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Love Nest (1951)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 1/25

1/25: I.A.L. Diamond was actually a good writer who frequently worked with Billy Wilder.

Using Scott Corbett's 1950 novel The Reluctant Landlord, he penned the screenplay for Love Nest. The first half is too talky, but the verbosity is finally cut down during the second half, making for a satisfying finish. For a while, I wasn't sure where the movie was heading, but everything had been neatly tied up at the end.

I'm impressed with the filmmaking quality. It's not exactly a play due to the lack of theatrical feel. June Haver and William Lundigan should be commended for carrying the show from start to finish. Having failed to achieve enough popularity after this penultimate film of her career, the former married Fred MacMurray, and they stayed together for almost forty years until his death.

Obviously, Frank Fay gives the best performance as the lothario. Not many know this, but he was the most hated person in Hollywood despite being the first stand-up comedian in history. Also, he was Barbara Stanwyck's first husband, and that's when she wasn't well known yet. Because of the failed marriage which saw him go down in flames while her career began to flourish, it served as the basis of A Star Is Born. Frank Fay didn't do many films (only twelve in all), so this one was the final performance of his career.

Back to Love Nest, when the couple was slapped with a $800 bill to repair the electricity issue, I was thinking why not take out a loan of $1,000 while putting up the building for collateral. No bank would turn them down because it was paid for with $22,000. Regardless, they got lucky at the end. Either way, I would've told them to keep holding on to the building because it's going to be worth over a million dollars. Oh, yeah...Marilyn Monroe? She's way too stunning-looking, and nobody noticed that? Impossible. Therefore, she was miscast.

All in all, the script for Love Nest just needs to be reduced by 20% to play better.

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