In the early 1940's Charles Coburn and Jean Arthur were co-starred in two of the finest comedies of that period. Coburn had been well received in the 1940 film "The Lady Eve" playing card shark Handsome Harry Harrington. In 1941 Colburn and Arthur were matched in the superb comedy "The Devil and Miss Jones." It was a period when labor strife was an important part of American culture and organizing workers was at the forefront. Two years later the two were reunited again another really fun comedy. By then the U.S. was involved in World War II. This picture was devoted to the home front, but was centered on life in Washington, D.C. and the problems entailed in going to that city in those days. Coburn received the best supporting actor award for "The Devil and Miss Jones." The similarities between the acting styles required for each film indicated that they could be properly reviewed in tandem.
The Devil and Miss Jones
Charles Coburn, as J.P. Merrick, is one of the world's richest men, a millionaire many times over with investments and operations in many areas. One of his properties is Neeley's, a big department store in New York city. There are problems at Neeley's. Many employees are disgruntled at not being treated fairly and are in the process of trying to get organized into a union. Merrick wants to get to the bottom of this union movement and hires a detective to snoop on the employees. When this plan falls through, he decides to get himself a job at the department store and do his own spying. He gets hired under an assumed name, Tom Higgins, but has problems right off the bat. First, he learns he was just able to pass the stores minimum standards relative to intelligence.
Problem number two occurs when he arrives at the store for his first day of work. He is assigned to Mr. Hooper, (Edmund Gwynne). Mr. Hooper is one of those supervisors who we all come up against at sometime in our careers, a low level supervisor with a strong inclination to throw his weight around. Mr. Hooper's area is shoes, but because Higgins/Merrick scored so low on the intelligence test he assigns the latter to slippers. There, Higgins meets Mary Jones played by Jean Arthur in one of her typical cheery helpful roles. She fills him on the routine and explains how to deal with Hooper, and lets him know when the lunch hour occurs. Merrick has a stomach problem which he tries to control by eating only graham crackers. When he tells her this she misunderstands the reason for his eating graham crackers and thinks he is just to poor to afford lunch. In sympathy, she forces him to accept a half dollar from her to pay for a regular lunch.
Robert Cummings is Arthur's romantic interest, Joe. At about this time, Joe creates a disturbance by chaining himself to radiator and starts yelling union propaganda at the top of his lungs. He doesn't work for Neeley's and is promptly escorted out of the store by William Demarest, who you might remember as one of Preston Sturgis' favorite actors.Miss Jones persuades Higgins to go to lunch with her. She introduces him to fellow employee, Elizabeth (Spring Byington), in a role not typical of her. Higgins is taken with Elizabeth and asks her to sit with him. Then, despite his stomach problems, he promptly eats all of her homemade tuna sandwiches. In their discussions, he makes up a history of long time employment at two different stores with layoffs between jobs.
Higgins'/Merrick's friendship with Miss Jones continues to grow. For one, he meets Joe and learns he is Jones' boyfriend. The three of them go to a Union meeting at the insistence of Joe and while there Jones gets up and makes an impassioned speech where she describes Higgins unfortunate situation, 55 years old, only two long term jobs, and includes his supposed poverty by her providing him with 50 cents for lunch and his having eaten all of Elizabeth's sandwiches because of hunger. The next days events include the failure of a setup that Merrick had worked out to sell some of the stores shoe inventory that can't be sold. This is very funny in that the buyer is a 12 or 13 year old girl that Merrick's servant at his mansion, played by S.Z. Sakall has brought to the store. The girl is a real brat and impossible to work with and forces Merrick to go through all kinds of gyrations to get her into a pair of shoes.
Impossible to imagine, but Higgins is persuaded by Jones to join her and Joe along with Elizabeth for an afternoon at Coney Island. There, jam-packed in with thousand's of beach lovers Higgin's whole life seems to unwind because of some unwitting mistakes. Eventually he ends up in court facing a charge which Joe makes even worse by launching an oppressing the workers speech. This is followed by a closure that finds the union organizers led by Joe having a meeting with Neeley's Board of Directors to discuss the Unions objectives. This is also done very cleverly with the board members thinking Mr. Merrick is sitting with them and the union organizer's thinking he is sitting with them. As you might expect, this results in the happy ending we knew was coming, but in a different fashion than we would have imagined. The film is dominated by Arthur with her characteristic way of delivering lines and with Coburn doing the same with his material.
