THAT WONDERFUL URGE puts Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney thru the rom-com wringer in a 1948 fluffnuthin’ that remakes 1937’s Love Is News, which also starred Power, with Loretta Young. The earlier picture did considerably better, not least because 11 years earlier screwball comedies, usually revolving around the pampered rich, were in vogue. The intervention of the Second World War took a good deal of the giddy steam out of such silliness, and while loyal fans of the two glamorous stars dutifully trooped in enough to cover the budget outlay, 83rd place ($4,300,000) was indicative of the change in taste and mood.

“And sometimes I wish I’d been born poor, and then I kick myself and say ‘don’t be an idiot‘”

Newshound ‘Thomas Jefferson Tyler’ (Power) has ticked off grocery store heiress ‘Sara Farley’ (Tierney) with a series of less-than-approving articles. But when he takes a further step and impersonates fictional reporter ‘Tom Thomas’ to befriend Sara on her ski vacation, he finds out she’s the real deal: she just happens to be loaded. Naturally they are equally smitten, and naturally his subterfuge is revealed and preternaturally the back & forth of love finding its messy way takes up the rest of the tissue-thin plot.

“In all my experience I have never met a more frightful cad.”

Directed by the capable if undistinguished Robert B. Sinclair, the script by Jay Dratler (Laura, The Dark Corner) has a few bright spots but in the main is too little, too late: the best scene involves snoring, with a daffy variety of exaggerated sound effects. Power and Tierney obviously make an attractive couple and they manage the trifle without sacrificing dignity; this was their third teaming, following 1942’s Son Of Fury and The Razor’s Edge in 1946. They also had shared experience offscreen that went above & beyond the call of “action”, so that bonbon can also be factored in to enjoying their sparking and sparring.

Working diligently with the material at hand for 82 minutes: Reginald Gardner, Gene Lockhart, Arlene Whelan, Lucille Watson, Lloyd Gough, Porter Hall, Richard Gaines, Chill Wills, Hope Emerson, Frank Ferguson, Percy Helton, Robert Foulk, Mickey Simpson.