Wedding Present (1936)** 1/2 (out of 4) Reporters Charlie (Cary Grant) and Rusty Fleming (Joan Bennett) are set to be married but after his messing around costs them a marriage license, she begins to think twice about it. Soon he is made editor and she quits her job, which sets off a chain of events that has her eventually engaged to another man (Conrad Nagel).WEDDING PRESENT was the second straight film that Grant and Bennett did together and it would turn out to be Grant's final picture with Paramount until his return in 1955 with TO CATCH A THIEF. A lot of people including Leonard Maltin think of this as an underrated gem but I'm not certainly I'd go that far. A lot of others have noted that the film has a lot of common things with HIS GIRL Friday, which of course would go down as one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made.For my money, this film was way too uneven to fully work and a lot of the issues come in the second half. The story has all sorts of characters thrown in and our two leads are constantly having new things done to them and I just found the majority of it uninvolving and at times rather boring. The screenplay tries to keep things moving and as I said, it's constantly throwing loops into the story but I just didn't find it all that funny no matter how hard the cast was trying.As far as the cast goes, I thought most of them did a very good job and that includes Grant. He's charming, fast-talking ways would eventually make him a legend and his performance here was pretty good. I also thought Conrad Nagel and George Bancroft were good in their supporting bits of Gene Lockhart is also very good in his bit as the Archduke. As far as Bennett goes, she too is in fine form here but the screenplay certainly didn't do her any favors.

one of films who must see. not for story itself but for actors. and for the moral lesson about responsibility. in fact, a love story like many from the same period comedies. a shining Cary Grant, a seductive Joan Bennett and a not usual present for wedding. a mix of stories with never end - the story of Archiducke is the most relevant - and a lot of humor in different styles , from bitter to crazy. short, a nice story about free spirits and about media, about friendship with a gangster and the spiced dialogues with the woman who represents the love of your life.

Cary Grant and Joan Bennett are hotshot reporters for a big metropolitan newspaper in this film. They are the best at what they do, and they know it. They also are in love and plan to get married. Grant plays Charlie Mason and Bennett plays Monica "Rusty" Fleming. One of the problems for the rest of the newspaper staff – the editors and other reporters, is that these two come and go as they please. So, the editor can never find them and doesn't know if the next story will get covered or not. They always happen to make it and scoop all the other papers. One other problem they have is their penchant for pranks. Not little things, but elaborate ones. So, they get a few dozen keys and tie notes on each one. "If found, please return to Peter Stagg, City Editor …" George Bancroft plays Stagg, and we see dozens of keys being returned and a line of people waiting to turn their found keys in to the city editor. So much for fun. After Charlie saves the life of a guy who seems to be drowning, his life takes on a patron. William Demarest plays Smiles Benson, a gangland boss of some kind, whom Charlie saved. Things get hectic and frantic after the city editor quits and the publisher makes Charlie city editor. He knows all the gimmicks of the reporters, so they can't pull anything on him. Now he becomes a slave master. When Charlie puts off the wedding, Rusty finds another man. Conrad Nagel plays Roger Dodecker. Smiles comes to Charlie's aid and for a wedding present for Rusty, Charlie calls in a national calamity on the Dodecker address. Fire trucks arrive, police cars, ambulances, vans from the psychiatric hospital. It's mayhem on the street, and Rusty rushes out to cover the fire or whatever. That ends her wedding to Dodecker. Smiles has his gopher, Squinty (played by Edward Brophy) take the rap for all the false-alarm calls. It's his gift to Charlie for saving his life. "Wedding Present" had possibilities to be much better. It is funny, but it's disjointed and choppy in places. And, the plot has the hero breaking the law big time with the false alarms that could lead to serious accidents. A better screenplay would have helped it immensely. One thing that is never clear is why Smiles was in the ocean a short distance from shore. Did he swim out there in his clothes? Did he fall off a dock? A boat? The studio set this one up but didn't do a job covering it in the script. The fine cast and some of the humor make this a fun film to watch, but just once.

In so many ways, this film seems to have strong elements from one of Cary Grant's best films--HIS GIRL Friday. While the Friday plot is taken from the Pat O'Brien/Adolph Menjou film, many elements about the characters seemed to have been taken from WEDDING PRESENT--with Cary playing pretty much the same character in both films and Joan Bennett playing a part very similar to the one later played so well by Rosalind Russell.Unfortunately, despite these similarities, WEDDING PRESENT is from from being a classic film. While up until the terrible ending I would have given the film a 6, by the time it was over the film barely earned a 4--while HIS GIRL Friday is clearly a 10 and one of the best films of the era.The film begins with Cary and Joan wacky highly respected newspaper reporters (just as in Friday). They are about to get married, but it all falls through thanks to Cary's being too much of a comedian--and Joan realizes that he'd make a lousy, but fun, husband. Despite the breakup, they spend much of the first half of the movie together on various adventures and this is by far the best part of the film. I particularly loved the scenes with Gene Lockhart as the Archduke (this was perhaps the best supporting role of Lockhart's long career).The problem, though, is that the momentum wasn't maintained after a while. When Cary became the boss at work and Joan walked off the job, the film became a mess. In particular, the ending. In a very irresponsible and unfunny ending, to stop Joan from marrying another man, Cary calls in tons of false alarms--reporting fires, most-wanted criminals who were spotted, illnesses, mental patients, and a ton of other problems at the fiancé's home. This certainly wasn't funny--just very cruel and irresponsible. And, in a Hollywood twist, Cary gets away with this AND gets the girl. In the process, Joan treats her fiancé and his family like dirt. What a selfish and nasty way to end a film!! Had they shown Cary in prison for a year for calling in all the false alarms and inciting panic, then I might have enjoyed the ending!Overall, not a great film and at best a time-passer. While I love Cary Grant films, I also have to admit that occasionally he had a disappointing film like this one or ONCE UPON A TIME or KISS AND MAKE-UP. Of course, he also had HIS GIRL Friday, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, NORTH BY NORTHWEST and a ton of classic films to make us all forget about these few duds.