Nora (Myrna Loy) shows Nick (William Powell) she has picked up a few tricks of the trade from him.

Romances are usually about the obstacles a couple goes through in order to be together and they end with the pair finally uniting with the implication they will now be happy. United, they will live “happily ever after.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies show us the couple united and what life is like now that they are.

Together and happy, life is comedy. The movies aren’t romances; that part of their story has played out. (We never are shown this. The movies start after that has happened.)

The appeal of Nick and Nora is that they are united – they’re married – and they are living that happy life implied by the endings of romances. This is something audiences rarely see, certainly not seen so well articulated and charming.

The murder mystery element of the movies is key but only as an engine to allow their happy life to play out. It provides an engine to move the story forward and to provide a context within which we can see Nick and Nora behave as a happy couple.

The movies work individually but when seen as a series and in the order in which they came out they also show us their happy life evolve over time. And the way it evolves is telling. Specifics change. They look a bit older; they have a baby; the baby becomes a child … and so on.

But their relationship and what characterizes it doesn’t change. The essence of Nick and Nora as a couple remains the same.

The comedy is a mix of three elements, the ratios of which alter to varying degrees from film to film. It combines wit, slapstick and screwball/farce. The wit dominates throughout, though the other two elements are stronger in the later films.

The significance of the wit (apart from being fun to hear and see so well executed) is that it gives us Nick and Nora as equals, even in the later films when Loy’s Nora starts being presented as more of a sidekick to Nick than a partner.

The slapstick and farce elements, apart from providing some variation in the humour, allows the movies to keep the pair in check, especially Nick. He has to be clever but, whenever he starts to appear a little too clever and maybe not “a regular guy,” it’s slapstick that steps in to put him back in place (and in some cases, keep Nora in place).

Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy).

Over a period of 13 years, William Powell and Myrna Loy had a wonderful run with their series of Thin Man movies. In all, there were six.

Although “the thin man” in the original movie, and the Dashiell Hammett novel that was the springboard for the movies, referred to a mysterious character, Clyde Wynant, (who doesn’t even appear in the original novel as I recall), in the movies “the thin man” came to refer to Nick Charles, William Powell’s character.

As movie series go, The Thin Man proved to be one of the most successful ever. And the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy worked so well that not only did they make six movies as Nick and Nora Charles, they made eight others together for a total of fourteen movies. But it is as the Charles’s in these Thin Man movies, where they are living the “happily ever after” life, that they are known best and most fondly for.

The Thin Man Series:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• After the Thin Man (1936)
• Another Thin Man (1939)
• Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
• The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
• Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Nick and Nora at play.

Nora (Myrna Loy) shows Nick (William Powell) she has picked up a few tricks of the trade from him.

The series of Thin Man movies answers the question, “What does happily ever after look like?”

Romances are usually about the obstacles a couple goes through in order to be together and they end with the pair finally uniting with the implication they will now be happy. United, they will live “happily ever after.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies show us the couple united and what life is like now that they are.

Together and happy, life is comedy. The movies aren’t romances; that part of their story has played out. (We never are shown this. The movies start after that has happened.)

The appeal of Nick and Nora is that they are united – they’re married – and they are living that happy life implied by the endings of romances. This is something audiences rarely see, certainly not seen so well articulated and charming.

The murder mystery element of the movies is key but only as an engine to allow their happy life to play out. It provides an engine to move the story forward and to provide a context within which we can see Nick and Nora behave as a happy couple.

The movies work individually but when seen as a series and in the order in which they came out they also show us their happy life evolve over time. And the way it evolves is telling. Specifics change. They look a bit older; they have a baby; the baby becomes a child … and so on.

But their relationship and what characterizes it doesn’t change. The essence of Nick and Nora as a couple remains the same.

The comedy is a mix of three elements, the ratios of which alter to varying degrees from film to film. It combines wit, slapstick and screwball/farce. The wit dominates throughout, though the other two elements are stronger in the later films.

The significance of the wit (apart from being fun to hear and see so well executed) is that it gives us Nick and Nora as equals, even in the later films when Loy’s Nora starts being presented as more of a sidekick to Nick than a partner.

The slapstick and farce elements, apart from providing some variation in the humour, allows the movies to keep the pair in check, especially Nick. He has to be clever but, whenever he starts to appear a little too clever and maybe not “a regular guy,” it’s slapstick that steps in to put him back in place (and in some cases, keep Nora in place).

Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy).

