The Mating Game (1959)

(On Cable TV, September 2021) We don’t usually think of IRS agents as potential leads for romantic comedies, but if there was one actor who could make it work, it was Tony Randall — his strait-laced buttoned-down comic person being ideal for the role he was meant to play in The Mating Game. Here, he finds himself as an accountant sent on the farm of a man who’s never paid income taxes — and, worse, barters for everything he needs. Stuck there to assess how many back-taxes are owed, he can’t help but notice the farmer’s daughter, played by Debbie Reynolds… and there’s the rest of the movie, along with a few tax code shenanigans for comedy. (Yes, really.)  As far as 1950s MGM romantic comedies go, The Mating Game is fine without being particularly great. The rural environment is a change of pace, and the tax comedy angle remains distinctive, but the film seems stuck in this strange zone between a musical and a true comedy: Without songs nor strong jokes, it just comes across as middling. It’s amiable, with Randall and Reynolds being put to good use, but The Mating Game doesn’t get to the next level, where it would be genuinely funny.