Move Over, Darling ... In Real Life
I love watching my old movies with my husband. He never complains and he often offers a new perspective on movies I've seen dozens of times. Sometimes he has deep insights that I've never thought about before. Other times (maybe most of the time) his observations are along the lines of, "This story line is getting really ridiculous."
Such was the case the other night when we watched Move Over, Darling, the Doris Day/James Garner classic. The husband may be right. The story line gets somewhat out of control towards the middle and it's not helped by Doris Day and her sometimes ... enthusiastic ... acting. But it's called entertainment, man. Someday I will show him My Favorite Wife. Somehow that one feels a little less ridiculous even with the same story. Also, Cary Grant. Can't go wrong.
Anyway, halfway through the movie my husband started wondering if there have been cases like this in real life, which prompted a quick Google search. We found that there is a legal precedent for this very situation called the Enoch Arden law, based off a poem with a similar, though much more tragic story. In addition, the movies are based off this poem as well and use the name Arden. It's all coming together!
Just when I was getting discouraged at the fact that I wasn't finding any actual stories with this theme, I ran across this amazing article from the Toronto Daily Star on November 19, 1945 profiling 11 cases of the Enoch Arden law and their outcomes after lots of men were presumed dead during World War 2. Read it, it's fantastic.
So I got much more than I bargained for after watching a silly Doris Day movie. I guess I need to keep showing my husband some classics. And pretty soon he won't even notice when a story line is getting really ridiculous.
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