Over a period of 13 years, William Powell and Myrna Loy had a wonderful run with their series of Thin Man movies. In all, there were six.

Although “the thin man” in the original movie, and the Dashiell Hammett novel that was the springboard for the movies, referred to a mysterious character, Clyde Wynant, (who doesn’t even appear in the original novel as I recall), in the movies “the thin man” came to refer to Nick Charles, William Powell’s character.

As movie series go, The Thin Man proved to be one of the most successful ever. And the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy worked so well that not only did they make six movies as Nick and Nora Charles, they made eight others together for a total of fourteen movies. But it is as the Charles’s in these Thin Man movies, where they are living the “happily ever after” life, that they are known best and most fondly for.

The Thin Man Series:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• After the Thin Man (1936)
• Another Thin Man (1939)
• Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
• The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
• Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Nick and Nora at play.

Directed by Richard Thorpe

I laughed and I smiled. That’s about all a comedy laced with a romantic storyline can and should aspire to and Double Wedding achieves this and under conditions you would expect to douse the lightness.

Starring William Powell and Myrna Loy in one of their many pairings, while it was being shot Powell’s fiance at the time, Jean Harlow, died and production was shut down for a few weeks, according to Stuart Henderson. Powell returned to complete the movie and that, combined with the kind of performance he gives in the movie, tells us a good deal about the kind of man and performer William Powell was.

The free-spirited Charlie Lodge (William Powell) and the controlling Margit Agnew (Myrna Loy).

Powell is Charlie Lodge, a bohemian artist and aspiring movie director-producer who is preparing two young people for a film he wants to make (in a casual way). They are Irene Agnew (Florence Rice) and Waldo Beaver (John Beal).

The couple is engaged less because they are in love (which they are) and more (in fact, mainly) because Irene’s sister, Margit (Myrna Loy) has decided they will be and has planned it.

In fact, Margit decides everything for them from food to clothes to … well, everything. And neither Irene nor Waldo has the backbone to stand up to her. Waldo is particularly submissive: so much so, Irene feels compelled to reject him because he hasn’t the will to fight for her.

He lacks “yumph,” as the movie would have it.

Then there is Margit. She is the complete opposite of Charlie and so, as happens in the movies, they are destined to be together. But they must first sail through some rough waters! And that is where the humour lies.

Irene Agnew (Florence Rice) gets an acting lesson from Charlie.

Both Powell and Loy play characters that are considerably different from what we generally associate with them.

Loy is cool and distant and, with her porcelain features, delivers a very convincing performance as a woman determined to control everything and everyone.

However, what really struck me was Powell as Charlie. While still retaining that sense of “class” we normally associate with him, he is both convincing and seemingly inspired as a free-spirited character. I say seemingly because of the circumstances surrounding the film — Harlow’s illness and death.

It is initially a bit bizarre seeing Powell dressed and acting in this goofy and free manner but he soon pulls you in and makes you believe. There is also, to a degree, something of My Man Godfrey in his role here in that he must show a comparatively well-to-do family how to live because they are so far off the mark. (Godfrey would be released the next year, in 1938.)

This is a screwball comedy, and successful one, though it’s ending is a bit surprising as it devolves into slapstick — funny, but a bit puzzling and with a feeling of incongruity taken with most of the film. I can’t help wondering if this was one of the final scenes shot, after Powell had returned following the tragic news of Harlow, because the end minimizes his part — at least the speaking element — and focuses on Loy’s character to carry the scenes.

Regardless, I enjoyed Double Wedding. It’s a fun and funny screwball comedy and well worth seeing.

Other Loy and Powell movies:

• Evelyn Prentice (1934) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• I Love You Again (1940) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• Love Crazy (1941) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• The Thin Man (1934) (Complete Thin Man Collection)

When you bring that together with a mischievous writer-director like Preston Sturges, you don’t simply get one of the funniest movies ever made; you get one of the most charmingly subversive ones.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

Directed by Preston Sturges

“What Preston tried to do was obey the letter of the law for the Production Code, but ignore, in its entirety, the very spirit of that law.”
– Sandy Sturges, wife of Preston Sturges –

Without a doubt, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

For me, it is the funniest of all Preston Sturges’s movies – and that is saying something. I wouldn’t argue it is his best, not when he later went on to make Sullivan’s Travels and The Lady Eve, but it’s the funniest.

