I wanted Tracy to go with Mike..

Tracy and Mike did have wonderful chemistry in their scenes together though, especially the ones when they were drinking champagne :)

"Have you ever fired your gun in the air and gone 'AHHHH!'?" -Hot Fuzz

I really hate that, though. Mike is sort of a jerk to Liz through the entire movie, and he takes her at the end as a second choice. That's no basis for a relationship. I'd like to see Liz with the non-rat man she's hoping for during the whole movie, not to say that Mike is a rat, but he won't respect and appreciate her, which is what Liz is really looking for after so many unhappy relationships in her past.

And Carey Grant is obnoxious.

I totally agree with you!! I never saw a moment in the movie where Tracy and Dexter's interactions warranted them getting married again!

"They have little interaction, and pretty much no chemistry." That could have been changed with a rewrite.

Bringing Up Baby doesn't matter, it's a different movie.

First of all, we're talking about the height of the Production Code era. There is no such thing as an "ex-marriage". Short of murder, or finding out that one party of the marriage had already been married (thereby invalidating the original "marriage" in question; a device that was used in a remarkable number movies considering how rare it is in real life), the couple that had been married originally *always* ends up back together at the end of movies of this period (assuming that both characters survive to the end of the movie).

Secondly, Tracy getting back together with Dex was not "out of nowhere". Dex had clearly been angling in that direction all along. That's why, when Mike proposes to Tracy, we see the same reaction shot of Dex that we do of Liz. It makes perfect sense because we already know that Dex intends to marry Tracy just as surely as we know that Liz intends to marry Mike.

Thirdly, Liz did not claim ownership of Mike. She feels that it is best for Mike for him to be on his own for a bit longer. She does not contradict Dex when he points out that this is "risky" course to take. She knows that, but she loves Mike enough to do what she honestly thinks is best for him in the long term even if that may end up meaning that he leaves her.

Fourthly, Mike does love Liz. We get so used to always seeing the first blush of new love in movies that sometimes we have trouble spotting the other forms within the context of a movie. Mike and Liz have been together long enough that they behave a bit more like an old married couple. They're no longer mooning over the sight of each other, Mike sometimes takes Liz a bit for granted, but they're very much attached. Liz is the only person in the entire movie with whom Mike *ever* really lets his guard down and is just completely himself. She *is* who he belongs with.

Fifth, Dex and Tracy's marriage was not one where he "socks her", as you phrase it with the form of the verb implying that it was a regular recurring pattern. We hear Dinah ask if it was true that he had socked her (singular). *We* (the audience) *SAW* the one incident that was being referred to. In the first place, it was a push, not a punch (the common interpretation of "sock"); the legend had either grown in the retelling or been exagerated in Dinah's mind because she was never given complete information. In the second place, it much *less* mean spririted than Tracy's provocation that lead to it. I know that Dex hadn't been abusing Tracy during their marriage the same way I know that Ralph Kramden never actually hit Alice (dispite all of his blustering threats): everything about their demeanor and behavior contradicts that having been the dynamic between them.

Lastly, Dex had told Tracy that she had had no mind for other people because it had been true. Tracy was the one who had married an ideal in her mind; and not a real, live, fallible person. The whole point and story line of the movie was Tracy's evolution away from being someone who always expected the world to be perfectly black and white into one who was more in tune with the idea people are not perfect and should be forgiven for that fact. (Although I agree with some others who have commented that the way this theme was tied to the philandering father was quite unsavory, and wholly inappropriate from a present day point of view. That's the one note of this movie that I don't think has stood up well with the passage of time.) It is a perfect bit of symmetry for the movie to have the new, improved (more accepting) Tracy now commit to a marriage to Dexter where she couldn't at the start. That is where her entire character arc was leading. And they did both adore each other. (Yes, it does go both ways right from the start of the movie. Otherwise, Tracy wouldn't react the way she does when Dex mentions the idea of naming his next boat the True Love II ...... which, by the way, is another reason why her picking Dexter is not "out of nowhere".)


Of course, that's all just my take on this movie.

I did like Tracy and Dexter (I mean, you can't go wrong with Cary Grant) but I agree with you about Liz. I hate that she had anything to do with Tracy rejecting the proposal because you can't just reserve a future boyfriend. She didn't want Mike until he had grown up (and I guess he had by the end of the movie?) so she can't just call dibs and expect he will be waiting around single and she saw him first so he can't be with anyone else. It doesn't matter how obvious HER feelings are because she knew he didn't know and was not interested in filling him in. He gets a say, too, and he clearly would have taken marrying a woman he barely knew over Liz.