Too Many Husbands (1940 film)

Too Many Husbands
1940 theatrical poster
Directed byWesley Ruggles
Screenplay byClaude Binyon
Based onToo Many Husbands
1919 play
by W. Somerset Maugham
Produced byWesley Ruggles
StarringJean Arthur
Fred MacMurray
Melvyn Douglas
CinematographyJoseph Walker
Edited byWilliam A. Lyon
Otto Meyer
Music byFriedrich Hollaender
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • March 21, 1940 (1940-03-21)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Too Many Husbands (released in the United Kingdom as My Two Husbands) is a 1940 American romantic comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas. The plot centres on a woman who believes her husband has perished in a boating accident and remarries, only to have her first spouse reappear. The film is based on the 1919 W. Somerset Maugham play Home and Beauty, which was itself retitled Too Many Husbands when it came to New York, and itself takes inspiration from the 1864 Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem Enoch Arden.

In April 1947, a radio adaptation of the film starring Lucille Ball, Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra aired as an episode of The Screen Guild Theater. In 1955, the film was remade as Three for the Show, a musical starring Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable.