bkoganbing I well remember the Mr.&Mrs. North series as a lad during the early days of television. It was a poor man's Thin Man with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton a stylish married couple solving crimes once a week during the early and middle Fifties.I'm always a fan of Gracie Allen so it was with interest that I finally got to see this film she did without her husband George Burns. That was a mistake. Gracie should have done the film Mr.&Mrs. North with George instead of William Post, Jr. Post was no comic actor and George Burns would have handled Gracie's scatterbrained antics with ease and aplomb.One fine day a body falls out of a closet in the North house. It is that of Rose Hobart's husband and they're North friends. In fact a whole slew of friends and business acquaintances fall under suspicion. But in her own scatterbrained fashion Gracie seems bound and determined to pin it on her husband. She exasperates detectives Paul Kelly and Millard Mitchell to no end.A fine list of character players are in this cast most of whom fall under suspicion. One who doesn't is the mild Fowler Brush salesman who keeps trying to give information but no one wants to talk to him when they hear what he does for a living. Felix Bressart is very funny in that role, almost as funny as Gracie.But this film desperately needed George Burns.

grantch I can but conclude that complaints that Pam North is more Gracie Allen than the Lockridge character, were not originated by fans of the long-running radio show in which zany Pam, played so strongly by the delightful Alice Frost, over rode any interference by husband Jerry, admirably portrayed as good-natured and long suffering by Joseph Curtin, and the NYPD to solve the weekly murder(s) Mr. and Mrs. North encountered regularly. Today such a series would be laughed off the air, but back in the '40's and early '50's everyone turned on their radio to see if they could beat Pam to the solution of the crime.Compared to the colorful and humorous radio show, the subsequent TV adaption with Barbara Britton and Richard Denning was OK, but not nearly as much fun.If you don't take the Lockridge characters too seriously, you'll love Gracie Allen and William Post Jr. in this 1942 adaptation of a Broadway play.

gridoon2018 Surprise #1: I thought this was going to be primarily a Gracie Allen vehicle with a little mystery thrown in for good measure, but it's actually primarily a (solid) mystery with Gracie Allen thrown in for good measure. Gracie doesn't own the film like she does "The Gracie Allen Murder Case", nor is she as utterly crazy as usual, but she does have some very funny lines ("You didn't know the murdered man? But he was in your closet!" - "So what? We put all sorts of things in our closet!")Surprise #2: The mystery is an intricate one, and after 2 viewings I'm still not sure about certain details (how DID that gold compact end up in Norths' apartment?).Surprise #3: The outcome. I guessed incorrectly. Surprise #4: The serious, dark themes underneath the surface. Unhappy couples, extramarital affairs, suggested spousal abuse (on both sides!) - oh, and a character subtly but fairly clearly implied to be homosexual because of his love for cooking and cleanliness!If you like a) murder mysteries and b) Gracie Allen, you will like this film. If you don't....why would you be watching it in the first place? *** out of 4.

Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci (dtb) I usually love THIN MAN-style husband-and-wife detective stories and the great Gracie Allen's scatterbrain schtick, so I looked forward to seeing Gracie play Pam North in MR. AND MRS. NORTH (M&MN), adapted from Frances and Richard Lockridge's novels as well as Owen Davis's Broadway play. Great cast, too, with Gracie being supported by such solid players as Paul Kelly, Jerome Cowan, Virginia Grey, Tom Conway, Fortunio Bonanova, Keye Luke, and THIN MAN alumnus Porter Hall. But I'm not sure this fast-paced, witty mystery quite fits in with Gracie's style. She's always fun to watch and listen to as she rambles on in her hilarious, almost surreal stream-of-consciousness style. However, her ditz routine works much better when her husband and comedic partner George Burns plays her foil in his cool, wry way. As Gerry North, William Post Jr. seems an affable romantic lead who can do the occasional funny slow burn or nigh-girlish frightened screech when necessary. When Gracie is in the spotlight, though, she steamrolls over everyone in her persistent yet endearing way. I must confess there were times when M&MN got on my nerves as certain recurring gags recurred well past the point of being funny, becoming grating instead. Take Felix Bressart as the long-suffering door-to-door salesman who keeps trying to give his statement at the police station, only to keep making the mistake of introducing himself as the "Fowler Brush Man" and getting himself kicked out. After he got kicked out 3 times, I found myself growling, "All right already, stop telling them you're a Fowler Brush Man!" Then there's dear Gracie, always talking too much about the wrong things in her charming yet maddening blatherings. Fond as I am of her, even I eventually wanted her to shut up and let somebody coherent get a word in edgewise. If you adore Gracie Allen and have a high tolerance for aggressively zany misunderstandings, however, M&MN is worth a look next time it pops up on TCM.