I'm in love with love

The Awful Truth (1937, Leo McCary) is a divorce screwball comedy that flourishes as a romantic ideal wherein adultery and dishonesty can make for a great marriage. It’s got a message too: in marriage, if you’ve lost faith, you’ve lost everything. Yet in this film, this married couple prove the exception to that rule.

     Theodora Goes Wild (1936, Richard Boleslawski) established Irene Dunne’s screwball vitality. Enter Cary Grant. (Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are the funniest actors and have that affected manner of speaking that feels so far removed from real life but precisely why I love them.) Throwing Irene Dunne and Cary Grant together in the whole Manhattan formal tuxedos, gowns, and posh penthouses milieu delivers more production value than any billion dollar IP cashgrab ever will. They have a tangible onscreen chemistry.

     The narrative opens with a custody case for their dog. How screwball is that? Wait is it absurd or do people really do that? Nevermind. Who cares? Thusfar I’ve been touting the fundamental elements in screwball are deception, mistaken identities, misleading appearances, false assumptions; so, a divorce between a couple who’ve chronically lied and cheated on each other makes for a marriage made in screwball heaven. When our story begins, there’s 59 days left until the divorce is final, the ol’ ticking clock plot device. That’s 59 days for them to realize how perfect they are for each other, as we do. They’re too charming and cool for anyone else.

     Rebound is the bunk. Ralph Bellamy plays this hick whom LUCY WARRINER (Dunne) has no business with whom JERRY WARRINER (Grant) derisively refers to as Buffalo Bill, ongoing gags poking fun at the Midwest. Buffalo Bill’s mother in law hears the tea about Lucy being promiscuous and subsequently disapproves of their engagement. So after this plot twist we have to wonder how can Lucy and Jerry wind up back together if they’ve already failed at their marriage? 

     The answer is when Grant has that amazing pratfall out of his chair in the concert hall and we laugh, as does Lucy. The other thing I’ve been touting about screwball is making each other laugh is true love. Now we’re past the point of no return. (Oh yeah I forgot to mention that scene with Grant whipping that dude’s ass with jiu jitsu. Yes really.) So we get the key sentiment of the movie when Lucy says “I’m still in love with that crazy lunatic and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

     Preceding the Act II break the sequence with Dunne hiding the hat and the dog after it is iconic. In real life I don’t even like dogs. I love certain dogs. MR. SMITH is one of them. When that dog finds the hat it exceeds beyond my capacity to imagine what a scene can do with a cute animal.

There’s the 2 men in her bedroom farce that takes us into Act III. And here, when Irene Dunne has to masquerade as Grant’s sister, combining the whole Dixeibelle thing with her quasi Grant impersonation wins her the benefit of the doubt and prevents us from ever again doubting her well-earned comedic status again. And the plot twist affording her the opportunity to deliver such a hysterical turn is adept because she’s getting back at Jerry for his Buffalo Bill hijinks by sabotaging his rebound. So where are we headed? Will this be a spite marriage once they inevitably reconcile? Probs. Also very screwball here drunk driving, taunting and scamming the police. Anyways. The last scene in that cabin is hot. We know when Dunne in bed gives that inviting come hither look sex is what’s to save the marriage. 

     The black cat on the bed is harbinger. The faulty lock Lucy says is “not so practical but I guess it’ll serve its purpose” is metaphor for infidelity. The film’s saying bad luck and society’s definition of immorality can’t keep us apart. 

     Big problem with the ending is do people change? If they lied and cheated on each other in their marriage, what led to that? Furthermore what did they do to address it? What’s to say it won’t happen again? Or do they care? I know I know. They’re selling us the dream. True love overcomes. But why can’t I shake the feeling this time it won’t last? This narrative seems cynical like because this couple failed at marriage that makes them an ideal match for marriage? In screwball anything goes. Don’t overthink it like me.

     

One should always listen to someone when they say goodbye because sometimes they're really saying farewell

Stage Door (1937, Gregory La Cava) is an ebullient woman’s picture comedy-melodrama tearjerker that conceals its darker subject matter which it gradually reveals as an indictment of systemic abuse by the combine of the theatrical scene in New York threshing away the many hopeful innocents that seek success in its blades. It’s also got a boarder who wears a cat drooped down her neck like a shawl. 

     Wake up. Finally a real star. Kate Hepburn kills. She’s got the force of a man but she’s not masculine like a say, Rosalind Russell. Hepburn plays TERRY RANDALL, new girl moving into the Footlights Club, a theatrical boarding house for broke aspiring actresses, and it’s full of ‘em. A young Ann Miller is so cute in this prototypical Mulholland Drive. Plucky Ginger Rogers holds her own as Hepburn’s nemesis. My empathy pours out for Lucille Ball as the girl who has to go on dates with some lumber men from Seattle who knew her from her childhood whose company she suffers because she needs the dinners they pay for. 
     The volley of dialogue fired off in this place is pandemonium and you think you’re in for a treat. But no. It turns into something else entirely.
 