It is also one of the most subversive movies ever made as it blithely obeys the letter of the law while simultaneously thumbing its nose at it. In this case, the “law” is Hollywood’s Production Code, aka the Hays Office, that dictated what could and should be allowed on film.

Here, Sturges’ card sharp directing bamboozles them as he broke all the rules while sticking to them.

A disappointed Norval (Eddie Bracken) won't be taking Trudy (Betty Hutton) to the movies.

It’s the comedy that allows him to do this bit of cinematic sleight-of-hand. While never overtly stating something, the subtext is pretty obvious – unless you’re laughing so hard you forget to pay attention.

Starring Betty Hutton and Eddie Bracken, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is about Trudy Kockenlocker (Hutton), a wide-eyed girl determined to go to a dance “for our boys” who are going off to war. Her father, the suspicious and protective Constable Edmund Kockenlocker (William Demarest), nixes the idea.

But Trudy is resolved to go and, using her friend Norval Jones (Bracken), she does by pretending to go to the movies with Norval. The word “using” is exactly right because Norval is in love with an uninterested Trudy. She uses his devotion to her advantage because he’ll do just about anything for her.

Sisters Emmy and Trudy try to figure out what to do about Trudy's problem (Diana Lynn and Betty Button).

Unfortunately for Trudy, while at the dance she unwittingly gets drunk (though she denies she was drunk) and gets married, though she can’t remember the marriage or who the husband is. Whoever the someone is has likely gone overseas by now.

Trudy is also pregnant, though this isn’t stated overtly. She becomes so distraught over her situation, she even considers the idea of killing herself until her much smarter younger sister (Diana Lynn) suggests she marry Norval for the sake of propriety and appearances. But can she marry when she is already married, even if it was under an assumed name?

Keep in mind that all this plot information comes to us quickly and furiously and hilariously as we watch the movie. As we watch, we’re not really aware of how many taboo subjects (from the Hays’ perspective) that Sturges is playing with. Think of it: he has touched on a fatherless pregnancy, suicide and bigamy. Each on its own would have been verboten in 1944. All three together? Oy!

And the movie has scarcely begun!

While the comedy and his use of misdirection allow Sturges to handle subjects like these without eyebrows being raised, the innocence of his main characters (Trudy and Norval) also gives him some license. It’s impossible to think of either as a “wicked” kid trying to get away with something. They’re two young people caught up in circumstances.

Norval (Eddie Bracken - right) greeted by the Kockenlocker family (William Demarest, Diana Lynn and Betty Hutton).

The usual Sturges comic elements are here: smart, witty dialogue, pratfalls and reaction shots. But unlike a movie like The Lady Eve, for example, there is nothing sophisticated in his main characters; they’re too young and innocent for that. If there is something humourously clever in what they say, the character isn’t aware of it. (In The Lady Eve, Barbara Stanwyck’s Jean is always aware of her meaning and her double entendre’s.)

One of the primary reason’s The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is so damned funny is Eddie Bracken and the astonishing elasticity he brings to his face and body. It is pure slapstick and it is screamingly funny. His physicality together with his timing are nothing less than brilliant. In contemporary movies, the only actor (and movie) I can think of that even comes close to something similar is Lee Evan’s performance in Mouse Hunt (1997).

Any appreciation of an art form is almost by definition subjective but nothing seems to be more subjective than comedy. What causes one person to roll on the floor laughing may elicit no more than a yawn from someone else. Yet I find it hard to imagine anyone not finding Bracken funny in this movie. Personally, this is my favourite kind of comedy: slapstick mixed with verbal wit in a farce-like presentation. In other words, screwball comedy.

Raising daughters can be a challenge.

Hutton is equally good in her role as Trudy, a young girl who is innocent on one hand yet also manipulative on the other, at least where her father and Norval are concerned.

As her father, William Demarest plays his standard cross character though here he is much more engaged in pratfalls than I’ve seen him in other movies. I can’t help thinking he had a sore rear end at the end of the making of this one.

On so many levels and in so many ways, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek leaves other comedies in the dust. I think it should be required viewing for anyone even thinking about making a comedy.

Directed by Preston Sturges

“What Preston tried to do was obey the letter of the law for the Production Code, but ignore, in its entirety, the very spirit of that law.”
– Sandy Sturges, wife of Preston Sturges –

Without a doubt, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

For me, it is the funniest of all Preston Sturges’s movies – and that is saying something. I wouldn’t argue it is his best, not when he later went on to make Sullivan’s Travels and The Lady Eve, but it’s the funniest.

