Watchingwell
Curated classic films
ROM COMS, ANYONE?
Always ready for a laugh, now more than ever, I wonder if
you, dear readers, are familiar with these somewhat overlooked and
under-appreciated romantic comedies from the Golden Age.
For years, I appreciated Ginger Rogers only for her dancing partnership
with Fred Astaire. But, at this point, I
can see that she was a very engaging personality in non-musical roles as well.
In a past post, I mentioned her playing opposite William Powell in a stylish
mystery (Star of Midnight). In Lucky
Partners (1940), she is paired with Ronald Coleman in one of his rare
comedy roles. In this story, Coleman is an eccentric artist, who is living a modest
life in Ginger’s neighborhood. He really
is quite a successful artist, but keeps that a secret when he meets Ginger and
persuades her to invest in half of a sweepstakes ticket with him. Ginger is seriously engaged to Jack Carson,
who objects to the terms of the partnership:
if they win, Ginger must go on a trip with Coleman to see the world
before she settles down in married bliss. Predictably, they win. You can guess
what complications ensue. Directed by Lewis Milestone.
Although this is also a comedy, Ronald Coleman plays a very
sober and principled judge in the George Stevens film, Talk of the Town
(1942). He shares star billing with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. Grant plays a
wrongly accused character who is hiding out in Jean Arthur’s house, which she
is renting out to Judge Ronald Coleman, who is there to write a book. After he
is unable to continue hiding, Grant forms a somewhat congenial relationship
with the judge, pretending to be the gardener. Things get a little sticky when
the judge is told he is being nominated for the Supreme Court, and at the same
time discovers Grant’s real identity.
With loyalty to both men, Jean Arthur runs interference, and, of course,
inspires romantic notions.
Jean Arthur is a favorite star in many well-known comedies of the era, but If You Could Only Cook (1935) is not so well-known. Co-starring Herbert Marshall and Leo Carillo, Arthur is unemployed and Marshall is the head of an automobile company who has just walked out of a board meeting in a huff. They meet on a park bench where Arthur is reading the want ads and complaining that there are many ads for couples. In an inspired moment, she asks Marshall, who she assumes is also unemployed, if he could pose as a butler and apply for a job with her as the cook. He agrees, on a lark, and they begin work for gangster, Leo Carillo. If your only experience with Carillo is as Pancho in the Cisco Kid series, you will be pleasantly surprised by his comedy skills. Also starring Lionel Stander with some great lines as Carillo’s suspicious sidekick. Directed by William A. Seiter.
A similar plot is the vehicle for Paulette Goddard and Fred
MacMurray in Standing Room Only (1944). Goddard poses as a secretary
when she overhears that the manager, MacMurray, needs one to take to
Washington, D.C., where he will be trying to secure a government contract. But as a secretary she is so incompetent that
she cancels their hotel rooms in wartime Washington because she says they were
too small. Not able to secure accommodations anywhere else, she finds them
rooms in a private home -- as butler and cook for Roland Young and Anne Revere.
Revere is great as a major in an organization aiding the war effort, working
with paratroopers, and Young is bored with managing the household and has a roving
eye. MacMurray is engaged to Hillary Brooke, the daughter of the boss, Edward
Arnold. Of course, the moment arrives when they are the dinner guests and much laughter
is produced by the ensuing difficulties.
The script is clever and the direction by Sidney Lanfield is crisp, but,
in my opinion, it's all about the stars. Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray are just delightful together.
Another actress with great comedy skills, Carole Lombard starred
in some iconic roles. One film that may not be so well-known is the 1934 farce,
Twentieth Century.
Directed by Howard Hawks and written for the screen by the combo of Ben
Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the same group that went on to make one of my
favorite all-time comedies, His Girl Friday from 1940. This is an influential
screwball comedy, co-starring a manic John Barrymore as Oscar Jaffe, a great
Broadway producer who has suffered some failures and is in need of a hit.
Lombard is a former protégé, and lover, Lily Garland, who has run to Hollywood to
escape his controlling and jealous obsessions, and who is now an actress of
such stature that she could singlehandedly reverse Jaffe’s fortunes. When Jaffe
finds out they will both be taking the train, the 20th Century
Limited, from Chicago to New York, he plans to use the trip to convince her to star
in his new play. It’s a wild ride and both actors play their parts to the outrageous
level. Hilarious.
