There are going to be a lot of modern audiences who find Jimmy Stewart's pilot character to be the epitome of a male chauvinist. He balks at the thought of working for a woman, let alone being married to his boss. That's the story here of when he encounters the wealthiest orphan in the world (Joan Fontaine, whose character claims to be 26, is actually 28, as played by an actress who was really 31), having just married the most boring man in the world. She's changed her mind, the groom slugs Stewart, and after the briefest of all attempts at a honeymoon, Fontaine runs into Stewart's hotel room and refuses to leave. Of course, after taking three sleeping pills, it is going to take more than dynamite to get her out of bed, but if Stewart and his co-pilot pal Eddie Albert have their way about it, they will.Joan Fontaine, in one of her few comic roles, is extremely funny as she slips and slides out of a chair and Stewart's arms while under the influence of these pills. Stewart and Albert agree to take her as far as Chicago, but along the way, they pick up a newlywed couple as well as a clerk who is wanted for embezzlement. It's "It Happened One Night" in the sky where a corpse, a chimpanzee and a bunch of fish ready for filleting are accompanying this mixed group of passengers. Then, when the plane hits bad weather, it's down it goes, right into the front yard of hick Percy Kilbride, his non-Marjorie Main wife (Edith Evanson), and their brood of 10 kids (and they've just started!). You know the minute a record player in the bridal suite begins to play "Hold That Tiger!" (which Kilbride always seemed to discover playing on his radio whenever he turned it on in the "Ma and Pat Kettle" series), you're in Universal territory, especially when Pa Kettle's Indian friends are the ones who show up to pull the plane out of the mud. The fact that this came out as the same year of "The Egg and I" proves this point, an ironic fact of free publicity in movie history.There's lots of funny moments here, especially the shot of the cigar- smoking chimp, embezzler Porter Hall getting all misty-eyed at the presence of a baby in his arms, and the battle of the sexes between Stewart and Fontaine. Marcy McGuire, the pop-eyed ingénue of a series of RKO musicals of the war years (and got the first screen kiss from Frank Sinatra), plays the new bride who sneaks a ride aboard the plane, while Vera Marshe is Hall's floozy secretary who runs off with him and the stolen money. This is a late screwball entry in the Post World War II era where comedies were more topical yet not always entertaining. You will be consistently entertained here.

Though "You Gotta Stay Happy" came after the heyday of screwball comedies, it follows the recipe well enough: take one zany heiress, mix up with earnest hero, add wise-cracking best friend, toss in some comic stereotypes for support, add a dash of innocent deception to get the plot rolling, then a pinch of mistaken identity (or something like it) to keep things stirred up, and top off with some chaste romance. Bake (or half-bake) for a little over an hour and a half, garnish with a cigar-smoking chimpanzee, and... voilà! Enjoyable light entertainment. You may be hungry an hour later, but it's fun while it lasts.Jimmy Stewart's Marvin Payne is a variation on the actor's patented good-guy persona: a decent if sometimes cranky pilot, he's trying to keep his ramshackle airline *and* his carefully crafted life-plan running smoothly. Joan Fontaine, proving surprisingly proficient at comedy, plays indecisive rich girl Dee-Dee Dillwood, whose antics seem calculated to throw Marvin off schedule in both arenas. And Eddie Albert, as "Bullets" Baker, shines in an early and excellent incarnation of what would become his trademark 1950s character-- the lovable sidekick.It's hard to outline the plot without giving it all away-- partly because all the pieces are intertwined, and partly because there aren't all that many pieces-- but I'll try. Fontaine's running from the altar, and Stewart, not fully aware of her circumstances, is somehow persuaded to let her aboard his cargo plane. Meanwhile, co-pilot Albert has enterprisingly sold seats to a few other unauthorized personnel. Will our intrepid fly-boys manage to steer their two-engine plane through stormy weather to complete all deliveries and stave off bankruptcy, or will they be too distracted by the fact that the police seem to be looking for one of their illicit passengers? And how about Stewart's heart, which seems to be flip-flopping for Fontaine a full six years ahead of schedule (he's penciled in "love" for 1954)? Will he be relieved or upset, if and when he learns her full story? It'd be too much to say that "the plane lifts off and hilarity ensues," but I was both amused by the proceedings and invested enough in the leads to care whether they got their happy ending. A warning: some of the aforementioned comic stereotypes-- naive Native Americans, women content to stay in their place-- haven't aged as well as others, so put on your 1940s hat before popping in the DVD.

You Gotta Stay Happy was produced by William Dozier who at the time was married to Joan Fontaine. I think Fontaine was trying to lighten her image a bit and decided to try this throwback comedy involving a missing runaway heiress. Very familiar territory from the Thirties, postwar audiences wanted a little more realism. Anyway she was able to land James Stewart as her leading man and he even accepted second billing here. Well, in affect she was the boss on this set. And they got a good cast of familiar faces from past screwball comedies to help this along.Watching this, I couldn't help thinking that Joan Fontaine was going into territory Jean Arthur knew by heart. If Arthur was the heiress, this thing might have been a classic. This picture would have been so right for Jean Arthur.I particularly enjoyed Percy Kilbride playing Pa Kettle under a different name. He's a farmer with a tribe of kids in Oklahoma where pilot James Stewart and his animal, human, and vegetable cargo have landed. Eddie Albert as Stewart's co-pilot and sidekick is also just fine.It's an enjoyable comedy, but it will never be in the first rank of films of either Fontaine or Stewart.

I think this movie is charming. It is part farce and part whimsy. It is not a great comedy, and I don't think it was ever intended to be. It has a few stereotypical characters, but that can be fun. I have seen the movie several times. It is pure escapism.