Perfect Strangers is a 1950 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comedy-drama

Comedy-drama

Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by Bretaigne Windust

Bretaigne Windust

Bretaigne Windust was a French-born theatre, film, and television director.-Early life:He was born Ernest Bretaigne Windust in Paris, France, the son of English violin virtuoso Ernest Joseph Windust and singer Elizabeth Amory Day from New York City...

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 for the Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 release by Edith Sommer was based on an adaptation of the 1939 Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...

-Charles MacArthur

Charles MacArthur

Charles Gordon MacArthur was an American playwright and screenwriter.-Biography:Charles MacArthur was the second youngest of seven children born to stern evangelist William Telfer MacArthur and Georgiana Welsted MacArthur. He early developed a passion for reading...

 play Ladies and Gentlemen

Ladies and Gentlemen (play)

Ladies and Gentlemen is a play by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht. The courtroom drama, inspired by a Hungarian play by Ladislaus Bush-Fekete, centers on the relationship that develops between two sequestered jurors, Miss Scott and Mr...

by George Oppenheimer.

Plot

The title characters are Terry Scott, who is separated from her husband, and unhappily married David Campbell, the father of two children, who meet when they are selected to serve on the jury

Jury

A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...

 of the Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 trial

Trial

A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...

 of Ernest Craig. The defendant

Defendant

A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute...

 is charged with murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

ing his wife when she refused to grant him a divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

. While sequestered during the lengthy proceedings, Terry and David get to know each other and fall in love. Some dramatic tension is added to the plot by juror Isobel Bradford, a snobby socialite

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 who tries to sway the panel to vote for the death penalty.

Primary cast

• Ginger Rogers
  Ginger Rogers
  Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
  
   ..... Terry Scott
• Dennis Morgan
  Dennis Morgan
  Dennis Morgan was an American actor-singer. Born as Earl Stanley Morner, he used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting his professional name....
  
   ..... David Campbell
• Thelma Ritter
  Thelma Ritter
  Thelma Ritter was an American supporting and character actress from the 1940s until her death in 1969.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Lena Fassler
• Margalo Gillmore
  Margalo Gillmore
  Margaret Lorraine "Margalo" Gillmore was an English American film, stage and television actress....
  
   ..... Isobel Bradford
• Alan Reed
  Alan Reed
  Alan Reed was an American actor and voice actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone on The Flintstones and various spinoff series...
  
   ..... Harry Patullo
• Paul Ford ..... Judge Byron
• Harry Bellaver
  Harry Bellaver
  Harry Bellaver was an American stage, film and television actor who appeared in many roles from the 1930s through the 1980s.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Bailiff
• Ford Rainey
  Ford Rainey
  Ford Rainey was an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Rainey was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, the son of Vyrna , a teacher, and Archie Coleman Rainey. Rainey graduated from Centralia Junior College in Washington state and the Cornish Drama School in Seattle. He first acted on...
  
   ..... Ernest Craig

Principal production credits

• Producer
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Jerry Wald
  Jerry Wald
  Jerry Wald was an American producer and screenwriter for motion pictures and radio shows.Born Jerome Irving Wald in Brooklyn, New York, he had a brother and sons who were active in show business. Jerry began writing a radio column for the New York Evening Graphic while a student at New York...
  
  
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Leigh Harline
  Leigh Harline
  Leigh Adrian Harline was a film composer.-Career:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, he worked for various radio stations before joining the Walt Disney studios in 1932 as arranger and scorer...
  
  
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... J. Peverell Marley
  J. Peverell Marley
  J. Peverell Marley was an American cinematographer. He is one of only six cinematographers to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame...
  
  
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Stanley Fleischer
• Set Design ..... George James Hopkins
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Milo Anderson

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

described the film as "modest entertainment" and "an obviously hacked out affair which turns on a bit of terminal plotting that is flatly mechanical and contrived . . . the limits of plausibility are unmistakably stretched . . . Miss Rogers and Mr. Morgan are pretty dreary throughout the film. However, their fellow jurors are a remarkably entertaining lot, picturesque in theatrical fashion, and the minor salvation of the show."