Theodora Goes Wild (1936, Richard Boleslawski) is a woman’s picture screwball comedy where a chaste Sunday school teacher needs to let herself live, love, learn, and laugh—embrace power, fame, dress extravagantly, and pry the man she desires free of that pesky marriage he’s in so she can have him to herself.
Comedienne Irene Dunne is perfect in this. Most of the movie she’s this mousy THEODORA LYNN. She resides in a small Connecticut town that might be named after her family? In a way the film feels like it’s placed her in hiding here. And the way Melvyn Douglas’ MICHAEL GRANT arrives (after stealing her cookies) there is like the trope of the blackmailer showing up threatening to blow her cover. Could be something straight out of a film noir, except here this shady character represents her latent sexual urges. The way he takes up residence in that guesthouse in her backyard and his whistling agitates her is a mating call she blocks out with her aggressive piano mashing.
Going fishing is the midpoint. Point of no return. We know they’re in love and nothing can prevent them from being together by the end of the movie. But it can’t be that easy. And sexual frustration manifests itself as that whistling that refuses to go away; or the way the dog chases the cat around; or the way Jay wants that cheese in the mousetrap. The small town Theodora hides in is like an anthill full of femcels. That literary circle is a mob. A cheeky touch is the coded montage that cuts between the old maids and close-ups of each of their cats.
The precursor to Theodora going wild is when she gives that speech and Dunne’s eyes boldly bulge in indignation. But it’s act III where she transforms into her free, relentlessly assertive, take charge CAROLINE ADAMS self that gives the film its modern uproarious edge. And that’s the most screwball thing about Theodora Goes Wild: we think she’s Eve being tempted by the servant early on, but it’s not that she abandons her virtue, it’s that she breaks free of the femcel cult and fulfills the film’s promise of awakening her to let herself truly live. “Be free. Express yourself. Take your life in your own hands and mold it. The world will try to rob you of your freedom but fight for it. That’s all you have to live for. That’s all for the modern girl.”
And what’s so screwball is at first we think Theodora adopts this Caroline Adams exaggerated persona as a ploy to get Michael back, but it’s not: it’s really her. She ends as this persona. As heightened and ridiculously rollicking as it is, she doesn’t go back to her old self. And that’s the way screwball comedy works best. Deception and disguises. Characters performing roles that liberate their true selves.
Again authority is oppressive. Why does Theodora have to hide ADELAIDE’S baby? Adelaide is married, and her husband is going to school but her mother doesn’t approve. Why does Michael hide his marriage? And keep up the sham? For a politician. Screwball is about overthrowing power structures that prevent us from being happy. And the eternal object of desire: two people who can make each other laugh falling in love. And for good measure a nightclub scene where they get slobberingly sauced.
Going fishing is the midpoint. Point of no return. We know they’re in love and nothing can prevent them from being together by the end of the movie. But it can’t be that easy. And sexual frustration manifests itself as that whistling that refuses to go away; or the way the dog chases the cat around; or the way Jay wants that cheese in the mousetrap. The small town Theodora hides in is like an anthill full of femcels. That literary circle is a mob. A cheeky touch is the coded montage that cuts between the old maids and close-ups of each of their cats.
The precursor to Theodora going wild is when she gives that speech and Dunne’s eyes boldly bulge in indignation. But it’s act III where she transforms into her free, relentlessly assertive, take charge CAROLINE ADAMS self that gives the film its modern uproarious edge. And that’s the most screwball thing about Theodora Goes Wild: we think she’s Eve being tempted by the servant early on, but it’s not that she abandons her virtue, it’s that she breaks free of the femcel cult and fulfills the film’s promise of awakening her to let herself truly live. “Be free. Express yourself. Take your life in your own hands and mold it. The world will try to rob you of your freedom but fight for it. That’s all you have to live for. That’s all for the modern girl.”
And what’s so screwball is at first we think Theodora adopts this Caroline Adams exaggerated persona as a ploy to get Michael back, but it’s not: it’s really her. She ends as this persona. As heightened and ridiculously rollicking as it is, she doesn’t go back to her old self. And that’s the way screwball comedy works best. Deception and disguises. Characters performing roles that liberate their true selves.
Again authority is oppressive. Why does Theodora have to hide ADELAIDE’S baby? Adelaide is married, and her husband is going to school but her mother doesn’t approve. Why does Michael hide his marriage? And keep up the sham? For a politician. Screwball is about overthrowing power structures that prevent us from being happy. And the eternal object of desire: two people who can make each other laugh falling in love. And for good measure a nightclub scene where they get slobberingly sauced.
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