An Affair to Remember (1957)

 

The Awful Truth (1937) ****

 

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne were a match made in screwball heaven. Her impeccable comedic timing and his gift for physical comedy made them an irresistible pair. While The Lady Eve (1941) is my all-time favorite screwball comedy, The Awful Truth (1937) comes in as a close second. Perhaps there aren’t any spectacular cinematographic shots or jaw-dropping dramatic performances, but to pull off a comedy filled with such sophisticated wit and engaging execution is something to be admired.

Nominated for six Academy Awards, The Awful Truth is about a New York couple who find themselves in divorce court after a slight misunderstanding: did the car really break down and cause Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne) to have to stay out all night with her handsome music teacher Armand (Alexander D’Arcy), and why was Jerry Warriner in California when he said he was in Florida? High-strung and hot-tempered are bad traits in one person, let alone two who are married to one another, and so they are granted a divorce with a 90-day waiting period. The only thing that keeps them connected is their adorably smart dog Mr. Smith (Asta/Skippy), for whom they share joint custody. When Lucy becomes involved with slow-witted Oklahoma oil man Dan Leeson (Ralph Bellamy) Jerry becomes jealous and tries to point out why the man is all wrong for Lucy (which he is). And, when Jerry starts spending time with beautiful rich socialite Barbara Vance (Molly Lamont) Lucy literally puts on a show of jealousy for the ages. Does the couple get back together? I think you probably can guess the answer, but how they reunite is a bedroom tale left unspoken—let’s just say they figure out that they were cuckoo for ever doubting their love.

Okay, so what is so great about The Awful Truth? First and foremost, Dunne sparkles as Lucy. Playing a somewhat kooky, flighty woman was nothing new for Dunne, who’d been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar the year before in Theodora Goes Wild (1936), but she elevated her game slightly for the role of Lucy (although she lost yet again to Luise Rainer for Best Actress—really, two years in a row…was Rainer sleeping with everyone in Hollywood?). With masterful facial expressions and expertly delivered lines, Dunne makes Lucy the perfect screwball heroine. Her ability to play both a capricious woman driven beyond the point of exasperation by her husband’s jealousy and a caricature of a low-class cabaret singer bent on destroying Jerry’s romance with Barbara is a delightful study in character contrast.

Grant’s combination of sophistication and buffoonery plays exceedingly well. One minute he is the picture of debonair suaveness and the next he is Jitsu fighting with a butler or falling off a chair in the middle of an intimate parlor concert. Grant said that Dunne was his favorite actress to work with, and it shows here, as he and Dunne have perfect chemistry. Every scene flows evenly and neither actor gets the best of the other.

Who doesn’t love a cute dog? And, when you combine cute with smart, you get the perfect canine, and that is what Mr. Smith is. His interactions with both Dunne and Grant are hilarious. Of particular note is the “Two Hat” scene where Lucy tries to hide Armand’s hat from Jerry and Mr. Smith keeps finding it. When he climbs up on a mirrored table to gain access to the hat it is priceless.

The supporting characters are also one of the reasons The Awful Truth is so successful. Bellamy earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a gullible, slow-witted cowboy. From his horrible rendition of “Home on the Range” to his mama boy discussions with his domineering mother (Esther Dale), Bellamy is a delight. Cecil Cunningham is also wickedly entertaining as Lucy’s Aunt Patsy, who is stone-faced and straight talking. While her lines are few and far between, they are always delivered with just the right tone and gusto.

Finally, I must also say something about Dunne’s wardrobe, which was designed by Robert Kalloch. Dunne always wore clothes well, but some of the outfits/hats she wore in The Awful Truth took a certain type of woman to wear. From the gigantic white mink coat she enters the film in to a pajama lounging outfit made for the ages, Dunne wears Lucy’s crazy clothes stylishly and confidently. Really, she had to know how ridiculously bizarre some of the hats placed on her head looked, but I expect she realized the clothes fit her character’s slightly-off personality well.

Overall, I adore The Awful Truth. It is a stylish, devilishly funny film filled with memorable scenes and lines. Dunne and Grant’s onscreen chemistry pulls the viewer in and makes everyone root for the couple’s reunion—which is done in a perfectly cuckoo way.

