The 25 Must-See Titles at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival

Myrna Loy and William Powell in Love Crazy. Image courtesy of MGM.

Love Crazy (1941)

A couple (Myrna Loy and William Powell) break up after their fourth wedding anniversary is ruined through a series of comic hijinks. Desperate to win his wife back, architect Steve goes so far as to feign insanity.

There’s not much that can’t be solved in life by watching a Myrna Loy/William Powell movie. The stars acted in a whopping 14 films together, with audiences so in love with them they demanded the two marry. (The two remained platonic friends for years.) Most know Powell and Loy as Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man mysteries, but that’s to discount a wealth of great romantic comedies, of which Love Crazy is one.

Most of the Powell/Loy comedies involve zany plot contrivances, and though that’s here in abundance, the romance is what sells. By this point in their careers Loy and Powell knew each other down to their individual movements. The film’s finale sees them playing opposite each other using hand signals, and the actors instinctively know what the other is saying. You can’t find actors more in-sync with each other than these two. After watching this, go back and revisit the Thin Man series and I Love You Again (1940).

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