It is also one of the most subversive movies ever made as it blithely obeys the letter of the law while simultaneously thumbing its nose at it. In this case, the “law” is Hollywood’s Production Code, aka the Hays Office, that dictated what could and should be allowed on film.

Here, Sturges’ card sharp directing bamboozles them as he broke all the rules while sticking to them.

A disappointed Norval (Eddie Bracken) won't be taking Trudy (Betty Hutton) to the movies.

It’s the comedy that allows him to do this bit of cinematic sleight-of-hand. While never overtly stating something, the subtext is pretty obvious – unless you’re laughing so hard you forget to pay attention.

Starring Betty Hutton and Eddie Bracken, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is about Trudy Kockenlocker (Hutton), a wide-eyed girl determined to go to a dance “for our boys” who are going off to war. Her father, the suspicious and protective Constable Edmund Kockenlocker (William Demarest), nixes the idea.

But Trudy is resolved to go and, using her friend Norval Jones (Bracken), she does by pretending to go to the movies with Norval. The word “using” is exactly right because Norval is in love with an uninterested Trudy. She uses his devotion to her advantage because he’ll do just about anything for her.

Sisters Emmy and Trudy try to figure out what to do about Trudy's problem (Diana Lynn and Betty Button).

Unfortunately for Trudy, while at the dance she unwittingly gets drunk (though she denies she was drunk) and gets married, though she can’t remember the marriage or who the husband is. Whoever the someone is has likely gone overseas by now.

Trudy is also pregnant, though this isn’t stated overtly. She becomes so distraught over her situation, she even considers the idea of killing herself until her much smarter younger sister (Diana Lynn) suggests she marry Norval for the sake of propriety and appearances. But can she marry when she is already married, even if it was under an assumed name?

Keep in mind that all this plot information comes to us quickly and furiously and hilariously as we watch the movie. As we watch, we’re not really aware of how many taboo subjects (from the Hays’ perspective) that Sturges is playing with. Think of it: he has touched on a fatherless pregnancy, suicide and bigamy. Each on its own would have been verboten in 1944. All three together? Oy!

And the movie has scarcely begun!

While the comedy and his use of misdirection allow Sturges to handle subjects like these without eyebrows being raised, the innocence of his main characters (Trudy and Norval) also gives him some license. It’s impossible to think of either as a “wicked” kid trying to get away with something. They’re two young people caught up in circumstances.

Norval (Eddie Bracken - right) greeted by the Kockenlocker family (William Demarest, Diana Lynn and Betty Hutton).

The usual Sturges comic elements are here: smart, witty dialogue, pratfalls and reaction shots. But unlike a movie like The Lady Eve, for example, there is nothing sophisticated in his main characters; they’re too young and innocent for that. If there is something humourously clever in what they say, the character isn’t aware of it. (In The Lady Eve, Barbara Stanwyck’s Jean is always aware of her meaning and her double entendre’s.)

One of the primary reason’s The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is so damned funny is Eddie Bracken and the astonishing elasticity he brings to his face and body. It is pure slapstick and it is screamingly funny. His physicality together with his timing are nothing less than brilliant. In contemporary movies, the only actor (and movie) I can think of that even comes close to something similar is Lee Evan’s performance in Mouse Hunt (1997).

Any appreciation of an art form is almost by definition subjective but nothing seems to be more subjective than comedy. What causes one person to roll on the floor laughing may elicit no more than a yawn from someone else. Yet I find it hard to imagine anyone not finding Bracken funny in this movie. Personally, this is my favourite kind of comedy: slapstick mixed with verbal wit in a farce-like presentation. In other words, screwball comedy.

Raising daughters can be a challenge.

Hutton is equally good in her role as Trudy, a young girl who is innocent on one hand yet also manipulative on the other, at least where her father and Norval are concerned.

As her father, William Demarest plays his standard cross character though here he is much more engaged in pratfalls than I’ve seen him in other movies. I can’t help thinking he had a sore rear end at the end of the making of this one.

On so many levels and in so many ways, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek leaves other comedies in the dust. I think it should be required viewing for anyone even thinking about making a comedy.

The Lady Eve (1941)

Directed by Preston Sturges

For the life of me, I have a hard time even conceiving of Henry Fonda in a comedy even though I know he has been in many (such Rings On Her Fingers, Mister Roberts and The Cheyenne Social Club).

