Are Husbands Necessary?

80 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$552,000.^[1]Box office$1,050,000 (US rentals)^[2]

Are Husbands Necessary? is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Ray Milland and Betty Field.^[3] It follows the misadventures of a wacky wife and her sometimes exasperated, but loving, banker husband. The film's screenplay was adapted by the husband-and-wife writing team of Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis, from the novel Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage by Isabel Scott Rorick. This novel would later be a source for the related 1948 radio series My Favorite Husband starring Lucille Ball, which itself would evolve into the television series I Love Lucy.

A one-hour Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film, featuring George Burns and Gracie Allen, aired February 15, 1943, on CBS Radio.^[4]

Cast

• Ray Milland as George Cugat
• Betty Field as Mary Elizabeth Cugat
• Patricia Morison as Myra Ponsonby
• Eugene Pallette as Bunker
• Philip Terry as Cory Cartwright
• Richard Haydn as Chuck
• Charles Dingle as Duncan Atterbury
• Kathleen Lockhart as Laura Atterbury
• Leif Erickson as Bill Stone
• Cecil Kellaway as Dr. Buell
• Elizabeth Risdon as Mrs. Westwood
• Charlotte Wynters as Mrs. Finley

References

External links

• Are Husbands Necessary? review at The New York Times
• Are Husbands Necessary? at IMDb
• Are Husbands Necessary? at TCMDB