The Marriage-Go-Round ** (1961, James Mason, Susan Hayward, Julie Newmar) – Classic Movie Review 12,563

The colourful but empty-headed 1961 American comedy film The Marriage-Go-Round is based on Leslie Stevens’s 1958 Broadway play. It stars James Mason, Susan Hayward and Julie Newmar as a Swedish vixen who wants her married American host to father her baby.

Director Walter Lang’s colourful and but empty-headed 1961 DeLuxe Color CinemaScope American comedy film The Marriage-Go-Round is based on Leslie Stevens’s 1958 Broadway play, and stars James Mason, Susan Hayward and Julie Newmar.

Mason plays Florida college professor Paul Delville, happily married to Content (Susan Hayward), the college dean of women, who finds himself the unwitting focus of attention for gorgeous, amorous visiting Swedish student Katrin Sveg (Julie Newmar), daughter of a former colleague, Professor Sveg (Everett Glass). Paul is flustered when the Swedish vixen Katrin announces she wants to have a baby with Paul, mixing brains and beauty. Content isn’t very content either.

The Marriage-Go-Round is a second-rate vehicle for Mason as the hounded husband, in a comedy that clearly thinks itself wittier and more amusing than it is.

Acting and direction are entirely competent, and often vivacious, but the actors and director can’t do much with this obvious and verve-free script by the play’s author Leslie Stevens, who also produces.

Also in the cast are Robert Paige, June Clayworth, Joe Kirkwood Jr, Mary Patton, and Everett Glass.

It was released by 20th Century Fox on 6 January 1961.

It was filmed at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida and on Stage 4 in the 20th Century Fox studio.

Julie Newmar (born Julia Chalene Newmeyer, August 16, 1933) won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play as Katrin Sveg in the 1958 Broadway play of The Marriage-Go-Round and reprised the role in the 1961 film version, The Marriage-Go-Round, with Susan Hayward and James Mason. At the 1961 Golden Globes, she was a nominee for Most Promising Newcomer – Female, but her career ran back to Slaves of Babylon (1953) and Serpent of the Nile (1953), and also included The Band Wagon (1953), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), her breakthrough Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Li’l Abner (1959) and The Rookie (1959).

The Marriage-Go-Round is directed by Walter Lang, runs 98 minutes, is made by Daystar Productions, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Leslie Stevens, is shot in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope widescreen by Leo Tover, is produced by Leslie Stevens, and is scored by Dominic Frontière.

It cost $3 million and earned $1.3 million in North America.

The cast are Susan Hayward as Content Delville, James Mason as Paul Delville, Julie Newmar as Katrin Sveg, Robert Paige as Dr Ross Barnett, June Clayworth as Flo Granger, Joe Kirkwood Jr as Henry ‘Doc’ Granger, Mary Patton as Mamie Barnett, Trax Colton as party guest Crew Cut, and Everett Glass as Professor Sveg.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,563

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com