The Farmer’s Wife

When a farmer’s wife dies, she tells her husband on her deathbed that he should marry again. He agrees, and sets out to pay court to all the eligible ladies in the area, using a list he compiles with his maid, who is secretly in love with him. It’s hard to see why, as he reveals himself to be something of a pompous ass when with each of these half a dozen young ladies. But it’s a comedy, so don’t worry about it. Each of the women turns him down for one reason or another, and he returns to his home a beaten man. While making the list he has imagined each of the women sitting in his wife’s chair, and a nice Hitchcock touch is that they fade in and then fade out in his imagination. At last, the maid sits in the chair, and he is able to see that she is beautiful and has a good head on her shoulders (all the others have been grotesque in one way or another) and he asks her to marry him. And that’s it. It is way too long at 129 minutes. The best thing about the movie is Gordon Hawker, the comic relief. He plays the handyman, Churdles Ash, who is later asked to double as a butler. He has a great comic face, and is given funny stuff to do. But this is really not worth anybody’s time.