The More, the Merrier
Two years later found Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn again in another new refreshing comedy. The setting is 1943 and deep into American participation in World War II. At that time the nation's capital was bursting at the seams with the growth in government employees and military personnel required for the successful prosecution of the War. The result was to make housing extremely difficult to come by. Jean Arthur plays Connie Milligan a secretarial type with an apartment in Washington. To help her make ends meet she has decided to sublet her two bedroom apartment and take in a border. Meanwhile Coburn in the role of Benjamin Dingle has come to Washington to contribute his expertise to the war effort. He is a retired millionaire. In those days, a millionaire was equivalent to a multi-millionaire today. Coburn is a dollar a year man. A dollar a year man, contributed his services to the government at the maximum income of $1.00 for a year's work.
Well, Mr. Dingle has discovered that though he wants to help the war effort, he is entirely unsuccessful at finding a hotel room. After struggling from place to place he spots Arthur's ad for a roommate. He goes to the apartment address while she is at work. He discovers a long line of prospective candidates for the room. Mr. Dingle's success in his work career was in motivational speaking. He featured a slogan "Damn the torpedo's, full speed ahead," which had been adopted in a previous American conflict. He puts this slogan to work this time by telling those waiting in line that the room has been rented, and proceeds to remove the rental sign. When Arthur comes home he convinces her of his trustworthiness and is accepted as her new tenant. She provides him with a list of special directions relative to using the bathroom, eating breakfast, and sharing these two facilitates. Coburn is really impressed with the list. Their resulting discussion is very entertaining.
Also arriving at Washington at this time is Joel McCrea playing Army Sergeant Joe Carter. Carter is carrying with him a new propeller concept which he is under orders to deliver to testing authorities. The propeller is quite large, about as tall as he is. If you recall Mr. McCrea, you will probably remember that he is well over 6 feet tall.
He is also having housing problems in Washington and fortuitously makes contact with Mr. Dingle who offers him the opportunity of sharing half of his sublet for a nominal rental fee. Miss Milligan is really shocked at this state of affairs and a long period of persuasion is built in the film to resolve this problem. She first becomes aware of Carter when she hears him singing in the bathroom while bathing. It is obvious what the end result will be. Three people sharing a two bedroom apartment are bound to have some difficulties in adjusting. As you may remember from "The Lady Eve," there are two long seduction scenes involving Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda.
There is a similar one in this film. In this case the seducer is Joel McCrea, and the recipient of his efforts is Jean Arthur. McCrea does a very fine portrayal of a man showing a single lady what love is all about and what the future might include. Arthur is single, and not only that is engaged to a conservative gentleman of 42 who wears a toupee. This seduction starts on the sidewalk as they are walking home and they observe other couples in war time, where things are often different, enjoying the pleasures of romance. She is luxuriously dressed in a formal evening gown. They had come together accidentally, and as they near home he finds himself more and more enchanted with her loveliness. He strokes her bare shoulders and whispers sweet nothings in her ear and eventually begins to kiss her as well. She tells him of her plans to marry her Mr. Pendergast who is older and steadier. Eventually they reach the front steps of her apartment building. Finally, she realizes that despite her enjoying his attentions, caresses and kisses, he is interfering with her lifetime plans. Like Wendy Hiller in "I Know Where I'm Going," common sense eventually takes control of her. Mr. Dingle has been encouraging this match making and following his own philosophy of "Damn the Torpedo's, Full Speed Ahead," his influence causes Miss Milligan to give up her dreams with very practical Mr. Pendergast for a far more romantic dreams with Joe Carter.
****
As a whole, the two films make a nice complementary double feature. Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn were both outstanding film performers. It's difficult to think of Arthur without two of her finest roles, as an entertainer in the Howard Hawks All Star production in 1939 "Only Angels Have Wings" and of course her wonderful performance as Van Heflin's wife in "Shane," a film that also is probably Alan Ladd's finest effort. Coburn made one other memorable comedy performance as mentioned earlier in "The Lady Eve." He is also remembered for one of his untypical roles as the sadistic doctor who amputated Ronald Reagan's legs in "Kings Row."
Dick Gardner, Classic Films
Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 14, December 1982
Buy all your favorite classic films at the Classic Films aStore
Enriched by Fairview Collaborative
Posts
