Air-Force-Pilot Reynolds wird über dem besetzten Holland abgeschossen. Er findet Schutz ausgerechnet in dem Haus, in das sich auch der einfältige und eitle Nazi-Major Zellfritz einquartiert, um der Schwiegertochter der Wovermans, Anita, den Hof zu machen. Anita steht im Begriff, sich von ihrem mental instabilen Ehemann scheiden zu lassen, der ebenfalls noch am selben Tag eintreffen soll, wegen eines Rückfalls aber noch ein paar Tage in der Nervenheilanstalt verbleibt. Um Reynolds zu schützen, geben die Wovermans ihn kurzerhand als Anitas Noch-Ehemann aus. Reynolds wiederum ist entzückt von der ihm unverhofft zugefallenen Gattin und spielt mit großem Vergnügen weiterhin deren Ehemann. Er hat aber auch noch einen Geheimauftrag zu erledigen, und mit Anitas Hilfe gelingt es ihm, Angriffspläne der Nazis auszuspionieren. Nun gilt es, einen Weg zu finden, England zu informieren, Zellfritz’ Avancen gegenüber Anita abzuwehren, Anitas Scheidung rechtskräftig zu machen und die Frisch-Geschiedene dazu zu bewegen, Reynolds’ eigenem Antrag zuzustimmen.
This picture kids the pants off the Nazis, not only figuratively but also literally, and spares neither the Japanese nor the Italians their share in such a mixture of satire and slapstick as the screen and its public have not yet seen.
The picture is as closely and completely attuned to the news of the moment as if it had been made this morning (April 17) and if the Russians continue to hold the upper hand on the Eastern Front there is no reason for believing that audiences everywhere will not find it as uproariously laughable as the Pantages audience did last night. Stretches of dialogue were lost in the din. […]
Although Joan Bennett and Franchot Tone rate top billing, and perform their tasks with expertness, Allyn Joslyn as the Nazi Major, diffident to the verge of effeminate, steals virtually every scene and the picture. His portrayal of the Nazi official as a dolt wielding a power beyond his intelligence to control, and mouthing the catchwords of the Nazi credo in futile misapplication to trivia, had the preview audience in stiches.
At times the picture parallels in manner of treatment the more laughable sections of THE GREAT DICTATOR, but it never undertakes the seriousness of approach which that picture essayed. At other times it uses the tempo and method employed by the Three Stooges in their early two-reel comedies dealing with the subject of Nazis. At still other times it is like neither of these, and at some times it is straight-away farce, but always is it a ridiculing of the Axis with no punches pulled.
Audience reaction to the picture as previewed indicated that the public attitude toward anti-Nazi pictures has undergone a change since the declaration of war which puts a premium upon this type of entertainment for the purposes of today’s box office.
Producer B. P. Schulberg, director Richard Wallace and screenplaywrights Gina Kaus and Jay Dratler could have had a rising vote of thanks from the preview audience for whipping up a comedy that gave the first cause for laughter they’ve had from the war since it started.
William R. Weaver: The Wife Takes a Flyer – Anti-Axis Comedy
Motion Picture Herald, 25.4.1942
Some one has said that we Americans will have come to a perilous pass when we can no longer laugh at our enemies – which, in one sense, may be true. But certainly the sort of laughter which Columbia’s #The Wife Takes a Flyer# limply woos is a token neither of wit nor a healthy respect for the foe. So, if you find the picture unamusing, do not fear for the nation’s state. This painfully labored comedy, which came to the Capitol yesterday, is just a cheap and artificial lot of slapstick in which the Nazis are broadly burlesqued and the people of occupied Holland are represented as so many actors in a Columbia farce.
It asks you to assume that Joan Bennett is a Dutch lady seeking a divorce and that Franchot Tone is a British flier who evades the Gestapo by posing as her husband, while Allyn Joslyn is a stiff-backed Nazi major who clumsily tries for her favor. It makes its comic points with such subtle devices as kicks in the pants, belches by the major and repetitions of »Heil Hitler!«And it tries to squeeze laughs with such lines as the major’s »I enjoyed your coffee almost as much as I enjoyed the executions this morning.«
Except for Mr. Joslyn’s occasionally amusing obtusities as the dumkopf major, the acting in this picture is unspeakably wretched – worse, even, than the script, which is embarrassingly stupid and off-key. And the general conception of it is an insult to American intelligence. This corner thought that Ernst Lubitsch’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE was direful in this line. But alongside THE WIFE TAKES A FLYER, it stands up as a work of art.
Bosley Crowther: The Wife Takes a Flyer
The New York Times, 20.6.1942