectify that.The picture must have been old home week for Bette. Her co-stars include Mary Wickes, the nurse in "Now, Voyager," (1942) and fellow Oscar winner for 1938's "Jezebel," Faye Bainter. Ironically, Barbara Bates appears briefly in the film. 2 years later she played the girl hot on the heels of Anne Baxter in "All About Eve."

Despite some humorous banter and a decent supporting cast, I can't really recommend this movie. The leads aren't very likable and I didn't particularly care if they got together in the end. I certainly didn't like the *way* they got together, with Bette Davis giving up her career to be the supportive wife & luggage-carrier for world-traveler Robert Montgomery.It's depressing to see films like this where strong, intelligent women are brought down so low, forced to beg the men who wronged *them* to take them back. Of course it's always the woman who has to change *her* ways, and turn off her brain. Ugh. Even the minor female characters are regretful spinsters, emphasizing this film's awful message - that all women really want to get married, and having a career is a poor substitute. By the way, I took an instant dislike to Montgomery when I first saw him in "Mr. And Mrs. Smith", and his performance in "June Bride" did nothing to alter my opinion. Did he *always* play a smug, sexist jerk who thinks he's God's gift to women (despite looking like a friggin' frog)? So irritating to watch.

When one says that an actor is good in every film they are in, no film personifies this more than Bretaigne Windust's 1948 film "June Bride" in which Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery star as former lovers and boss/subordinate. Davis plays Linda Gilman, a no-nonsense editor of a Home and Life type magazine in New York. Robert Montgomery is Carey Jackson, her new writer and former lover. Three years ago the two were almost ready to get married when he got cold feet and walked out on her. Through zany mishaps he ends up working for her three years later, and the two have not lost their attraction to one another. Linda packs up her staff for Indiana to do a cover story for their June issue, covering a wedding in small-town Midwest, U.S.A. Once there, they have to completely transform the house and the people in it, because they do not meet the cosmopolitan standards of these New Yorkers. Along the way, Carey decides to mix things up a bit when he discovers that the bride is marrying the brother of her ex-fiancée, and her sister is actually in love with the groom-to-be. (Get all that?) Complicating things is the fact that Linda and Carey are falling all over each other, rekindling their romance, which is getting in the way of the task at hand."June Bride" is supposed to be a madcap comedy, but it's just a boring mess. As stated before, there are some actors that are good in every film, and Bette Davis is one of those actors. Her performance was excellent, but the film that she was forced to work in was just plain bad, and her persona in the film hints that she knows it. Robert Montgomery, who is all slapstick in the film without a hint of charm, has absolutely no chemistry with Davis, which leads to a very flat film. The story was dumb, and not charming in the least. Really, the only interesting thing about the film is the director's first name. There's actually not a lot more to say about the film, except that it's too bad that "June Bride" wasn't better, because it was rare for a couple of reasons: It was one of the few Bette Davis comedies and it was one of the few Bette Davis films I had not yet seen. Unfortunately it probably should have stayed that way. 4/10.--Shelly