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 20^th 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!