Edward G. Robinson had an enviable film career as the quintessential
tough guy-gangster and a favorite of impressionists (the show biz genre, not
the painting style). Few people realize how skilled he was in comedy roles. When I came across A Slight Case of
Murder (1938) on some late-night movie channel, I couldn’t believe it
was not better known. Based on a Damon Runyan tale, Robinson stars as Remy
Marco, bootlegger turned legit, but not transformed enough that he is happy
that his just-returned-from-finishing-school daughter wants to marry a state trooper
– a cop! Meanwhile, some acquaintances
from the old days have pulled off a robbery of local bookies’ cash and somehow
it is stashed in Remy’s house, and some unreformed types come looking for
it. Oh, and in a bid for respectability Remy
has taken in a teenaged delinquent (Dead-End kid, Bobby Jordan), who turns out
to be a handful, and whose care Remy delegates to his loyal, but less than capable,
associates. All of this is going on at
the same time that Remy and his wife, played by Ruth Donnelly, are giving a
party to impress his neighbors, which include the parents of the state trooper.
Directed by Lloyd Bacon with precision timing, and co-starring well-known sidekicks,
Allen Jenkins, Harold Huber, and Edward Brophy as the loyal associates, this is
a fast-paced comedy that has that Damon Runyan wit.
Lloyd Bacon also directed Robinson in Brother Orchid
(1940), and it turns out to be a winning comedy combination. Robinson plays Johnny Sarto, a gangster who
has quit the mob to take a grand European tour, and after losing most of his
money, returns, hoping to take up his old role as boss, which is now in the
hands of his former number two, Jack Buck, played by Humphrey Bogart. Naturally, Buck has no intention of giving up
the job, and decides that Sarto has a lot of dirt on him and must be eliminated. Sarto escapes being rubbed out by hiding in a
monastery, and plays along with the house rules under the guidance of Donald
Crisp, who plays the Brother Superior. The contrast of the world view of the
gangster and the monk is the basis of the comedy, but the sincere kindness of
the brothers drawing a hidden shred of decency from the gangster is what makes
this such fun. Ann Sothern is great as
Flo, who loves Sarto, but has to make other plans when he disappears. A young
Ralph Bellamy is the "other plan" and is the casualty of a wild wedding day.
In a year of great movies, perhaps the greatest year of
great movies, there is one that features two of Hollywood’s most popular stars and
is surprisingly little known. It's a Wonderful World from 1939
stars Claudette Colbert and James Stewart, directed by W.S. Van Dyke, with a
screenplay by Ben Hecht. How could this miss?
How could this not be well-known? James
Stewart plays a detective, on the lam from being wrongly accused of aiding a
murder. He stumbles on Claudette
Colbert, who plays a rather successful poet, kidnaps her, and convinces her
that if he is free, he can solve the case and prove his innocence. She is not only convinced, she tries to help
him, much to his chauvinistic dismay. A fine supporting group of character
actors round out the cast, and Stewart is pretty good playing kind of a rough
guy with some unusual bits of physical comedy, while trying to show how he’s better
off without Colbert. Colbert is a comedy pro and does not disappoint in the
role.
Another lesser-known James Stewart comedy is Come Live
With Me from 1941. Directed by Clarence Brown, Stewart’s co-star is the
lovely Hedy Lamar, who plays a refugee who has been informed that her visa is
expiring and she is running out of legal options. Her rich, married lover, played by Ian
Hunter, is working the system with all of his influence, but, in the meantime,
Lamar has met Stewart, a struggling writer, who is also in dire straits, financially. In desperation (this is wartime and she
definitely doesn’t want to go back to Vienna), Hedy asks Stewart to tally up
his expenses and she will pay him that as a salary if he will enter into a
marriage of convenience to get the immigration people off her case. She only
visits him to give him the check, but eventually they end up going to visit
Stewart’s grandmother in the country, and boyfriend, Hunter, who coincidentally
is a publisher and has read Stewart’s book, which is an account of the arrangement
with Lamar, comes racing after them. This is a quiet comedy and a sweet
romance.
I may have mentioned this film before, but I have to mention
it again because it truly is funny, and is not anywhere as well-known for its
stars, William Powell and Myrna Loy, as the Thin Man Series, which
everyone loves and admires for the stars’ chemistry and sharp wit. But Love
Crazy (1941) directed by Jack Conway with an estimable skill for timing,
has a few scenes that will elicit outright laughter, the kind of involuntary
response you get from controlled slapstick.
Through a series of unfortunate mistakes that Powell makes on his
anniversary, mistakes which are compounded by an obnoxious mother-in-law (Florence
Bates), a glamorous old acquaintance who is a new neighbor (Gail Patrick) and a
neighbor who gets involved by mistake (Jack Carson), his wife, Myrna Loy, is
filing for divorce, and the only way Powell can delay the proceedings is to be
declared “crazy” and signed into an institution. How he gets out and proves his innocence to
Loy is the hilarious basis of the rest of the plot. Don’t miss some great lines
from Ms. Loy and don’t miss the shower scene!
