In this sparkling, risquée romantic comedy, three of Hollywood's top stars—Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman—play house together. Grant is a convicted arsonist and murderer who's escaped from prison, and Arthur is his old girlfriend who's fixing up her apartment to rent out to Colman, a famous law scholar. The film features one of Grant's best performances (on a long list of great performances); he's perfectly matched by Arthur, who was one of the silver screen's finest comediennes. Colman, in a rare comic turn, is essentially the straight man, although "straight" doesn't quite describe him. In addition to its status as one of the great screen comedies, the film is a treasure trove of homosexual undercurrents, many of which aren't all that disguised. Sideways glances, beards, an asexual professor with an ambiguous relationship with his "man," and a love triangle in which the men attempt to foist the woman on each other—there are so many elements here, some quite brazenly so, that it's not crazy to see homosexual themes in it.

In an opening montage, we learn that Leopold Dilg (Grant), a part-time anarchist, has been convicted of buring down his boss's factory and killing the foreman. Public opinion is so stacked against him that he doesn't have a chance of a fair trial, so he escapes, fleeing to the home of his ex-girlfriend Nora Shelley, who is not pleased to see him. He convinces her to let him hide in the house, but it's not an idea situation because her tenant, the acerbic Professor Michael Lightcap, shows up a night early and insists on taking possession of the house. At first "Miss Shelley," as both men call her, attempts to hide Dilg's presence from the grumpy professor, but Dilg, enraged by Lightcap's opinions on law (he's dictating a scholarly tome to Miss Shelley), engages the professor in lengthy arguments about the role of emotion and conscience in the practice of law. Lightcap is the stereotypical Learned Scholar, above the everyday functionings of the world, and Dilg's impassioned arguments make quite an impression on him. The two men become friends, Lightcap thinking of Dilg as a Thoreau-like intellectual gardener and Dilg thinking of Lightcap as a hopelessly out of touch egghead. Meanwhile, Dilg, Miss Shelley, and Dilg's lawyer (Edgar Buchanan) hatch a plan to get Lightcap involved in Dilg's case by showing him the extent of the town's cronyism and corruption. Lightcap doesn't want anything to do with it: he's just been tapped as the next Supreme Court justice, and he wants to keep out of the papers until the confirmation hearings are over. But slowly, inexorably, Dilg and company get through to him. This leads to a frantic second half, where Lightcap attempts to clear Dilg, Dilg attempts to evade capture, and Miss Shelley tries to choose between two radically different men, neither of whom seem all that interested in her.

The film is strong on comedy and remarkably weak in romance. There aren't really any sparks between Arthur and either of the men. Aside from a couple of perfunctory kisses and a series of events that ends in Miss Shelley wearing Lightcap's pajamas, romance is eschewed in favor of a mix of verbal and physical comedy and a surprising amount of serious discussion of the way the world works. The dialog, by Irwin Shaw and Oscar-winner Sidney Buchman, perfectly showcases Grant's comic irritability, Colman's dry, musing delivery, and Arthur's delightfully silly squeak of a voice; it also gives Grant and Colman some pretty meaty concepts to chew on, especially in the context of a 1940s romantic comedy. Director George Stevens, best known for his late-career serious fare like Giant and A Place in the Sun, reminds us that he got his start directing comedy shorts; he had a good couple of years in the early 1940s, directing The More the Merrier, Woman of the Year, and Penny Serenade.

This is a great film, but it's infinitely more interesting because of what I see as a strong homosexual subtext. First, let's take Ronald Colman's character, Professor Lightcap. He's an asexual single man who's just turned 40; he wears a thick beard, which he explains as a youthful attempt to seem more masculine and authoritative. It's a topic of much discussion in the film, mentioned several times as a sort of explanation for his asexual nature. Women in the street tease him about it, and Arthur has to explain to him that "we don't see much of that around here." Is facial hair really that rare, or does "that" refer to his sexual preference? The term "beard," referring to a gay man's female companion/cover, didn't originate until the 1960s, but the similarities here are astounding. Lightcap has a close—incredibly close—relationship with his hired man, Tilney (Rex Avery); watch how delighted Lightcap is when he receives Tinley's birthday present. At several points in the film, when things are getting crazy, Tilney says, "Let's go back to Boston," which can be taken literally as an exhortation to retreat home to avoid the increasingly tangled plot, but can be taken metaphorically as Tilney's desire for his friend to stop his halting forays into heterosexuality and return to their "Boston marriage" (I realize that Boston marriages referred to two women cohabitating, but the similarities are too many to ignore). During one drive, when Lightcap and Tilney are talking about relationships, Lightcap refers to Tilney's long-ago, failed marriage, and Tilney responds by saying that the marriage was a mistake, and that he's been happy in his "cloistered" life with Lightcap; when it comes to relationships with women, both men are, in Tilney's words, "babes in the woods." And, finally, when Lightcap decides to shave off his beard so that he can seduce Regina Bush (Glenda Farrell)—a most awkward and chaste seduction—Tilney weeps as if his heart were breaking. Because his employer is shaving? Or because he thinks his lover is switching sides? I submit that their mutual affection is more than the bond between master and servant.

There's also the film's tagline, "Screen comedy so gay... drama so thrilling... love so exciting, it will be the talk of YOUR town!" Yes, gay meant happy, but by this time it also meant homosexual. The first time a movie used the term gay to mean homosexual was in the 1938 film Bringing Up Baby, where a character says, "I just went gay all of a sudden!" The actor: Cary Grant. Grant's bisexuality was an "open secret," something that everyone knew but nobody publicly acknowledged. In this film, his body language speaks volumes: the way he tilts his head, the sidelong looks he gives when he makes a double entendre, all of it points to, at the very least, ambiguous sexuality. He and Colman bond more quickly and more intensely than either man does with Miss Shelley; they discuss the law, politics, and, interestingly, each other's complexions. There's a hilarious scene in a car where Grant attempts to convince Colman to stop; Colman refuses, saying "I'll have to be firm," and Grant, leaning into the other man's lap, says "I'll just have to pull your brake." Sure, this dialog was probably not intended as a double entendre, but under the weight of the rest of the intentional and unintentional references, you can't help but laugh at it. Also, there's the odd fact that both men insist to Miss Shelley that she really belongs with the other.

The film spoils a perfect opportunity for an ambiguous ending. In Lightcap's first appearance on the Supreme Court, just after he and Miss Shelley have shared a kiss, Miss Shelley and Dilg are in the audience. Miss Shelley and Lightcap exchange a look, and Lightcap winks; Dilg sees the wink and misunderstands, rising to leave. Of course this was a 1940s romantic comedy, and heterosexual norms must win in the end, but how delicious would it have been had Dilg and Lightcap exchanged a wink too, as "The End" faded onto the screen? One can only wonder, and perhaps turn the DVD player off two minutes before the end.

The film was nominated for seven Oscars but failed to win any: Picture, Original Story (Sidney Harmon), Screenplay (Buchman and Shaw), Original Dramatic or Comedic Score, Editing, Black and White Cinematography (Ted Tetzlaff), and Art Direction-Interior Decoration.