“Sacred intimacies”: Sexual ambiguity and performance in My Favorite Wife (1940)

Glitre, Kathrina

Abstract

My Favorite Wife (1940) exemplifies the more “sex suggestive” style of screwball comedy in the late 1930s, posing significant problems for the Production Code Administration (PCA). Strategies for handling taboo content onscreen depended on ambiguity, displacing responsibility for textual interpretation onto the spectator. The article investigates these issues through three inter-related levels of sexual ambiguity: the PCA’s reliance on euphemisms such as “the sacred intimacies of private life”; the plot’s focus on sexual consummation and potentially adulterous love triangles; and the relationship between Cary Grant’s star persona and his performance of the protagonist, Nick Arden (including a cross-dressing scene). First, the film is placed into critical context by reviewing existing work on screwball comedy and the Production Code in relation to “deadpan” performance style, double entendre and gag structure. Archival research is then combined with close textual analysis, comparing the PCA’s recommendations to key scenes in the shooting script and the finished film. Ultimately, I argue that, while the film’s dependence on ambiguity enables potentially queer interpretations, the use of “straight” romantic rhetoric is equally important to the film’s successful navigation of PCA demands.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 17, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jan 3, 2025
• Publication Date: Jan 3, 2025
• Deposit Date: Sep 19, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 6, 2025
• Print ISSN: 1050-9208
• Electronic ISSN: 1543-5326
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 124-145
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2024.2410525
• Keywords: The Production Code; screwball comedy; ambiguity; performance; Cary Grant
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/12898144
• Additional Information: This article will be part of a special issue on 'Hollywood Film Style and the Production Code: Criticism and History'.