The other half of Stage Door emerges when Adolphe Menjou as TONY POWELL turns out to be this predatory casting couch impresario who makes you miss Oscar Jaffe. Great detail in its poignancy is after Ginger Rogers’ character sobs her way out the door when we see Powell immediately begin flipping through his little black book.
     But it’s really this KAY character who overshadows the rest of the picture. Every time I watch this movie, as soon as Kay walks in that door for the first time the way her light is dimming to a flicker weary struggling to stay hopeful, I cry. I also cry when we first meet MISS LUTHER because of her age and how she still hasn’t given up and how she pathetically keeps her rumpled theater notices from some long forgotten distant past. Stage Door is a three hanky picture. Kay floats through in some melancholy fugue as if she belongs in a different movie altogether. It’s so sad that quick line never mentioned again or elaborated on when Kay says “except someone I’ll never go back to” back home traumatic pain. Although Miss Randall steals her part, it’s more complex than that. Because once Kay took a part from some other actress. And Miss Randall didn’t earn her opportunity, it was bought for her through nepotism. Kay and Terry are both such great examples of an active protagonist. In this movie neither of them would mean anything to us without without the other. That’s impressive writing.
     Can’t shake the haunting sequence where Kay walks up that gothic lit staircase hearing voices. Kay’s broken. Her mental illness is pure psychological horror. And the climax is heavy. Devastating. “What’s more important than a career?” says that louse Powell. Stage Door is really about young women’s hopes and dreams. It’s really about our own hopes and dreams. And these are the types of movies that know how to be the most heart wrenching. When Powell says "oh she's still around" about Kay that's such a punch in the gut. It stays with you. Yet again from this period it makes one ask how many of these comedies end right back where they started? We get the message.

The Bull of Broad Street

It becomes apparent immediately that what sets Easy Living (1937, Mitchell Leisen) apart from most movies that are in the business of sketching a narrative, is that instead its emphasis is on individual sketches complete in and of themselves—nuanced precision plot points. Furthermore, Easy Living is a screwball comedy where what drives it isn’t sex, it’s money. It’s refreshing.
     The opening credits sequence’s jewels, furs, and orchid are lavish materialistic wealth signifiers that aren’t far removed from the timeless pop American obsession that still exists to this day. Along with the American dream of becoming wealthy without having to work for it. But what’s most effective here and gives Easy Living structure is its reliance on quintessential screwball genre ingredients: misunderstandings, false assumptions, and misleading appearances. These are found often as both plot elements and wordplay.
     Most of all the sable coat. MARY SMITH (Jean Arthur with why the most generic character name ever?) thinks it’s Kolinsky but doesn’t find out until the end it’s real sable. Another distinct quality of Easy Living is how in that opening scene when we are introduced to the BALL household, the way they fight doesn’t feel like aristocratic refined manners; it’s more like wild quick to lose their temper new money, which is more relatable, or at least more enjoyable. 
     But the other big misunderstanding crucial to the plot is the way Mary is mistaken for J.B. Ball’s mistress and every vulture in town swoops in to cash in on exploiting her for what they can gain from it. The whole tone of it feels like it’s relevant and could easily happen in our own times. Preston Sturges knows how to wring the comedy out of it though. The mistress angle plays out into the third act and through to the film’s climax turning into insider trading and market manipulation. And it’s all so outlandish yet somehow that makes it even more plausible.
     In keeping with this whole misunderstanding thing, there’s a scene played so indelibly by Jean Arthur when LOUIS LOUIS is showing her the suite and they’re discussing how much for “whatever it is you want?” where she seems in an honest sweet endearing way to be acquiescing to some sort of sex transaction. It’s quick. And despite how later she’s explosively offended that someone could even consider she accepted the sable from Ball as his mistress, I still think this reading of interpreting her suggestion in the earlier scene plays. Maybe it’s best left to our own imagination. 

 

What an ending. You don’t see it coming. And it’s what keeps the mistaken for mistress premise from running thin. It’s non sequitur. The way the Ray Milland character who’s only ever found himself capable in the work sector as a busboy out of nowhere proves himself ideal to run one of the largest financial institutions in the world is so funny because again it’s so outlandish but in real life that makes it even more plausible. It’s how people think now. It’s how people are now. It also fits with the title, with the theme. It's even more now the American dream to achieve financial gain or some shortcut to prosperity through scamming. But that’s not all. When Milland tells the Jean Arthur character “and I have a job for you… cooking my breakfast.” He’s serious. And it’s not meant to be funny which makes it even more funny.