If when the cat's away the mice will play... then henpecked husband Arthur Earthleigh is due for a real rave-up of a weekend when his domineering wife Mae (Carole Landis) goes out of town to visit her sister.

After dropping off his wife at Grand Central Station, Arthur (George Brent) plans to dine alone at a local restaurant, but unexpectedly meets up with tipsy flibbertigibbet Olive Jensen (Ann Dvorak) and later invites her back to his place for a nightcap. It's all perfectly innocent, of course, but Olive has a tendency to ignore any sign that she's worn out her welcome. And although she seems to have an iron constitution, Olive soon confesses that she's subject to fainting spells -- a fact Arthur ignores as he later believes he's killed her when she succumbs to one of her ''episodes.''

To avoid scandal, Arthur moves the unconscious Olive to the terrace of his neighbor David Galleo (Turhan Bey) and is doubly pleased in doing so because he's been trying to evict the bohemian artist and his vexing dog Rabelais. But David and girlfriend Deborah (Virginia Mayo) are on to his scheme and think up their own plot to ensure that Arthur won't be pushing for dispossession any time soon.

A delightful comedy that echoes the classic screwball farces of the 1930s, Out of the Blue features Carole Landis in one of her final roles (also playing against type as the disapproving Mae) before her tragic passing in 1948, and both Turhan Bey and Virginia Mayo who make an attractive couple as they're swept up in the insanity. But it's Ann Dvorak who steals the show as the delightful Olive... the infuriatingly funny and unstoppable force who turns poor Arthur's world upside down.

Author Vera Caspary, whose works were adapted for such classic films as Laura and A Letter to Three Wives, wrote the story and co-scripted Out of the Blue which was directed by screwball comedy veteran Leigh Jason.

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If Eagle-Lion's Out of the Blue looks more like a slick Warner Bros. product at times, it's because the film was peopled by former Warners personnel, both in front of and behind the cameras. George Brent and Carole Landis play the Earthleighs, tenants in a roomy Greenwich Village apartment. When Mr. Earthleigh isn't being nagged by his domineering bride, he's enmeshed in a feud with his neighbor, loose-living artist David (Turhan Bey). During his wife's absence, Earthleigh makes the mistake of inviting Olive (Ann Dvorak), a glamorous interior decorator who's somewhat the worse for drink, to his apartment. When Olive passes out on his floor, Earthleigh assumes that she's dead-and in the course of subsequent events, so does everyone else. Adding to the general zaniness is Deborah (Virginia Mayo), one of David's sexier models, who weaves in and out of the proceedings at the most inopportune moments, and a huge, cantankerous canine named Rabelais. Despite some formidable competition, the comedy honors in Out of the Blue are won hands-down by Ann Dvorak, in a truly offbeat performance.