Columbia was eager to follow up their surprise hit with the sequel There's That Woman Again (1938) and potentially launch it as a series. Blondell, who was pregnant with her second child, was unavailable and the studio decided to swap in leading lady Virginia Bruce as her replacement. In an effort to ensure continued success with the series, the sequel closely matches the first film to create a winning formula. Screenwriter Gladys Lehman who had adapted Wilson Collison's short story "There's Always a Woman," crafted the sequel with the help of former newspaperman James Edward Grant, humor writer Ken Englund and Philip G. Epstein, twin brother of Julius Epstein with whom he would go on to write Casablanca (1942).
There's That Woman Again starts with an ambitious statement calling itself "the second in a series dealing with the adventures of Sally and Bill Reardon - Private Detectives." Bill Reardon's agency is in financial straits and he's been working on the same case for months. Nacelle's jewelry store, run by Mrs. Nacelle (Margaret Lindsay) and her manager Rolfe Davis (Jonathan Hale), has been robbed 15 times and each time only one piece of jewelry was stolen. Bill hits a snag in his investigation and his wife Sally (Virginia Bruce) decides to help him out behind his back. What ensues is a series of mishaps as the investigation continues to get more complicated now that Davis has been murdered. Following the first film's formula are a number of duplicate scenes including Sally's meeting with a secret client, a group date at the fancy Skyline Bar, Sally's negligence causing Bill substantial grief and the police's ineptitude at keeping Sally under their control.
The film was a flop and any plan to make it into a series was subsequently scrapped. Bruce, who'd been keeping busy since the death of her ex-husband actor John Gilbert, was more suited to sophisticated comedies rather than the zany, screwball antics this film required. According to Bruce biographer Scott O'Brien, "[she] seems off-key as the dim-witted help-mate to Douglas." Bruce had big shoes to fill and lacked the confidence to play Sally Reardon. Blondell's absence was notable. Director Alexander Hall kept referring to Bruce as Blondell and Melvyn Douglas discouraged Bruce from seeing the original film for inspiration. Nevertheless, the film's failure can't be blamed solely on the actress. As film critic Clive Hirschhorn wrote, "Virginia Bruce... did her best and sometimes overdid her best trying to re-create Blondell's charming daffiness. The screenplay... was sardine-packed with clichés and inconsistencies which may, in part, have accounted for the disappointing box-office." The New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent went easy on the film calling it "a harmless way of killing time."
The box-office failure of There's That Woman Again didn't stop MGM from considering casting Douglas and Bruce as William Powell and Myrna Loy's replacements for the third installment of the Thin Man series, Another Thin Man (1939). Powell had taken a couple years off to deal with the death of Jean Harlow and his own bout with cancer. He wasn't under contract with MGM and Powell's agent was asking for a substantial salary for his star. Loy was available but because her storyline in the second Thin Man movie, After the Thin Man (1936), had Nora expecting a child, MGM would not allow Melvyn Douglas to play the father of William Powell's baby. If Powell had to go then Loy had to go too. Fortunately, MGM came to an agreement with Powell's agent and the Thin Man series would go on with its two beloved stars.
By Raquel Stetcher
