That's not my baby

Bachelor Mother (1939, Garson Kanin) is an unwed mother pro-life screwball comedy about child rearing that romanticizes starting a family. Thus far it also might be the screwball with the most instances of misleading appearances leading to false assumptions. 

     The premise is so very screwball. Temp gets let go. Picks up a baby left on a doorstep. Gets hired on fulltime and given a raise because of it. Later there’ll be another time deception gets her her job back. When she fabricates a history of domestic assault pointing to her temple and saying “coffee pot.” What can I say? I love laughing at the darkest things that aren’t funny. I love comedies that can make something not funny funny.

     Another of the elements I define the screwball by is class conflict. It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra) uses its narrative as a platform to exhort us about it. And we get plenty of a variation of class conflict, which is the Cinderella rags to riches fantasy. But for me the one I best relate to is the impossibility of vertical upwards class mobility. Bachelor Mother is set in motion with the understanding that it’s only a matter of time before POLLY PARRISH (Ginger Rogers) and DAVID MERLIN (David Niven) fall in love. (Okay first though let’s not even mention that this is also yet another screwball about a low level employee marrying her boss.) But into the second act at the New Year’s Eve party what does that say about vertical class mobility that David chooses to have Polly pass herself off as someone who can’t speak English (daughter of a Swedish manufacturer) instead of risking her being unable to converse with the party guests. Of course how could she possibly socialize with those above her? She’s merely a peasant. 

     As Bachelor Mother exists in the world of screwball, it’s a wonderful example too of illusion becoming reality. David using Polly to pretend she’s his date turns into them becoming romantically matched after having some chemistry. Plot twist is Polly pretending the baby is hers in turn turns off David. (But only briefly. We know he’s to come back around.) Seriously their first kiss on New Year’s Eve in that huge crowd all singing in New York is such a moving uplifting American sentimental flourish.

     For its time, this movie has a very impressive effective tracking shot of a Donald Duck toy falling down the stairs that tells us David has realized he’s in love with Polly that is quite stunning. This film strikes a balance between clever, compassionate, and ambitious. And it’s summed up best in that last moment David hugs her and when she asks him if she still thinks he’s the mother of the baby and he says “of course,” she slyly delivers that “ha ha” is such a perfect denouement.

Phone worshippers

What joy films from this era bring me. Midnight (1939, Mitchell Leisen) is an identity theft screwball comedy about social mobility that’s hopeful, life-affirming, sweet on its surface, but underneath one of the most bleak confections to hold a shattered mirror up to human nature. And maybe I’m the problem here. The reason this material connects with me so is because I don’t believe the possibility of upward vertical class integration exists. I read this movie as reinforcing an inferiority complex. What’s more important is that Midnight can be read as the cabbie looms lurking around every corner as a specter, a grim reaper to drag EVE PEABODY (Claudette Colbert) back where she belongs lest she think she can rise above her station.

     I’m big lately on what I perceive as one of cinema’s greatest strengths, which is communicating emotion. Emotions that can’t be put into words. Emotions that your literal mind can’t figure out through reason. Take Eve’s crashing the party when she’s arrived in Paris. The hostess makes an announcement that the pawn ticket of a woman named Eve Peabody has been tendered as counterfeit admission and asks for the culprit to identify herself. But Eve keeps silent. In the hotseat squirming. The suspense she’ll be revealed as imposter. This is what it can feel like for some when they feel like they don’t fit in socially. The feeling is authentic and conveys this so well. Is it all in her head? Is it all in our head? But it gets even better. We’re in psychological horror territory when her lies have her cornered and she’s about to be busted going into a room that isn’t hers. But the key works. And when she goes inside it’s so scary. Dark. Shadows. She keeps asking who’s there? This is what it can feel like if you actually make it in. Dangerous. But somehow a key that shouldn’t have worked did. For you. But technically it’s breaking and entering. And there are laws against that. You will pay.
     The character work in Midnight screams real life fodder. Eve is emblematic of a woman who’s hot, young, and inherently stubborn about accepting anything less than a life full of luxury, wealth, opulence, fame, and parties. Everything social media uses to ensnare its target demo with today in real life. Is this a toxic stereotype? Doubtful. Who’s saying there’s anything wrong with it? It’s aspirational. Eve is a gold digger by her own self admission. She identifies as such. That hits. She’s supposedly in love with the Don Ameche character but won’t let herself be with him because what she most desires is a future in pursuit of materialism that he clashes with. 
     So when the film has them end up with each other happily ever after, I think it’s bunk. It feels like moralizing. Like Midnight is telling us there’s no way she could have had any other life than with this cabbie because they’re equally matched because they’re from the same lower class. Because they’re both fakers and can’t keep going without giving up the false illusion. Hollywood owes us more. The fairytale can replace reality. In Hollywood, but not in real life. And that’s what makes the ending sad. We don’t get the Hollywood ending we get the real life ending. Also come to think of it that’s what makes the ending of Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder) the best ending for a comedy. The audacity to subversively defiantly refuse to accede to the hoax.