screwball comedy

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod

Fun, light and funny, the movie Topper is a delightful screwball comedy. It shares the style of, and comes a year or two after, the classic My Man Godfrey. Though not as good as that film, it excels in many ways, not the least of which is a very good cast.

While Cary Grant is in it (and playing an earlier version of a comedic type he would use later in His Girl Friday -– a self-involved man with the proverbial “heart of gold”), the real star is Constance Bennett.

The female lead in screwball comedies, like Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey, is usually wealthy and ditzy (though not unintelligent). She’s generally completely unconcerned with everything around her except for whatever her wandering imagination has focused on. In the case of Topper, Bennett plays this role though it’s complemented by Grant, as her husband, who is equally wealthy and ditzy.

In contrast to this, there is always the serious role – in this case Corso Topper, played by Roland Young. He’s a banker – dull, pining for a more exciting life, and under his wife’s thumb (played by Billie Burke – Glinda, the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz).

It’s a traditional contrast – trickster characters (Bennett, Grant) and the dull oaf that needs to lighten up (a bit like Malvolio in Twelfth Night).

The conceit behind Topper is that the wealthy couple George and Marion Kirby are killed in a car accident (caused by Grant’s fun-loving foolishness). They become ghosts. As such, they determine they are stuck on earth, unable to move on to Heaven, until they have done a good deed. They decide Topper will be their good deed. They will take him out of his formal, proper shell and introduce him to life.

And so the fun begins.

There are a lot of wonderful moments in the film, including numerous sexually suggestive jokes that would likely not be allowed in later years. They are not overt, brazen moments (as you would likely get today), but deliciously suggestive – making them funnier and more sexy. Bennett plays her role with delightful coyness and flirtatiousness. The interaction with Roland Young as the hide-bound banker is great fun to watch.

(It’s a bit surprising some of this got past the Hays Code.)

In Topper, you get to see Corso Topper come out of his shell and develop into the man he wants to be. (One of the best scenes, howlingly funny, is a drunk Topper being helped down stairs, through a hotel lobby by invisible ghosts.)

You also see his wife develop from icy social climber to a more loving woman.

Screwball comedies are one of my favourite kinds of movies, if not the favourite, and Topper is a wonderful example of the genre. Recommended.

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Directed by Leo McCarey

Take an affluent couple with little regard for anything but themselves, pit them against each other, and you get The Awful Truth, a genuinely great screwball comedy.

Late in the movie, Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne) quotes back to her husband Jerry (Cary Grant) his own words:

“Lend me an ear, I implore you, this comes from my heart:
I’ll always adore you, till death do us part.”

While it may not be great poetry, it succinctly states the theme of the film. The Warriners are social gadflies, each apparently going his or her own way with little regard for anything else around them, including each other. (However, this may be more true of Grant’s character than Dunne’s.)

As the movie begins, it turns out Grant’s character has been deceiving his wife. He’s a bit of a cad, a bit of a philanderer. He was supposed to be in Florida but wasn’t – he was off having fun elsewhere.

He takes pains to keep this from her.

As it turns out, when he returns home he finds she is not there.

He’s disappointed by this and a little put out. It’s okay for him to deceive his wife – but her deceive him? He’s outraged.

When she arrives, he only hears part of her story. He jumps to conclusions: he assumes she’s having an affair with her music teacher. An argument ensues and it leads (rather quickly, I might add) to divorce proceedings.

Now the fight is on. Through the rest of the movie, they battle back and forth, trying to get one another jealous, each trying to best the other.

They get so caught up in their fight, they don’t imagine what the actual consequences will be.

It’s only when each starts to realize the end result, the other’s removal from their life, that they start getting doubts.

The above sounds much more serious than it plays. The film is supremely funny. The lines are quick and witty and Grant’s pratfalls are perfect.

The supporting cast, including Ralph Bellamy (who again gets to play a dull, nice guy – as he would later in 1940’s His Girl Friday), are tremendous and truly add to the film (they always do in films of that period).

The chemistry between Grant and Dunne is wonderful. She meets and plays off of his quickness and facial expressions with great skill and ease. She often gets the best of him in a scene. They seem made for each other.

If there is any flaw in The Awful Truth it may be the ending, which may be a tad too sentimental. It works, but it nudges at that fine line.

