Too many fans seem to be blown away

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Written by I.A.L. Diamond, the future writing partner of the great Billy Wilder, the script has hints at some of their future collaborations ("The Apartment," Some Like it Hot," "The Fortune Cookie," etc), but is nowhere as good any of those films. This story is about a GI returning home to find his wife has bought a broken-down NYC brownstone as an investment for them to rent out to tenants. What ends up happening is they find themselves caught up in the lives of their various renters, most notably of which is a GI buddy of the husband, "Bobby" short for Roberta, played by a before-she-was-famous Marilyn Monroe. When she made this film, Monroe has just had her memorable small role in "All About Eve" and studio boss Darrly Zanuck took it upon himself to begin shaping her image with a key supporting part in this film. Monroe is quite good in the picture, but is only of the several tenants the film follows. If the film had more prominently featured Monroe or made more out the perceived love triangle between husband, wife, and Monroe, it may have made for a fun farcical door slamming sesx comedy along the lines of "Kiss Me, Stupid." Instead, it's merely a pleasant, but forgettable comedy that's now only of note as an early work by Monroe and Diamond before they went on to bigger and better films; Monroe with "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "The Seven Year Itch" and Diamond co-writing "Love in the Afternoon" and "Monkey Business" (the Hawks comedy, not the Marx Bros. film) before their paths crossing again nine years later in the undeniable American film classic "Some Like it Hot." Overall, if you watch "Love Nest" don't expect anything the caliber of Monroe or Diamond's later work, but instead simply expect a modestly entertaining comedy.

Despite a madcap ending, we have a fairly good film here showing a returning vet finds that his wife has bought an apartment building and we meet quite an array of tenants living there.We see a well-meaning landlord who is soon confronted with a variety of expenses and a real wily new tenant who turns out to be a charmer while being a notorious lover who charms wealthy women out of vast sums of money. Of course, he finds true love in the building and marries one of the tenants and for their age, what happens at the end is quite incredible, yet alone against the laws of biology!William Lundigan and June Haver have the main roles. Of all people, Jack Paar shows up as a lawyer-friend of theirs and it's still a rather benign Marilyn Monroe as an army buddy of Lundigan.Good film to show the expenses that landlords have to go through.

Thirties screwball piled one comic set up after another in no particular order the ending tacked on out of the blue. This is the format spin doctored in this film. June Haver, Marilyn Monroe and William Lundigan offer brilliant comic chemistry which lights up the often plodding plot. Some of the setups go slowly and others like many of a couple getting in over their heads when buying a house to end up happily settled seem trite. Leatrice Joy and Frank Fay are comics from the thirties filmed as the older performers in the comic setups. Jack Paar makes an unusual film appearance more as a bubbly television personality less as a future film star. All in all an enticing period piece worth watching again.

I found this one on the "Movies!" channel, released in 1951, in glorious black and white, but set in immediate post-WW2 1946. This is primarily a romantic comedy with 1950s sensibilities.June Haver is Connie Scott, her husband has been gone for 2 1/2 years, fighting in WW2. Her husband is William Lundigan as Jim Scott. He has been sending money home as he is able, she has been saving it, so they could start their "love nest" when the war ended.Jim comes home a few days early to surprise Connie, but the surprise is on him. She used the money as a down payment to buy a multi-floor house in the city, they would live in one section and rent out the other units. The income from the rentals would pay for their mortgage, and Jim could settle in to his writing career.The problem turns out the building was not in very good shape, inspectors required the electrical wiring to be redone, the building shook every time the fire truck passed in the street, and the tenants had ongoing plumbing problems that needed to be addressed. Plus, it turns out the "good deal" Connie got was about $5000 more than it was worth, and that was a big sum in 1946.A colorful side story is added by Frank Fay as Charley Patterson, one of the new tenants. Charlie is quite the charmer, but as his whole story unfolds he is wanted by the FBI as a bigamist who cheats gullible old widows out of their money.In a minor, but important, supporting role just a few years before her big movies, Marilyn Monroe is Bobbie Stevens, a WAC that fought with Jim overseas. She returns to the city and needs a place to rent. Her being a tenant creates some jealousy, but also offers a romantic interest for Jack Paar as Ed Forbes, a friend of Jim's.Overall a very pleasant, enjoyable movie.SPOILERS: The law finally catches up with Charlie right after he marries one of the nice ladies who also is a tenant. But Charlie says he is reformed, he is now a one-woman man, and serves 18 months in jail, but also collaborates with Jim as the author, they write a best-selling book of Charlie's adventures, splitting the profits, which gives Jim and Connie the cash to make their place into the love nest they wanted.