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My Favorite Wife Overview:

My Favorite Wife (1940) was a Comedy - Romance Film directed by Garson Kanin and produced by Leo McCarey.

The film was based on the poem Enoch Arden written by Alfred (Lord) Tennyson published in 1864.

Academy Awards 1940 --- Ceremony Number 13 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Art DirectionVan Nest Polglase, Mark-Lee KirkNominated
Best Music - ScoringRoy WebbNominated
Best WritingBella Spewack, Samuel Spewack, Leo McCareyNominated
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My Favorite Wife BlogHub Articles:

Silver Screen Standards: My Favorite Wife (1940)

By Jennifer Garlen on Nov 14, 2024 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

My Favorite Wife (1940) I’ve shown a lot of comedies to my lifetime learners over the years, but I’ve rarely heard an audience laugh as uproariously as they did during a recent screening of My Favorite Wife (1940), which we watched as part of a series featuring Cary Grant. The peals of laught... Read full article

Classic Films in Focus: MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940)

By Jennifer Garlen on Feb 2, 2018 From Virtual Virago

My Favorite Wife (1940) reunites stars Irene Dunne and Cary Grant after their first pairing as a comedic couple in The Awful Truth (1937), and once again there's both love and trouble. Grant plays a husband flummoxed by the return of his supposedly dead first wife on the very day that he marries his... Read full article

Classic Films in Focus: MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940)

By Jennifer Garlen on Feb 2, 2018 From Virtual Virago

My Favorite Wife (1940) reunites stars Irene Dunne and Cary Grant after their first pairing as a comedic couple in The Awful Truth (1937), and once again there's both love and trouble. Grant plays a husband flummoxed by the return of his supposedly dead first wife on the very day that he marries his... Read full article

The Cary Grant Blogathon: My Favorite Wife (1940)

By Annmarie Gatti on Dec 1, 2016 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

“Make up your mind old man. You’re not allowed to have two wives, you know”… Like many Classic Movie fans, I just adore Cary Grant — and I just adore about every film that he ever made in his 30+ year film career. He can play anything from suave, sophisticated and sexy — to befu... Read full article

My Favorite Wife (1940)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 7, 2015 From 4 Star Films

This is a film that I arrived at by a rather roundabout route indeed. Let me explain. I genuinely loved Cary Grant and Irene Dunne’s chemistry in The Awful Truth, but I wanted to watch My Favorite Wife before moving onto their final film together Penny Serenade. Time passed and I found two oth... Read full article

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My Favorite Wife Quotes:

Nick Arden: I had a pretty good ear when I was a kid.
Ellen Wagstaff Arden aka Eve: Why Nicholas, you could never carry a tune. Still can't.
Bianca Bates: I like my husband's voice.
Ellen Wagstaff Arden aka Eve: Don't care very much about music, huh?
Bianca Bates: In the name of heaven, tell me. What's wrong with me?
Ellen Wagstaff Arden: How long does it take to tell a woman "My wife's come back?" I can say it in two seconds. My wife's come back. You've had two days!
Lady by Pool: Young man, is that Johnny Weissmuller?
Nick Arden: No, I wish it were.
Bianca Bates: Why didn't you tell them I'm their new mother?
Nick Arden: Didn't I do that??? Oh well, I didn't want to confuse them.
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My Favorite Wife Facts
Second of three movies that paired Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.
The hotel in the mountains is clearly meant to be the AhWahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Its kitchen has won prizes and they serve an elaborate Christmas dinner, but it's expensive and you need to book about a year in advance.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on December 9, 1940 with Gail Patrick reprising her film role.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who play rivals in this film, lived together for twelve years from 1932 to 1944.
Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "Enoch Arden," about a fisherman presumed lost at sea who returns to find his wife remarried, was the basis of five prior films: Enoch Arden, Die Toten kehren wieder - Enoch Arden, and D.W. Griffith's Enoch Arden: Part I, Enoch Arden: Part II, and Enoch Arden. Those films adhered to Tennyson's poem. But in My Favorite Wife, Something's Got to Give, and Move Over, Darling, only the basic idea of a spouse who returns is kept, with the spouse presumed lost now being the wife. However, in all of these films, the surname of the couple in question remains "Arden."
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