That Uncertain Feeling (1941)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Ernst Lubitsch

Writers:

Victorien Sardou (play) and
Emile DeNajac (play) ...

Release Date:

20 April 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

It's a serious problem for a lady with the hiccups, and he is it!

Plot:

Against her better judgement, happily married Jill Baker is persuaded to see a popular psychoanalyst about her psychosomatic hiccups...

Plot Keywords:

Psychoanalyst | Pianist | Hiccup | Marriage | Insomnia

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Merle Oberon	...	Mrs. Jill Baker
Melvyn Douglas	...	Larry Baker
Burgess Meredith	...	Alexander Sebastian
Alan Mowbray	...	Dr. Vengard
Olive Blakeney	...	Margie Stallings
Harry Davenport	...	Jones (the attorney)
Sig Ruman	...	Mr. Kafka (as Sig Rumann)
Eve Arden	...	Sally Aikens (Jones' secretary)
Richard Carle	...	Albert (the butler)

Also Known As:

Ernst Lubitsch's That Uncertain Feeling (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

France:U | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #6997) | West Germany:12 (nf)

Company:

Ernst Lubitsch Productions Inc.

Trivia:

Despite the indifferent reception That Uncertain Feeling received, the cast treasured its experience with the master director and the atmosphere he created on set. Meredith enjoyed working on the production and years later recalled, "I don't know when I had a better time in my whole career than during that period." Of Lubitsch, Meredith said, "He was very psychic. I'd fall down laughing because right away he'd improvise, in the middle of a scene he was doing for me, some very personal thing about my life, with his big cigar in his mouth, and he knew I'd come over and say, 'How did you know about that?' and he'd say, 'I have ways of knowing.' "

Quotes:

Mrs. Jill Baker: I'm a perfectly normal woman.
Margie Stallings: That sounds awfully dull.
Extra in Ladies Room: My dear you musn't say that about yourself - not even in fun!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Wide Awake (2006)

"That Uncertain Feeling" is unfleeting

Loved "That Uncertain Feeling" (1941)! Here, a superb, substantive, yet oft-times simultaneously silly, screenplay (adapted from the stage) meets first-rate actors. (The beautiful Merle Oberon is at her comedic best.) What makes this a must-see film is the palpable pathos swirling just beneath it all. In lesser hands (actors and writers all) this might've fallen into the snidely melodramatic or the mildly comedic.

By the by, who says the feeling man is dead? The reviews give credence to the fact that-- whether in their teens, twenties, or, like me, in their fifties-- men enjoy romantic comedies as much as women. I suspect that any polls showing otherwise are eschew for the very reason that too many films today use a "straw man," where the male lead isn't much more than duplicitous, a nitwit, a heel (or all three). In "That Uncertain Feeling," a certain maturity and balance rules the writers. Sure, men AND women's flaws come to the fore, but as (or more)importantly, both sexes' attributes are on show, too, to boot. If the writer creates, equally, humorously offensive male and female characters, then it actually mirrors the real world while not playing partisan sexual politics. Do that and movie theatres will be swarming with women AND men, maybe like in days of old...like those when I, too, was young.