Norman Krasna's great gift was writing stories about a little lie that spun out into enough consequences for a feature film (or play) and infusing it with heart and warmth.
This one has a bright central idea - a flyer (Fred MacMurray) is going to his death and says over the radio his regret is not going for a walk with "Peggy". Everyone thinks it's his co worker (Claudette Colbert) when in fact it was his dog. But the nation loves the story and when he turns up alive they decide to go on with the deception.
That doesn't feel like a strong enough reason to do it - there's really no call for Colbert to go along with the misunderstanding or for MacMurray to keep up the deception. It needed to be something simple and personal. In The Devil and Miss Jones Charles Coburn lies to bust a union, in Bachelor Mother Ginger Rogers lies to keep her job - but there's nothing personal at stake for Colbert.
The carefree nature of the lie and complications doesn't mesh easily with the life and death stakes - I mean in the opening MacMurray thinks he's dying on a suicide mission, and there's a subplot where a woman is worried about her pilot husband having died and he has died and MacMurray breaks the news gently which makes Colbert fall in love with him...
I think it was miscast - Colbert and MacMurray are too old (she was over forty and he was close to forty). A younger star couple and this silly lie might've been more believable - with Paulette Goddard, say (who wasn't that much younger than Colbert but felt younger), or, don't laugh, Sonny Tufts (who was more believable military-y than MacMurray) - but watching these two old people I kept thinking "you ought to know better".
There's reference to MacMurray's character being a "wolf" i.e. sexual harrasser... actually if they'd used that more maybe there would be some sort of character development for him - a playboy who learns responsibility or something. But it's done in a hamfisted way. (Mind you I'm not sure MacMurray would ever be believable as a "wolf".)
The other love interest is no threat. Not enough time is spent with any support characters - Krasna normally did this well, created a feeling of family - not so here. It's one of his weaker efforts and I'm not surprised so few people remember this.
For Colbert and MacMurray fans only.Oh, and Norma Krasna/Mitchell Leisen completists.
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