My Favorite Wife (released in the U.K. as
My Favourite Wife) is a 1940
screwball comedy produced and co-written by
Leo McCarey and directed by
Garson Kanin. The picture stars
Irene Dunne as a woman who returns to her husband and children after being shipwrecked on a tropical island for several years, and
Cary Grant as her husband. The story is an adaptation of
Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "
Enoch Arden"; in tribute, the main characters' last name is Arden. The supporting cast features
Gail Patrick as the woman Arden has just married when his first wife, now declared dead, returns, and
Randolph Scott as the man with whom his wife had been marooned.
My Favorite Wife was RKO's second-biggest hit of 1940.