Screwball Comedies #2

I was very pleased with my first set of screwball comedies. The films I selected from the classic period of the middle to late 30's and early 40's were very representative of the genre. One problem did develop, however, with one of the films "The Devil and Miss Jones" which turns out is not available in any video format, so that those interested could not check out the film. Consequently, to make up for that problem and present a second list of almost identically excellent examples of screwball comedy efforts, I am preparing a new set of five plus one that are representative of the Screwball comedy era. To make up for the inability to view "The Devil and Miss Jones" we will offer another film featuring Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn.

One thing to remember if you are planning on preparing your own list of Screwball favorites are the following ingredients; wealth (particularly of a parent/father), humor and funny situations that are though unlikely still are possible, and further getting persons who really know that genre. In the latter interest several names immediately come to mind; Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard, Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, Frederick March and Joel McCrea.


THE MORE THE MERRIER - 1942

World War II was well on it's way In the USA by this time. The war brought with it not over fighting over seas in Europe and the South Pacific, but a rapid growth in the governments ability to address the war. Men were going into the military in droves so that the day to day work of government ended in women getting government jobs that just hadn't been available in the past. One such woman was Jean Arthur who was a secretary in some government department.

To contribute to the war effort and the shortage of living space for those who had come to Washington to help out, she had decided to sublet her apartment and take in a boarder, who would pay half the rent. She of course counted on a female to join her.

Instead of the expected female co-renter she got Charles Coburn a $1.00 a year man as a joint tenant. $1.00 men were wealthy semi-retired professional men who offered their services and expertise to the government for a flat fee of one buck. Coburn was a self-proclaimed millionaire whose slogan was "Damn the torpedo's, Full speed ahead," a proclamation he had learned from Spanish War fame Admiral Farragut.

A couple of days later while Arthur was at work, Coburn got the idea that since there were two beds in his half of the apartment he could take on an additional boarder. This he did in the name of a military man carrying a large aircraft propeller, Joel McCrea. Both he and McCrea struggled to keep this information secret from Arthur, but of course this wasn't possible.

The film deals with this problem and many other interesting ones common to those times. Coburn suggest that there are six women to every man in Washington. Arthur has a fiance, a rather conservative gentleman in middle government management who wears an ill fitting toupee. Coburn likes both of his roommates and sees a great potential for love to find it's way. It does in a way that is not normally depicted in the fashion here. Arthur and McCrea to avoid scandal have to get married even though supposedly she is to marry her fiance, Mr. Pendergast. McCrea is going to Africa, because of the Allied invasion of French colonies in that continent which occurred later that same year.

Arthur received an Academy Award nomination for her performance. Two episodes stand out in particular. In the first of these she and McCrea are walking together late at night. he has brought her home from dinner with Mr. Pendergast while Coburn has enticed that gentleman into in depth evaluation of how to cut costs. As they stroll along and pass lovers kissing each other they gradually get better acquainted. The smouldering subtle love making is something really fun to watch. McCrea is smooth as silk and Arthur is just unable to resist his advances and in fact starts to really want them. The second really funny sequence is when they have to get married to avoid a scandal. After the ceremony in some southern state that doesn't require a waiting period, she continues to weep and sob over her sad state of affairs, married to the wrong man who is leaving immediately in the morning on his secret mission to Africa. It's heartbreakingly funny watching her in her frustration.


TRADE WINDS - 1937

This picture is most memorable because for the first time Joan Bennett forgo her usual blond hair and died her's black as part of a necessity for this role. It changed her image in more ways then one changing her from a light hearted blond, somewhat memorable in the Jean Harlow sense, into a real femme fatale. She was compared to Hedy Lamarr in her new look.

I actually reviewed this film back in the original Mensa Classic Films publication. I had it listed as one of four films that I referred to as fast paced, films with fast action, fast dialogue, etc. The most famous of the films of this narrower genre was "His Girl Friday" where Rosaline Russell and Cary Grant did at each other with rapid dialog talking over each other.

Bennett starts the film as a blond, but in an incident in San Francisco she thinks she killed a man who had womanized her younger sister who committed suicide as a result. Bennett has a gun and we along with her believe she killed the bad dude.

She flees San Francisco including driving her car into the Bay where she escapes by swimming under a wharf and eventually climbing out of the water leaving the police and everyone else to believe she had drowned. She gets to Honolulu, changes her name, has her dyed and assumes a new identify. Somehow she seems to think she muck around the Asian area without being caught.

Frederick March plays Sam Wye a private Eye who formerly was a member of the San Francisco Police Department. He is a world class romancer and a bit of a heal to boot. The SFPD have only one super detective in the department and that man is on a special assignment in Europe. The chief, the excellent Thomas Mitchell, decides there is only one solution, get Wye and put him on the trail.

