The Egg and I

Betty MacDonald's best selling book - its sales are up around the 1,500,000 mark - was a series of comical incidents about herself, her husband and their enthusiasm over a chicken farm. All of that is in the film, plus a third angle named Louise Allbritton, who tries to make Fred MacMurray, who ends up by buying her model farm. MacMurray is the enthusiastic, returned war veteran who turns from bonds to chickens. Claudette Colbert is the wife who never had a voice in the choice. She's just a first-class sport who blunders her way through to final success. Only it never proves that easy. Neither one of them knows anything about life in the country and even less about life among the chickens. They learn the hard way, which turns out to be hard and funny for them and any audience. The roof of the dilapidated old house they buy leaks. The stove falls apart. Her recipes never seem to turn out according to the book. The hog turns obstinate. A tree falls the wrong way and wrecks the chicken house. There is a forest fire which wipes them out and warm, friendly neighbors who swarm in with food and equipment to set them up again. Miss Allbritton is whatever feminine menace the film may boast. She's in the open in her play for MacMurray, who seems dumb until it finally develops he has wangled her model farm on easy terms. Miss Colbert, on the other hand, misunderstands the situation, goes home to mother, has her baby and a final change of heart. This returns her to MacMurray, where the complications unravel for a happy finish. "The Egg and I" is never strong on story. But it doesn't have to be. Here it's a case of funny incident piled atop funny incident, with an occasional heart tug stuck in by Chester Erskine and Fred F. Finklehoffe in an .adroit and fast-moving script. They veer sharply toward slapstick on a number of occasions although there isn't a thing in the world wrong with their decision to do so. The amusing episodes come along often, but probably reach their apex in the barn dance sequence at which the city-bred Miss Colbert meets the prancing countryside full tilt. Performances are tops. Miss Colbert may depend upon it that this is one of her best. MacMurray isn't far behind. Stalwart support comes from Percy Kilbride, Marjorie Main and Billy House, among others. Erskine shared the script with Finklehoffe and also directed. Both served as co-producers in a very neat job of hilarious entertainment.