Back from overseas.

At this point in her career, Marilyn Monroe was typecast as either a dumb-blonde secretary or girlfriend or her own woman in a B-comedy. The first example of the later is Love Nest (1951).

Love Nest is not that bad of a movie for being a B-comedy. It breaks no new ground, but it is good entertainment. The story revolves around the Scott couple, Jim and Connie. Connie, played by June Haver, has bought an apartment building in New York. This is a huge surprise to Jim, played by William Lundigan, when he arrives home from the army. He expected a nice quiet apartment. Instead he has become landlord for an apartment building that needs a lot of fixing up.

The comedy comes as the couple tries to improve their love nest and as Jim is continually interrupted from his writing by problems that occur in the apartment building.

As with any apartment building, single tenants become interested in each other. This is the case for Eadie Gaynor, played by Leatrice Joy. Eadie falls for Charley Patterson, played by Frank Fay. Charley is an older gentleman, while Eadie is Connie’s best friend. It appears that the love next is expanding to include two happy couples. Here are where complications are thrown in.

First with Connie and Jim. Jim tells Connie that his friend, Bobby, from the army has written him and wants to stay in their apartment building. Connie says alright, as she wouldn’t want to look like she discriminates against veterans. Connie is shocked when “Bobby” shows up and is actually Marilyn Monroe, who plays Roberta Stevens, known to friends as Bobbie.

Connie doesn’t like what her husband has done to her and is jealous of Roberta. But she can not worry too much about this problem as it is discovered that Charley is not a rich old man, but rather a con artist. Connie fears for her best friend Eadie, as the two are planning on getting married. Jim can’t believe that the nice old man is really a criminal.

Charley admits that he is a criminal, although he pledged that he would not revert to his old ways once he married Eadie, as he believes he has finally found true love. Eadie feel bad for Charley, as do Jim and Connie, but things work out for the couple. Connie has the apartment building running well and Jim gets an opportunity to be a writer. Charley offers to tell Jim his life story for a biography. The book ends up being a best seller and the couple ends up happily ever after.

The acting is hit or miss here. That probably has something to do with the characters though. Charley and Roberta are the most interesting characters and Frank Fay and Marilyn Monroe give the best performances. Leatrice Joy is also good, but June Haver and William Lundigan are nothing special. Their characters might be the focus of the story, but the story is about two common people trying to make things work. So the actors don’t have to be of the Shakespearian quality to make this work.