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) **

Let me start off by saying that I don’t like this movie. It isn’t because the acting is bad—it’s quite good, actually . And, it has nothing to do with poor writing--Vina Delmar’s screenplay is indeed superb.  Perhaps it is because it lacks a strong directorial hand—no, that can’t be it, either, because Leo McCarey does a fine job as well. In fact, this is most probably one of his strongest films—he thought it was the strongest of all. So, what is it that I don’t like about this film?  Quite frankly, it’s despondently depressing.  It was like watching Soviet Realism with a bottle of vodka and a handful of Quaaludes. Now, don’t think I don’t like downer films—The Hours (2002) is one of my favorite films, and anyone who has seen it knows it has its Zoloft moments. Yet, the depressing difference between the The Hours and Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) is this: there is some light at the end of the tortured tunnel with The Hours. There is only darkness in the end with Make Room for Tomorrow.  The film haunts me, and not in a good way.

Victims of the Depression and callous children, elderly couple Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) find themselves separated from one another when they lose their house and have to go live with their adult children.  They have FIVE children, but none of them can take both parents into their homes.  Really?  Somebody couldn’t roll out a cot or let one of them sleep on the couch?  And, if that wasn’t bad enough, then they are faced with the fact that they aren’t even wanted individually. One son’s wife convinces him that they need to put Lucy in a rest home; and, a daughter convinces Barkley that he should move to California and live with another daughter because the climate will be better for his health.  It’s difficult to believe that these two sweet, old people could have raised such ungrateful children. I’m sure this is the root reason why I don’t like this film.  I would NEVER treat my parents like this, but I know countless others who would and they make me physically ill.  The film is just too realistic a portrait of selfishness on an unfathomable level.

I would like to say that the only enjoyable part of this movie is when the couple reunites for one day before being shipped off to their separate destinations. They visit all the places they went on their honeymoon fifty years earlier and are unabashedly happy to be with one another.  They get better treatment from the strangers they meet out that day than they could ever get from their children. Yet, alas, even this slight respite from despair is ruined when the couple part ways at the train station.  They, and you the viewer, know that this is the last time they will EVER see one another.  I’d rather watch Ed Harris jump out that window in The Hours one-hundred times than watch this pitiful couple say their final goodbyes “just in case something happens.”  I really felt ill after I watched this. 

Both Bondi and Moore are heartbreaking in their roles. I suppose I could blame their too spot on portrayals for my displeasure with the movie, but that doesn’t seem fair.  I find it hard to believe that neither was nominated for an Academy Award—in fact, the film garnered no nominations at all. Really?  Luise Rainer wins for portraying a Chinese peasant with a really bad accent in The Good Earth, but Beulah Bondi, who personified a granny put out to pasture, doesn’t even get nominated?  Funny thing, when he won the Oscar for Best Directing for The Awful Truth (an excellent film, by the way) McCarey said thanks but that he got the award for the wrong film. 

Final verdict: if you really love your parents don’t watch this movie.  It will make you angry and depressed.  Still, if you are someone who wouldn’t think twice about dropping them at the “home” and visiting them only on holidays (if that), please watch this film to see how loathsome you really are. If I have offended anyone with this—Good.

Duck Soup (1933) **

People have many reasons why they either like or dislike the Marx Brothers. I would not classify myself as one of their biggest fans. Yet, of all their films, this 1933 classic is most probably my favorite. Perhaps it has something to do with my being a historian—the film is a political satire of fascism. Thinking the film was a personal attack on his leadership, Mussolini banned it in Italy. But if you push the historical aside for a moment, there is one other reason why this might be my favorite Marx Bros. picture: it was the last one in which Zeppo appeared. No, he wasn’t the funniest of the four—that would be Chico, in my opinion. Yet, he had one thing the other three did not possess: he was good looking. Call me shallow, but every picture needs a little man-candy and Zeppo provided it. Somehow their pictures just weren’t the same after he went straight into retirement (there’s a pun in there, you figure it out).

This was the last film the brothers made for Paramount. It was a a box-office disaster and Paramount decided not to re-sign them. And, so off they went to MGM, where they made their two most successful films: A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. I suppose Paramount didn’t know what it had until it was gone…or so the cliché goes.