Two other members of the all star class need to be defined. These are Ann Southern who plays Wye's secretary, who is a sharp but easily duped female by the wiley Wye. In addition there is the always reliable dim wit, Ralph Bellamy, playing a not too bright member of the department but who the chief thinks might be able to control Wye in some of his worst excesses of womanizing and drinking.

The films director had shot a lot of footage the previous year in the Far East and put this to use as a back drop for the players to work in. Through it all Sam keeps on Bennett's trail following it to Hawaii, Japan, China and eventually on a boat heading for Singapore. Where ever he stops he plays a Chopin composition that Bennett is known to like and play nicely. While playing this in the boat's lounge he hears someone coming in behind him. He encourages the person to come in and they start an idle conversation mostly about the piece while his back is still turned. Eventually he turns around and is provided with a dream vision, Bennett, and instantly his whole attitude changes from his form of professionalism to infatuation with Bennett.

The rest of the film is concerned with Wye now trying to hide Bennett from the authorities. Eventually it leads too islands off the coast which may be the Maldives. There he and Bennett are finally caught by the detective who had been in Europe but had been put on the case because of Wye's peculiar behavior. Through twist, and though wounded from a gun shot, Wye takes credit for the capture and brings Bennett back to San Francisco. All is resolve when Wye manages to prove that Bennett never fired the fatal shot. The end finds the two together and very much in love.

There are a huge selection of very funny lines in the film. March continually makes fun of Bellamy and sends him on wild goose chases. He also introduces him to Southern and calls her Doctor Livingston a play on the Stanley and Livingston story. Throughout the film Bellamy refers to her as Dr. Livingston, which she accepts graciously.


NOTHING SACRED - 1937

This film has more shear amusement in it than any other of the Screwball Comedies. It probably ranks second to only "The Lady Eve" among films of the genre. Most important to that recommendation is the wonderful performance of Carole Lombard. She uses a vast collection of subtle entertaining expressions as she goes through her role. This was the probably her most memorable performance in comedy films though many might prefer "My Man Godfrey" which co-starred William Powell another genius of the comedy mode without being a comedian and perhaps "To Be Or Not To Be." In the latter she played a Polish actress with great humorous overtones against Jack Benny's ham Hamlet actor.

Nothing Sacred is the story of a young lady who has contacted a dreaded cancerous health problem from radium poisoning. To be frank about it she is about to die. Frederick March, playing in his usual comfortable style is a newspaper reporter who has just failed in a major assignment which you will have to see to appreciate. He learns about the young lady's condition, she's known as Hazel Flagg in the film, and goes up to Vermont where she lives in a small town to interview her. The film then proceeds to make fun of Vermont types and their very conservative attitude toward making talk. March sees Lombard, and like with Bennett in the film discussed above, decides he is in love with her. He brings her to New York and the paper pays for her housing, clothing and all other needs while publicizing and making a big issue out of her anticipated death.

These items are all nicely done. Probably the hit of the film is when she and March attend a big event for her at a big nightclub in New York. At this event she gradually gets loaded drinking champagne and eventually passes out and has to be carried home by March. It is after this event that we learn her radium poisoning didn't really happen and was a mistake by the screwy doctor she had in Vermont. The latter is funnily played by Charlie Winninger.

The result of this is an attempt by Winninger and Lombard for her to commit a phony suicide in New York harbor after leaving a suicide note. This is also a very funny episode with March rushing up at the last minute to try and stop her suicide and in the process actually knocking her into the water.

What follows is a wild scene back at the hotel where she is staying with he socking her and she socking him and generally resulting in total chaos between the two of them and people coming in and out of the room. Things all straighten out and the two of them manage to stay together long enough to get married.


THE BRIDE CAME C.O.D. - 1940

This screwball comedy is not as well known and popular as some of the others we have talked about. But there is no question that it is a screwball comedy since James Cagney refers to Bette Davis during the film as a screwball. Davis is rather a screwball in that she just recently met, four days to be exact, Jack Carson who plays an obnoxious band leader and who is quite obviously really in love with himself. As is to be expected in screwball comedies, Bette Davis is fabulously rich due to her father, Eugene Pallette having hit oil big in Texas a few years earlier. Think of it in terms of today's dollars when we note that he claims a fortune of $30,000,000. That would be close to a billion in today's financial situation.

