LUCKY NIGHT (1939)

Myrna Loy might not have been able to single-handedly save every movie she was in, but she's really the only reason to stick with this one, which is full of screwball comedy conventions (influenced especially by IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT) but isn't really a screwball comedy. Loy plays an heiress who is tired of her planned-out whitebread life; she breaks off an engagement and leaves the house of her father (Henry O'Neill) to make her own way. Jobless and penniless, she meets up with another poor soul, Robert Taylor, on a park bench. They hit it off, borrow 50 cents from a cop, and go gambling. They win big on their "lucky night," get drunk, and get married. He gets a job and they seem happy for a time, but soon he becomes an unconventional madcap (to be able to take off work on a Monday rather than a Saturday, for instance) and, though Loy tries to go along, ultimately she leaves him and winds up back at her father's house. There's more drinking, some subterfuge, and finally a reconciliation. It's actually fairly fun until the rushed and slipshod ending. The whole thing has a kind of half-thought through Capraesque tone that doesn't jell, though Loy and Taylor work well together. Marjorie Main has a small role as a landlady. Mostly for Loy fans. [TCM]