Come Live With Me (1941)
- kbroer
- May 31, 2024
- 3 min read
James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr
Directed by Clarence Brown
Available to stream on Daily Motion
In our last "Husbands and Wives" movie of the month, beautiful refugee Hedy Lamarr meets penniless writer Jimmy Stewart in a New York park and they make a deal - she will loan him money to keep on with his writing and he will marry her "in name only" so she can avoid being deported back to Nazi-controlled Austria. Then the complications begin!
Why we love it: Come Live With Me is very light, amusing, and clever. Of course, they fall in love and it's fun to watch. Hedy lives up to her reputation as the most beautiful actress of the golden age of Hollywood; Jimmy Stewart is such a wonderful actor that he is always a pleasure to watch. Ian Hunter and Verree Teasdale are a great secondary couple with their "modern" marriage.
Fun Facts:
The title comes from a pastoral poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," by Christopher Marlowe published in 1599.
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And, if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
Jimmy Stewart recites the poem to Hedy Lamarr in the scene below:
Hedy Lamarr was known more for her beauty than for her acting ability, but critics were quite impressed with her performance in this film. She used her success in this film to secure a lead role in her next film Ziegfeld Girl -- one of her most remembered films -- which also happened to feature her two costars from Come Live with Me, Jimmy Stewart and Ian Hunter. In addition to being a famous beauty and actress, Hedy Lamarr was also an inventor. At the beginning of World War II, she and her friend, composer George Antheil, patented a secret communication system using frequency hopping as a way to prevent US torpedoes from being detected by the Germans. The idea wasn't used at the time, but was implemented later during the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the foundation for many types of communication technologies. In 1997 Hedy was awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and in 2014 she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Born during the Civil War, Adeline de Walt Reynolds made her film debut as Jimmy Stewart's grandmother in Come Live with Me at the age of 78. She had wanted to be a stage actress when she was young, but her father objected. She became a teacher and later married, had four children, and moved to San Francisco with her family. When her husband died in 1905, she was left trying to support her four children. She survived the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and later, after her youngest daughter went to college, De Walt Reynolds enrolled at UC Berkeley at the age of 64. She majored in French and graduated with honors at the age of 68. She then began taking acting classes and was spotted by director Clarence Brown, who cast her in her first film role in Come Live with Me. She became a recognized character actress and appeared in several other movies and tv shows throughout the 40's and the 50's.
For articles and reviews from the time, go to the Fan Magazine Reviews page.
Featured Cocktail:
Mojito
During Prohibition Americans could get a legal drink by paying a visit to Cuba. One recipe they brought home was for the Mojito. It has been popular here ever since.
2 oz (60 ml) light rum
1 oz (30 ml) fresh lime juice
1 Tbsp (15 ml) sugar syrup
6-8 mint leaves
Club soda
Lightly muddle mint with lime juice and sugar in tall glass. Add a splash of soda and fill the glass with ice. Pour in the rum, top with more soda, and stir lightly.
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