With America now at war, George Stevens would soon be shooting documentaries in Europe and the Pacific right up until '45. Screwball comedy began to fade out in Hollywood. This is a comedy drama with a serious theme appropriate to a global population threatened by fascism; the state of law and justice.
Ronald Colman plays a pompous, unbending- Kantian- academic who visits New England to write a book before his appointment to the Supreme Court. Cary Grant has a more utilitarian view of the law, and is a fugitive from justice, having been fitted up for arson to stop him opposing local graft.
And Jean Arthur is the slightly screwy landlady who mediates and influences Colman to defend the accused. This is styled as a romance and a farce but the love triangle doesn't come to life. The slamming doors are a distraction. Grant plays a more serious role than was customary; essentially a Communist.
Which must have been noticed by HUAC once fighting was over. The screenwriter (Sidney Buchman) was blacklisted. The drama turns on Colman realising that he has to take a side in the fight for civil liberties. It would be a theme of many Hollywood films in peacetime. This articulates the conflict well and the stars make it one of the better comedies of the war years.