In the story Davis is so anxious to marry Carson that they are willing to fly to Las Vegas where the can tie the know almost immediately. Remember this is actually just four days after meeting him. In the process Pallette discovers this and is bound and determined to stop the marriage. Then entering the picture is James Cagney who owns a plane and is the flying business usually in the form of merchandise. He charges by the pound. Somehow through a lot of shenanigans that the films writers concoct he is put in contact with Pallette by phone. Cagney promises to deliver Davis in Amarillo which is approximately midway between Hollywood and Chicago where Pallette lives. Cagney is behind on the loan payments relative to his plane and is about to have it foreclosed because of a sum of approximately 1,050 dollars that he owes. He quotes Pallette a price based on $10.00 a pound for Davis's weight which he estimates as 115 pounds.

All kinds of funny incidents happen. Davis tries to jump out of the plane in a parachute when she finds out Cagney's arrangement. Fortunately Cagney manages to stop her having noted she had put on the parachute upside down. The plane suffers mechanical problems and Cagney has to make an emergency landing in the desert. An amusing incident here is Davis in trying to run away falls into a cactus plant acquiring a large number of painful cactus spines in her fanny which Cagney has to remove by placing her across his lap and removing them one by one while she lays there howling.

There are far to many funnies to enunciate all of them. An old ghost town is nearby whose only occupant is Harry Davenport an old time miner. Eventually there is a cave in at the mine and Davis believes she and Cagney are trapped in there. He leads her on with tales of woe, etc., no food, no one knows they are trapped there, etc.. Finally she overcoming her dislike of him kisses him and to her surprise discovers he has mustard on his lips and had been secretly eating a sandwich while pretending they were going to starve to death.

There is confusing as to whether the ghost town is in Nevada or California. There is an attempt to perform a marriage there and the question is the Justice of the Peace who is going to do it licensed in the correct stare. Ultimately, everything turns out okay since Cagney and Davis really understand that they have fallen in love. At the end Cagney is talking to her father by phone and settles his bill. He says she weighs 118. In the background you can here her yelling 110. Another, bit of humor is focused on Cagney's imitation of coyote howls to scare Davis into responding to his advances.


The Awful Truth - 1937 (and) My Favorite Wife - 1940

These two films were cut from the same cookie cutter. Each of them star Cary Grant as a husband and Irene Dunne as his witty wife. The two film endings provide a similarity as well. In the "The Awful Truth" the two have decided on a divorce as the only way to solve their recurring marital problems which to sum up include who has the dog and for how long. The dog is Asta a co-star of the Thin Man series.

As in "Trade Winds" Ralph Bellamy provides the humorous elements, and he really is funny. In this case he is a wealthy cattleman from Oklahoma. He sings "Home on the Range," dances a rollicking Tango and other Latin and jitterbug steps and has a suspicious mother who doesn't find much favor in Dunne.

Cary Grant observes this largely unlikely courtship with obvious displeasure, and is obnoxious in his observations and opposition to it. Overall Grant does not come across as a person you feel a lot of sympathy for.

Eventually things come to a head the funniest part of which is Dunne posing as her own sister, dressed rather raffishly and displaying a great deal of uncultivated speech and actions. The film ends in the mountain cabin of her aunt where the two of them, Grant and Dunne find themselves together again and apparently ready to return to their original marriage vows.

In "My Favorite Wife Grant and Dunne were married, but she was on a ship that went down at sea and apparently is dead. Grant has the marriage legally dissolved and marries Gail Patrick who plays his new wife in her patented bitchy style.

On the day of the new marriage Dunne shows up again at home. She apparently has been living on a island hoping to eventually being rescued. She hurries over to the hotel where Grant and his knew wife are staying. Grant does one of his great double takes when he accidentally spots her as he is entering an elevator.

Things seem like they are going to resolve themselves easily until Grant finds out that Dunne was not alone on the island, but rather she was there with Randolph Scott who was part of the scientific expedition to that area out in the western Pacific. Grant is not taken with Scott who is quick witted, handsome, athletic, etc. Distracted by his suspicion Grant accidentally falls into the hotel swimming pool while completely clothed.

The continual series of confrontation between Grant, Scott, and Patrick take their toll. Only Dunne seems to be able maintain her equilibrium during this period. Eventually, as is true with almost all Screwball comedies things work out. In the end Grant and Dunne are in another mountain cabin. There are not back married yet so he is sleeping in an attic room and she is in a nearby bedroom. During the night he keeps wandering in in his pajamas and she continues to tell him they have to wait until his new divorce is final before they can renew conjugal relations. Finally, she tells him after he has come into her room for the umpteenth time, Not until Christmas." All this time she has wanted to renew their relationship but can't manage to do it. But when Grant comes back to the room a few minutes later and dressed in a Santa Claus suit he found in the attic and greets here, "With Merry Christmas.," she gives into her desires and the film ends with them apparently going to spend the night together in the same bed.