this movie be exquisitely direct and act . the fourth wall be go while the movie rid so high and smart that we a audience can be subtly acknowledge throughout and make complicit in the production and while we continue to believe in the character and care about what happen to them . much of the important dialogue be throw away dialogue and in a sense . it clear to the hearing and but line be often speak by the character to themselves and for their own ( and our ) amusement and or deliver in very deftly choreograph simultaneity and each speaker maintain an independent point of view in rapid fire repartee . implication be understated . we be expect to expect the unexpected and to listen to every line . the plot be compose like a piece of music . each scene take moment from the time line establish by the impending day and hour and minute at which a husband ( cary grant ) and wife ( irene dunne ) become legally divorce and and the movie end at precisely the stroke of midnight which mark that moment . they clearly want each other back and but will they cleave together or cleave apart a the clock strike midnight . one extend movement of the movie let cary grant charmingly undermine his wife new relationship . in correspond scene later and irene dunne brilliantly play a dumb floozie and pretending to be the husband sister and demolishing in one even his reputation and his prospect for marriage in respectable society . in these late scene and in another of the movie nice compositional touch and she do a reprise of a hoochie musical number perform earlier by a girlfriend of her husband and and then fall into her husband arm and apparently drunk . he gesture for her to look back and say goodnight to the horrified guest ( and to u ) a they do a wonderful little wobbly dance out the door and have burn their bridge behind them . i find the opening few scene of the movie unlikable and but with the entrance of irene dunne and the movie get u on board . there so much great understated visual and verbal double entendre ( in the best sense ) that i want to go back and see if there more that i miss . in one scene and cary grant have bring to irene dunne new fiancé the paperwork on a coal mine the divorce couple still own . interrupt by a visitor while advise the fiancé on where it would good to sink a shaft ( har . ) and he explain that he and the fiancé ( brilliantly play by ralph bellamy a a very successful bumpkin businessman ) be transact a business deal . the movie move along briskly and doesn not play up the point and but we catch and for a fraction of a second and irene dunne squirming a she find herself look like the business transaction in question . the movie move through moment like this quickly and with high respect for our intelligence and our capacity to get in on the joke .