The More the Merrier · reception & legacy
1943 · George Stevens
How The More the Merrier has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A genuine wartime hit — it charmed 1943 audiences with its Washington housing-shortage premise and pulled six Oscar nominations — and it's since settled into 'best romantic comedy you haven't seen' status, routinely rediscovered and evangelized by classic-Hollywood fans.
What's debated
The perennial cinephile claim is that Jean Arthur was robbed — her only Oscar nomination ever, for a performance many now call the peak of the era's romantic comedy.
Its footprint
Its front-stoop scene between Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea is legendary as maybe the sexiest scene ever slipped past the Production Code, endlessly clipped and cited as proof of what 1940s Hollywood could do with restraint; Charles Coburn's cheerful 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!' refrain is the film's other calling card.
Where it stands
A beloved-but-underseen classic — the kind of film classic-Hollywood devotees press on people as a secret handshake, forever ranked among the great 40s romcoms without ever being a household name.