If, like me, you love screwball comedies this movie is a must. It’s definitely one of the better ones. Highly recommended.

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Directed by Gregory La Cava

Everyone has their favourite movie and I have mine – My Man Godfrey. I love screwball comedy, I love Carole Lombard and I love this movie, perhaps because both, the genre and the star, are at the top of their form.

And let’s not forget the pitch perfect William Powell as Godfrey.

From what I gather, the very term “screwball comedy” comes from a performance by Carole Lombard, though there seems to be some confusion about whether it was a reference to her in Godfrey or Nothing Sacred. But someone, at one time, referred to a performance by her as “screwball” and the term stuck.

My Man Godfrey is a template for this kind of comedy.

Anything you could ever want to know about screwball is in this movie, beginning with Lombard’s performance as Irene Bullock, the quintessential ditzy, rich young woman, the heart and soul of this type of film.

But perhaps the thing that puts Godfrey a cut above other movies is that they have not only constructed the perfect screwball comedy, they go a little beyond it with a compelling, if frenetic, romance and even social commentary.

The beautiful and wealthy, dressed in tuxedos and gowns and all a bit “spiffed” (as Jimmy Stewart refers to it in Harvey), are amusing themselves with a scavenger hunt. The crowning achievement in the hunt is to return with a “lost man,” someone who is out-of-work and homeless due to the Depression (presumably).

One of the hunt’s parties, led by Irene’s sister Cornelia (Gail Patrick), comes across Godfrey.

Unfortunately, Godfrey doesn’t receive her with the gratitude she expects (he’s offered $5 to come back with them). Rather, Godfrey is offended and angry at how callous and frivolous they are.

Then Irene comes along. She’s thrilled at her sister’s treatment and somewhat apologetic for how Godfrey has been treated. Godfrey sees Irene hopeless (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) but more or less harmless. He sees how anxious she is to beat her sister in the hunt due to their sibling rivalry and decides, why not? He’ll go with Irene and see just how frivolous and vain these rich people are.

He goes with Irene, she wins the hunt, Godfrey gets to express his opinion of what kind of people the wealthy are and then … Then, Irene gets the idea of hiring Godfrey as the family butler. And he accepts!

From here on in it’s Godfrey, the one sane person in the film, and the wealthy, self-indulgent and screwy Bullock family.

The movie excels with an extraordinary cast providing marvellous performances, including Eugene Pallette as the financially beset, ineffective patriarch of the house.

The house is like an insane asylum. But Godfrey’s presence has a calming influence, to a small degree, as he is the one voice of reason and understanding. With Godfrey around, everyone begins to become more grounded and, frankly, more human. They begin to lose their self-absorption and see the world, and people around them.

But it isn’t only Godfrey who as an effect on others, and it isn’t only the family that is affected.

Lombard’s Irene has an effect on Godfrey, seducing him with her madcap antics and way of seeing the world. Reason alone isn’t exciting.

Irene’s craziness is also vitality, life’s substance. Godfrey slowly falls in love.

All of this happens with a chaos of fast-paced dialogue and quick moving action. It’s a frenetic world Godfrey has entered, a screwball world. And in a sense, he is a fish out of water here.

The pairing of Lombard and Powell is absolutely perfect. His droll, hang-dog look of seriousness against her constantly changing expressions of wild excitement and abject sorrow make a great contrast.

When I think of this movie being almost 70 years old, I am amazed. It still does everything you could possibly want a film to do.

It’s funny, exciting and moving, and it does all this while remaining essentially simple.

If ever a film warranted the term classic, it’s My Man Godfrey. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen it. And no matter how many times I do, I always find it rewarding.

My favourite movie.

DVD note:

There are several DVD versions available of My Man Godfrey. I have the one available from the Criterion Collection – a bit more expensive, yes, but for me well worth it.

This has a “new digital transfer, with restored image and sound,” along with bonus material that includes audio commentary by film historian Bob Gilpin, “rare” outtakes, the complete 1938 broadcast of the Lux Radio Theater adaptation with Powell and Lombard, plus other features.

You can get the movie on less expensive discs. However, not having seen them, I can’t comment on their quality.

4 stars out of 4.
(Originally posted 2005.)

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