Though the picture doesn't come anywhere close to Diamond's later collaborations, it does have flashes of the sort of wit that might have attracted Wilder to Diamond's style. Haver plays Connie, a young wife who surprises husband Jim (William Lundigan), a returning serviceman just back from Europe, with news that she's bought a Manhattan apartment building. (For the ten-unit building, she paid the then-exorbitant price of $22,000. How times have changed. Sigh.) Top-billed Haver notwithstanding, the film evolves into something of an ensemble piece, with Jim and Connie gradually becoming friends with their tenants.

Meanwhile, Jim promises to rent one of the apartments to an old "war buddy" of his, "Robbie," who turns out to be Roberta (Monroe), a WAC he knew in Paris. Unsurprisingly, Connie gets jealous, but soon their lawyer friend Ed (Jack Paar) goes on the make. Another new tenant is Charley Patterson (Frank Fay), a dapper confidence man who knows how to charm the ladies. A romance blossoms between Charley, supposedly an estate apraiser, and a middle-aged widow, Eadie (Leatrice Joy), who also lives in the building. Connie suspects Charley's up to no good, that he's "some kind of Bluebeard," but Jim isn't so sure, even after an FBI agent inquires about Charley's activities.

Diamond's script (from Scott Corbett's novel) has several elements to recommend it. First, Diamond does an excellent job of keeping Charley's intentions with Eadie mysterious, along with the nature of his activities. Early on, it's shown that he has numerous fake identities, but it's not clear how he's using them. The payoff to all this is very satisfying and somewhat unexpected, and imaginative enough to impact most of the other major characters.

The film also does a good job capturing the kinds of relationships neighbors have with one another, as well as tenants with their landlords. There's an interesting variety of neighbors: some friendly, others demanding. (One of the neighbors is Marie Blake, sister of Jeanette MacDonald and later Grandmama on The Addams Family in which she acted under the name Blossom Rock.)

Connie and Jim are perky but average; they carry the film's story though Diamond creates several very funny moments for them as they struggle to get their firetrap of a building into shape ("Operation Rat Hole," as Jim calls it). Reduced to living in a basement storage area, they have coal dumped through the window onto their bed, contend with comically noisy pipes and the constant roar of sirens from a nearby fire station.

The best dialog, though, is given over to wisecracking Ed, well played by Jack Paar in one of his very few film roles. Hot on Monroe's Roberta, his come-ons are witty and not far removed from the sort of dialogue Diamond and Wilder would later write for Jack Lemmon. Interestingly Paar's smooth delivery, further refined for his famous talk show, was patterned after Fay. That comedian, hard to take as the master of ceremonies in Show of Shows (1929), is effectively cast here.

As for fourth-billed Monroe, she's okay in her small part, full of the kind of double-entendre humor later stretched to hilarious extremes in Some Like It Hot. However, she's only onscreen for a few minutes, though the film's trailer makes liberal use of her stripping off a top in one shot, climbing out of the shower in another. I'll bet that sold tickets.

Video & Audio

Prensted in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, Love Nest looks great with a solid transfer. The black and white film is in good shape for its age, with only minor scratches during the main titles. The rest of the film is razor sharp, with deep blacks. A stereo track with no apparent discreteness is offered alongside the original mono one, as well as optional (yellow) English and Spanish subtitles.

Extras

The main supplement, a big surprise, is an Audio Commentary with director Joseph M. Newman and Jack Allen, a Monroe Jack of All Trades. Allen's commentary isn't this reviewer's cup of tea, but it's fascinating to listen to 93-year-old Newman discuss his long career and his first-hand account of making this 53-year-old movie. It's pretty amazing to hear a commentary that begins, "I started at MGM in 1925...."

Fox's DVD includes trailers for all 14 Monroe titles Fox has released thus far, including one for Love Nest complete with text and narration. Also included is a generic ad for the Diamond Collection itself.

Parting Thoughts

Though not much as a Marilyn Monroe movie, Love Nest is a fine if leisurely comedy. As a film it's superior to Monroe's previous effort, As Young As You Feel, though her part isn't any better. Like that film, Love Nest is a program picture, but a pretty good one at that.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf -- The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. He is presently writing a new book on Japanese cinema for Taschen.