screwball

Directed by Frank Capra

There are good comedies and there are great comedies. Arsenic and Old Lace is a great comedy. It achieves greatness through all the elements that make any great film: wonderful script and wonderful performances.

In many ways, in making the movie Frank Capra had only one job: don’t get in the way.

He doesn’t and it plays perfectly.

Based on a hugely popular play by Joseph Kesselring (the movie was actually made in 1941 but not released till the play’s Broadway run was through, 1944), it’s a movie about two nice old ladies who happen to murder lonely strangers and bury them in their basement.

The premise makes it a black comedy but here “black” is nothing like what contemporary black comedies are – there’s no meanness or spite involved, it’s just a dark idea that gets a very silly, frenetic and hilarious treatment. There is no angry subtext here, just jokes.

While a beautifully executed ensemble piece, at it’s heart is Mortimer Brewster, played to the comedic hilt by Cary Grant.

It’s one of Grant’s best comedic performances, one in which his natural comic talent gets free rein. He delivers with facial takes, rapid dialogue and perfectly executed pratfalls.

Mortimer is a theatre critic and bachelor who marries, though he’d like to keep the marriage secret from the public as it runs counter to his somewhat anti-marriage reputation. Headed for his honeymoon, he returns home to his old aunts where he discovers a dead body hidden in the drawing room.

The discovery acts as a starting pistol to the film’s comedy. Once Grant finds it, the film moves into another gear, one that’s screwball and highly energetic.

Contrasting Grant’s slapstick performance are Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, Mortimer’s aunts Abby and Martha. They are calm and gentle and sweet and a bit puzzled by their nephew’s frantic actions. (“Mortimer doesn’t seem himself today …”)

Things are complicated by his uncle (John Alexander), who lives with his aunts, and thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt digging the Panama Canal in the basement (burying the bodies).

It’s compounded by the arrival of Mortimer’s brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey), who happens to be a murderous maniac. He’s accompanied by a disreputable surgeon, Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre). It seems as if the house is populated by lunatics who have run amuck.

As Grant says to his new bride Elaine (Priscilla Lane), “Insanity runs in my family.” He then adds, “It practically gallops!”

Capra likes to fill his scenes with oddball characters and a great deal of activity, such as in the movie You Can’t Take It With You.

Often, it can be a little too chaotic but in Arsenic and Old Lace it’s a bit more controlled, perhaps because so much of it had been established by the Broadway production.

Watching this movie, it reminded me of Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry. They are similar black comedies. But it seems obvious that of the two directors, Capra really is the one with the comedic flair.

Hitchcock is a little too dry and droll for the kind of slapstick energy that makes Arsenic and Old Lace work (which may be why Harry is a bit flat.)

And of course, with the brilliant script and exceptional performances, this really was Capra’s movie to wreck. But he doesn’t. Rather, he lets it play and the result is one of the funniest Hollywood movies.

It’s a genuine classic. And if your idea of Cary Grant is simply of the handsome leading man, this is another great example of what a fine actor of comedy he was.

The movie is also gem of an example of the wonderful supporting actors Hollywood use to populate its movies with.

Cary Grant may have been the star but Arsenic and Old Lace pays as much attention to its other characters and this is one of the big reasons it succeeds so well.

Yes, highly recommended.

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Although the movie Topper, despite it’s summer success in 1937, could hardly be considered a big movie, not in the Hollywood terms we usually speak of, it was a key movie in the career of Cary Grant (and for those people who came to love the movies of Cary Grant) because of what it did.

It was  one of the first movies Grant made after he chose to break free of the feudal studio system of Hollywood, which basically dictated what he would appear in and what roles he would have, and became an independent actor.

It was also his first chance to do what he desperately wanted to do: comedy. It was the first chance he had to be something other than a pretty boy in a tuxedo and actually showcase his broader talents. It may also have been one of the first times, if not the first, he worked with a director (Norman McLeod) who used something akin to storyboards. McLeod would show Grant and co-star Constance Bennett sketches to illustrate body position, movements and facial expressions in order to better get across what he was after.

A few years ago I wrote a review of Topper but at that time was unaware of its place in Cary Grant’s personal career history. If I were writing it now, I’m sure it would read considerably differently. But I think the overall assessment would be the same. It goes:

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 … (read more)

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Directed by Henry Koster

“Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’ – she always called me Elwood – ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.” – Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd

When I was younger I had the good fortune of seeing the movie Harvey for the first time under perfect conditions. I knew nothing about it; I was completely unaware of its existence. I was probably around fourteen and I’m pretty sure I saw it on TV one night.

I started watching and there it unfolded, a delightful story about a lovely man with an invisible six foot rabbit, a pooka, as a his best friend.

A movie like Harvey is easily dismissed as being light – a bit of pleasant fluff, not the sort of thing worth considering when discussing “important” movies, the real thing. Harvey often is dismissed this way. Myself, I think that is a mistake.

The story is relatively straightforward: Elwood P. Dowd is independently wealthy, having received an inheritance years ago (including a large house). So he spends his days wandering about, going to bars and getting tipsy with his invisible friend. More importantly, he meets people, engages them in conversation, often invites them home (and they’re often the down and out) and just generally enjoying the company and diversity of people.

His activities and, more importantly, is belief in a six foot tall invisible rabbit results in most people considering him nuts, though most see it as harmless. Elwood is such a nice man.

His sister Vita (Josephine Hull) does have problems with it. She lives in the same house. How is she to present her marriageable daughter to the world and find potential husband material when her brother keeps showing up and is so obviously unbalanced – or at least a social problem?

Ultimately, she decides to have Elwood committed to an asylum.

The problem, however, is that with his very engaging and pleasant manner, and with his invisible friend Harvey (a mischievous spirit), everything goes sideways as it is Vita who is committed, Elwood the doctors mistake as the sane one, and chaos that builds and builds as everyone keeps mistaking who is who.

Perhaps an even bigger problem is that while people pretend otherwise, others see Harvey too – including Vita and the head of the asylum, Dr. Chumley.

And everyone loves Harvey for the calming effect he has, which may be why Elwood is so easy going and darned likeable.

I don’t think you could call this movie slapstick or screwball, though there are elements of those in the chaos that keeps building. And I don’t think you could call it a romantic comedy, though there are elements of romance in it.

It is, however, very funny and very charming as Elwood with his easy-going pleasantness and Harvey with his mischief work their magic on all the other characters who, prior to encountering the pair, are caught up in their own worlds and worries. If the movie has a message, I suppose it would be, “Lighten up.” Life is so much more pleasant that way.

Harvey began on the stage as a play of the same name by Mary Chase (who also wrote the screenplay). Jimmy Stewart played Elwood on stage, though he wasn’t the actor who originated the role (that was Frank Fay). Part of the reason Stewart took on the stage role was because this was a movie he very much wanted to do on screen.

When released, the film didn’t exactly do boffo business. It was something of a disappointment in those terms and Stewart afterward even questioned whether making the movie was, for him, a career mistake. The years have changed all that and, in the end, it was one of his favourite roles.

I think that when considering Jimmy Stewart that while the films he made with Frank Capra, Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock all have to be considered, a movie like Harvey also has to be considered if only because I think it represents an aspect of the man, a way of seeing that was an essential part of who he was. While the other roles may have tapped into the darker and more complex elements of his character, his sense of how the world should be is articulated in Harvey and, as contrast, provides some context and meaning to those other roles.

Harvey is the aspirational Jimmy Stewart.

And it’s an absolutely delightful movie.

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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 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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