The Trouble with Husbands

1940

Action / Comedy

3
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 83 83

Director

Leslie M. Roush Photo
Leslie M. Roush

Top cast

Ruth Lee Photo
Ruth Lee as Mrs. Doakes
Robert Benchley Photo
Robert Benchley as Joe Doakes
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
98.9 MB
1280*932
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
12 hr 10 min
Seeds ...
183.67 MB
1472*1072
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
12 hr 10 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by tcchelsey 8 / 10

DOAKES IN ANOTHER FINE MESS.

Robert Benchley left MGM for Paramount, although he would return in a few years. This gave him a chance to freelance, including working with Hitchcock (FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT).His comedy film short series continued, although some critics claimed it didn't have the "zing," however this one is nuts, and Benchley kept on writing the scripts. You be the judge.Today's Lecture; Husbands who drive their wives INSANE.Typical Problems; MANY, and with only eleven minutes(!) to tell them? A few treasured minutes (longer) than the MGM episodes.Best of the Best; Robert (or Mr. Doakes) goes out to buy butter for his wife (Ruth Lee), bringing back anything and everything from the market -- except butter? Has this ever happened to you? And what about the husband who is a fixer-upper? Doakes attempts to install a shelf -- like the Three Stooges!I would bet Benchley wrote this from personal experiences with his own wife. It would have been a hoot had his wife made a gag appearance. She may have been asked. Who knows? Popular bit actress Ruth Lee followed Robert to Paramount, fun to watch her "why did I marry this guy?" expressions.Directed by Leslie M. Roush, senior director of shorts for Paramount, famous for directing the Quiz Kids series, also musical shorts; Bob Crosby and his Orchestra, Ina Ray Hutton, etc.Why we love Robert Benchley.Remastered dvd box set, the entire series. Thanks to TCM for bringing these oldies out of retirement.
Reviewed by Michael_Elliott

Funny Benchley Short

Trouble With Husbands, The (1940)*** (out of 4) Nice Robert Benchley short that had him away from MGM and with Paramount, although the structure of the film is pretty much the same. Benchley is sitting at his desk talking to the audience and tells a few stories about things men do that makes their wife want to poison them. Examples include the husband playing mechanic and trying to fix something only to make matters worse. Another example is how he'll wait until dinner is ready to serve before he puts the paper down to get ready for dinner. We also see how the wife sends her husband to the store to pick up an item only to have him return with countless things except for what she sent him there for. This was the first Benchley short I watched from his Paramount days and I must admit that I found it better than most of the MGM stuff for some reason. The type of humor is certainly the same and they're both played out in the same fashion but perhaps it was the lower budget that helped. We've seen this type of lecture film from Benchley before but his performance here as the husband is a lot better than I had seen from him in the past and I thought Ruth Lee did a pretty good job as the wife as well. The best sequence is certainly the one with the husband waiting too long to get ready for dinner.
Reviewed by Snow Leopard

Good Dry Domestic Humor

This is the first of a pair of Robert Benchley features that use Benchley's dry humor to take a look at domestic relations between men and women. Both work rather well, because Benchley's satire is good-natured rather than belittling. The 'lecturer' format also suits his talents well.This one depicts the domestic foibles of males, by illustrating some of the common things that a 'typical' husband does that frustrate his wife, from reading the news at an inappropriate time to inept home repair projects. Benchley is the lecturer, and he also plays the husband in the illustrative sketches. His sense of timing and his enjoyable low-key lecturing style work well as usual, and the lecture style forms a contrast with the somewhat broader actions and dialogue in the sketches.All of the sketches are amusing ways of looking at familiar situations. The kitchen shelf sketch is probably the best, since it is particularly on-target. Some of the details of daily life would of course be different now, but usually not to the extent that they detract from the ideas.Like many of Benchley's short comedies, this one is based entirely on well-known themes, yet it works because of his tone and because of the careful writing. It's not meant to have any big laughs, just a well-paced run of ironic humor, and in that it delivers pretty well.
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