Merrily We Live

Merrily We Live is a 1938 comedy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod, starring Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne and featuring Ann Dvorak, Bonita Granville, Billie Burke, Tom Brown, Alan Mowbray, Clarence Kolb and Patsy Kelly. The film was produced by Hal Roach for Hal Roach Studios, and was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay is by Eddie Moran and Jack Jevne. The film is considered to have set the standard for later family comedy films and TV sitcoms. A number of critics have erroneously claimed that the film is based on the 1936 film My Man Godfrey when in fact it is a reworking of the 1930 movie What a Man, based on the 1924 novel The Dark Chapter; a Comedy of Class Distinctions by E. J. Rath and its 1926 Broadway adaptation They All Want Something by Courtenay Savage. This was the fifth of six films that Billie Burke and Alan Mowbray collaborated in. The others were Where Sinners Meet (1934), Becky Sharp (1935), She Couldn't Take It (1935), Topper (1937) and Topper Takes a Trip (1938). Merrily We Live was extremely successful and garnered five Academy Award nominations.