Her Husband’s Affairs (1947)

(On Cable TV, November 2021) Before becoming The Lucy of I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball spent more than a decade working in movies, honing her comic timing in a series of vehicles that made good use of her skills. It’s interesting to see her progressively transforming throughout the 1940s, from a funny but still-generic debutante to the blend of tics, hairstyles and stares that would make up the more fully formed Lucille Ball of the 1950s and beyond. Her Husband’s Affair comes from the latter half of that process, at a time when Hollywood was beginning to understand what an asset Ball was, and was shaping scripts to her strengths. Here, she plays the level-headed foil to Franchot Tone’s eccentric husband, eventually rescuing him from a murder accusation but not before suffering through a long series of comic set-pieces loosely focused on wild and crazy inventions with unforeseen impacts. As far as even light comedies go, there’s a surprising lack of impact to Her Husband’s Affairs. Despite the proto-Lucy Ricardo flair to some of her material, Ball isn’t quite as interesting as she should be — there’s a sense that her character is being held back from the lunacy she could portray. Meanwhile, the same can be said about everything else in the film: despite its potential, Her Husband’s Affairs merely exists contently, getting a few smiles where there should be chuckles and laughs. It’s amiable enough and not a complete waste of time, but there are several much better films from the same time and genre. See it for Ball, maybe, but there’s not much else.