An Innocent Affair

An Innocent Affair is one of those films that would not exist if the characters would only communicate. In this case it's husband and wife Fred MacMurray and Madeleine Carroll who start playing games to catch each other in a lie and when you do that you are inevitably successful.

This was the fourth of four films that MacMurray and Carroll did together, the first three were when both were contract players at Paramount. This film was an independent production released by United Artists.

MacMurray who is worried about his wife's jealousy is spending late nights negotiating with the widow of a tycoon to land his account for MacMurray's advertising firm. The widow is Louise Allbritton who at one time was engaged to MacMurray so he's concerned about Carroll's reaction. Truth be told Allbritton does have more than business on her mind.

So when Carroll hires some actor to flirt with her at a nightclub to make Fred jealous and mistakes southern cigarette tycoon Buddy Rogers for the hired actor all kinds of complications develop, the kind you would have found in screwball comedies before World War II.

Alan Mowbray also has a very droll performance as a man MacMurray hires to play Allbritton's husband. He just can't quite summon up the enthusiasm for the part and I'll leave it go at that.

An Innocent Affair has some good moments and it's in the hands of a pair of stars who've honed these parts to perfection.