Ernst Lubitsch was originally slated to direct, but in the end the task fell to Leo McCarey. Good thing, too. Yes, Lubitsch was one of the greatest directors ever (see Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be…no, I mean really see them), but had he directed there would have never been the famous mirror pantomime, which was McCarey’s idea (not an original one, since it was from an old vaudeville act and a Chaplin film, but still…). And, of course, McCarey also came up with (or recycled if you like) the title. He’d used it in an earlier Laurel & Hardy short. Today most people don’t know what duck soup is—both the film and the expression. I have more sympathy for those who aren’t familiar with old American idioms (see Ziva on N.C.I.S…really, see her on CBS Tuesdays) than I do with people who have no idea who the Marx Bros. are. For the Ziva’s out there, it’s an unaffectionate term for a sucker---just to clarify, not the type you put in your mouth, either.

The screenplay, written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, incorporates three good musical numbers that fit seamlessly into the plot: “The Country’s Goin’ to War”, “When the Clock on the Wall Strikes Ten” (sung by Zeppo), and “Just Wait ‘Til I Get Through With It”. The story is simple enough: the fictional Balkan kingdom of Freedonia is bankrupt and on the verge of revolution when Mrs. Teasdale (the always wonderful Margaret Dumont) offers to support the country with a $20 million loan. The catch? The country must be placed under new leadership—namely Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx). When the ruler of neighboring Sylvania (who I imagine is played by Jeanette MacDonald even though we never see her) sends Ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern) to the coronation he sets his sights on Mrs. Teasdale, hoping to gain control of Freedonia for himself. His initial weapon of choice is a sultry dancer, Vera Marcal (Raquel Torres), whom he wants to use to distract Firefly from matters of state…and Mrs. Teasdale.

Firefly’s political cabinet consists of his personal secretary du jour, Lt. Bob Rolland (Zeppo Marx); his silent chauffeur, Pinkie (Harpo Marx)—don’t worry, he wears a horn—; and, his Cabinet of War, Chicolini (Chico Marx). The problem is Chicolini and Pinkie are spies for Trentino—however, they are mostly a problem for Trentino as they are total incompetents. Trentino should have had Rolland as his spy, since he is the one who does the most damage to Freedonia by suggesting to Firefly that he insult Trentino to get him to retaliate and be thrown out of the country. After an exchange of insults between the two men ends with Trentino calling Firefly an “upstart” and Trentino being glove-slapped by the president, war is declared between the two countries. This sets up the best sequence of the film: the classic mirror pantomime scene.

Dispatched by Trentino to steal Freedonia’s war plans, Chicolini and Pinkie (disguised as Firefly) break into Mrs. Teasdale’s mansion and all hell breaks loose. When Pinkie tries to break into the safe “Stars and Stripes Forever” blasts through the house and brings Firefly in search of the culprit. Trying to escape detection by Firefly, Pinkie runs into a wall mirror and smashes it to pieces. What follows is a silent cat-and-mouse game between Firefly and Pinkie, as Pinkie attempts to mimic everything Firefly does at the precise same moment that he’s doing it. Highlights of this scene include the Charleston and white Panama hat—which Firefly returns to Pinkie when he drops his. The scene doesn’t end until Chicolini wanders into the “mirror” and Firefly captures him. Chicolini is promptly tried for treason, and amazingly enough, Firefly takes on the role of defense attorney.

There is only one thing that rivals the mirror pantomime scene, and that is when the four brothers perform (the only time all four appear in the same musical number) “The Country’s Going to War”. The song is a mixture of musical styles (negro spiritual, patriotic, and whatever genre you would put “Comin’ Round the Mountain” in). It is a hilarious parody of the absurdity of war. The war that follows it is also hilarious, but not as classic as the song that leads into it.

When the film came out in 1933 a lot of people were offended by the way the Marx brothers satirized government and its leaders. The Depression was engaged in a full-court press. And, two very different men had just become leaders of their respective nations: FDR and Hitler. To be American and mock democratic political leadership in the face of the rise of authoritarian governments in Germany and Italy seemed too disrespectful to some. I think if the economy hadn’t been in ruins and there weren’t crazy Fascists running around, the film’s reception might have been warmer. Alas, to use yet another cliché, Duck Soup was a victim of circumstance. Thirty years later, when yet another tumultuous event was transpiring (Vietnam), another, more appreciative, audience emerged on college campuses and in art houses. Today, Duck Soup is regarded by many as the greatest Marx Bros. film ever…and, alas, the last one with Zeppo.