The Good Fairy
The Good Fairyis an amusing minor specimen of the sort of Continental whimsy Ernst Lubitsch raised to a fine art. William Wyler, though soon to acquire major-director status, displays little affinity for comedy, and, title notwithstanding, the often-magical Margaret Sullavan is notably less magical than in her other '30s efforts (she and Wyler had a great love-hate thing going during filming, and eloped on his motorcycle right afterward). The real stars are screenwriter Preston Sturges and the breed of exuberant character actors with whom he would make manically beautiful music upon turning director himself: Reginald Owen, Eric Blore, Torben Meyer, Luis Alberni, et al. Herbert Marshall sporadically brings a Lubitschean delicacy to his role as the struggling lawyer who doesn't know he's "married" to Sullavan's sweetly balmy movie usherette (it's a long story), and Frank Morgan, as a plutocrat who desperately wants to play the roué, is really the Wizard of Oz in training.--Richard T. Jameson