Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Expected more

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The wartime housing shortage for returning veterans gets an amusing and telling look from one of Gene Kelly's lesser known pictures, Living In A Big Way. Kelly plays a GI who marries Marie McDonald on impulse before going overseas. They don't even have time to get down to business. They're not even that well acquainted.This film is directed by Gregory LaCava who gave us two screen comedy classics, Stage Door and My Man Godfrey. This film bares more than a passing resemblance to the latter. Living In A Big Way turned out to be LaCava's last completed film.The big shock that Kelly gets when he returns home to claim his bride with pal Bill Phipps is to discover she's rich. And she's got a stuffy fiancé in John Warburton whom she hasn't bothered to tell about that unconsummated marriage. Being married to 'The Body' that's the part most unbelievable about Living In A Big Way.In fact it is the main weakness of Living In A Big Way. Had someone like Lana Turner or Carole Lombard been cast in the role of the unfulfilled wife some of the comedy aspects in her character would have been handled a lot better. Living In A Big Way might have become a classic. It might not have needed the musical numbers Kelly did which were creative and fun, but kind of forced into the film. The wife's role truly was one made for Carole Lombard who was beyond casting.Charles Winninger and Spring Byington as the parents are carbon copies of Eugene Palette and Alice Brady from My Man Godfrey. There's also a nice performance by Jean Adair as McDonald's grandmother.And one role to note, that of Phyllis Thaxter as a war widow who joins Kelly's and Phipps's community of veterans. She's the kind of girl that every GI would love to have come home to.Living In A Big Way is an amusing enough film, but hardly one of the great films of Gene Kelly or Gregory LaCava.

I thought this movie was quite good. It was on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) at three am one night, and its offbeat humor kept me up til five. Kelly performs beautifully in this role, especially with the Grandma (whose quip almost caused me to laugh out of my seat). The main actress was alright, but the father was able to keep his character isolated from the marriage conflict and kept the humor coming. If you like a good offbeat, older movie, I would recommend it. Unlike the other comment, I do like Gene Kelly. He was the perfect leading actor for many of the early musicals and I think in this role, he oozes his charisma. One drawback is the dance scenes get a little long-winded, but if you can get through those, you're in the clear.

This may contain spoilers for some.The storyline could have been an interesting premise. A returning soldier and his war bride coping with their marriage following his return from war. But too many flaws are to be found.The casting was not carefully done. Gene Kelly and Marie McDonald were lacking in chemistry. Gene's chemistry with Phyllis Thaxter was much better.Marie McDonald was beautiful, although she does not seem to have been a great actress (this is the only film of hers I've seen), she is not terrible. I do think she would have been aided if cast opposite an actor she had more chemistry with and with a better script.This film is watchable but not memorable. The character development is lacking. Marie's character Margaud goes back and forth and the writers don't seem to have known whether they wished for her to be a good person who made some mistakes or a selfish one. The instances with the divorce and then her later help with the housing are examples.Gene's character seems to go back and forth about whether he wants his marriage to work or not.The film in general does not seem to know whether it wants to be a drama or a musical comedy. The absence of a direction for the film to go causes it to be wrapped up a little to easily within the last few minutes of the film.For those who are fans of Gene or Marie, then this film should be viewed. Or just for those who are curious about the acting of Marie McDonald who's acting has been heavily criticized and is mostly known for her nickname "The Body".

Watchable but pretty terrible. How shocking that this was the great Gregory La Cava's last directing credit! Even in his better known roles, I don't care for Gene Kelly. He seems to me to be smug, hostile, and self-involved. Here, paired with a minor actress like Marie Wilson, he seems to show those characteristics in spades.Marie Wilson, playing an heiress who falls for a military man, is exceptionally hard and unsympathetic. The actors seem to be working hard to get past the hard, disagreeable core of the picture and they do OK.The know-it-all butler is apparently meant to be funny but he seems like an extended riff on the prissy bits for which Franklin Pangborn was famous (and in which, despite their stereotyping, he was generally funny -- unlike this guy.) Phyllis Thaxter is as always very appealing in a rather underdeveloped secondary plot.