The More the Merrier is a 1943 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by George Stevens, and starring Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn.

The film's script—from Two's a Crowd, an original screenplay by Garson Kanin (uncredited)—was written by Robert Russell, Frank Ross,[a] Richard Flournoy, and Lewis R.

Retired millionaire Benjamin Dingle arrives in Washington, D.C., as an adviser on the housing shortage, and finds that his hotel suite will not be available for two days.

He sees a classified ad for a roommate and talks the reluctant young woman, Connie Milligan, into letting him sublet half of her apartment.

The next morning, after Connie leaves for work, Dingle meets Sergeant Joe Carter, who is interested in a room to stay for a week while waiting to be shipped overseas.

At 8:00, Joe and Connie prepare to leave, but her nosy teenage neighbor seeks her advice and delays her until Pendergast arrives downstairs.

With 26 hours until Joe leaves for Africa, they follow his advice and fly to South Carolina to wed, where a license can be more quickly obtained than in D.C.

Jean Arthur got the ball rolling on The More The Merrier, paying playwright and writer Garson Kanin $25,000 to adapt his short story "Two's a Crowd" into a screenplay.

Arthur also brought director George Stevens (with whom she had recently worked on 1942's The Talk of the Town) and co-star Joel McCrea to the project.

McCrea recalled that studio boss Cohn approached him during production, saying, "What's that son of a bitch Stevens doing, making all that film?

McCrea was initially suspicious that the studio was willing to cast him as Joe Carter, feeling that if it were a good part, they would have pursued Grant or Gary Cooper, but the role later became his own favorite of his comic performances.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times enjoyed The More the Merrier, calling the film "as warm and refreshing a ray of sunshine as we've had in a very late Spring".

[12] He praised all three leads, the writers, and the director, singling out Coburn as "the comical crux of the film" who "handles the job in fine fettle".

George Stevens' masterful direction, and the fine acting of Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn make this one of the brightest and gayest comedies to have come out of Hollywood in many a season.

"[14] David Lardner of The New Yorker wrote, "As is the case with a lot of madcap comedies, this one tends to fall apart somewhat toward the end, when all the accumulated mixups are supposed to be resolved without a complete sacrifice of logic, but by no means are.