Even if I can get a hold on the idea of Hank Fonda in a comedy … a Preston Sturges comedy? With all the physicality that entails? The dialogue, sure; but the pratfalls? Henry Fonda?

So whenever I watch The Lady Eve, I always have this little mental hurdle I have to get past.

Yet there he is in one of the gems of Hollywood cinema, an almost perfect screwball comedy. In fact, the year 1941 could be considered the Preston Sturges’ year because he didn’t just make The Lady Eve, he also made Sullivan’s Travels, not simply two good comedies but two of the best comedies ever made and classics of screwball.

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda following one of many Fonda pratfalls.

A lot of different elements come together in the unique recipe of a Sturges comedy. There is witty dialogue and there is slapstick. There is a certain social awareness (including commentary) and there is romance, to varying degrees.

In the introduction to the movie on the Criterion edition, Peter Bogdanovich gives an off-the-cuff definition of screwball and makes the interesting observation that it is farce but people aren’t interested in farce until it’s called screwball.

In other words, screwball is synonymous with farce. I think that’s true to a large extent.

Fonda plays Charles Pike, son of a beer magnate and heir to a huge fortune. He is the gullible innocent, a head-in-the-clouds scientist almost exclusively interested in snakes. He’s very similar to the Cary Grant character of Dr. David Huxley in Bringing Up Baby.

Charles being seduced and made helpless by Jane and her charms.

Returning from a scientific expedition to the jungles of South America, he boards a cruise ship where he is spotted by Jean (Barbara Stanwyck), part of team of grifters who see Charles as the perfect mark. Her father is ‘Colonel’ Harrington (Charles Coburn) who famously scolds his daughter with, “Don’t be vulgar, Jane. Let us be crooked, but never common.”

This Sturges comedy has two key parts – a first and second half. There is a con in each, both involving Jane and Charles, the second involving the tried and true comedy device of confused identities.

In the first half, Jane works a con on Charles but the two fall in love. Then Charles discovers the con and utterly rejects her. Angered, Jane works another con on him – this time, it’s not about the money. It’s about revenge.

As an audience we are never confused about identities but the other characters, especially Henry Fonda’s Charles, are. There is one exception, however.

William Demarest as a suspicious Muggsy is not at all happy with what he is seeing.

William Demarest is Charles’ long-standing and long-suffering father figure stand-in, valet and bodyguard, with the common sense everyone else in the movie is lacking. In that sense, he is us, the audience, and in true Demarest style blusters and fumes with his frustration over how dim-witted everyone else seems to be. How could it be they don’t see it?

Well, it wouldn’t be much of a comedy if they did. But Demarest’s character is a key, for me, because he expresses the same frustration I feel watching The Lady Eve. For me, Charles is just too obtuse. He’s also too prissy. And the problem with that for me is it makes the romance aspect of the film lose some credibility.

It’s just personal taste, but I really need Fonda’s Charles to have some qualities that make him a bit more likable. He is such an innocent he comes across as a complete bonehead and I can’t help thinking that once the glow of the romance wears off, Stanwyck’s Jane will wake up some morning and say to herself, “Good grief. I’m married to an idiot.”

Charles listens as his new bride rhymes off the rather lengthy list of her previous lovers.

Having said that, however, Fonda does work the comedy extremely well. For the role, he is spot on.

My favourite scene is the relatively lengthy shot where Jane talks, seducing Charles as she twirls his hair in her fingers, and Charles sits beside her on the floor with a look of a smitten simpleton who is utterly powerless.

It’s a funny and pivotal scene because we see Charles being wholly overwhelmed by her spell and, more importantly, Stanwyck’s character Jane change. It is in this scene Stanwyck deftly moves Jane from woman working a con to woman falling in love.

Stanwyck is masteful as seductive con working her magic on simple Charles and nicely manages her transitions from swindler to woman in love to woman scorned to woman in love again. In a career highlighted by many great performances, this has to be one of her best.

Despite what I’ve said, Fonda is also about as perfect as it gets in his role. I don’t know if my problems with him are his character being too clueless, my image of Fonda as dramatic actor hobbling my perceptions or if it’s something else. I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about the character had someone like a Joel McCrae been in the role. Fonda is the straight man in the movie and he plays it with dead on precision.

This is rightly considered a great comedy. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched it. As writer-director, this is Preston Sturges at the height of his abilities and one of his best — some feel it is his best.

It’s difficult to disagree.

Directed by Preston Sturges

For the life of me, I have a hard time even conceiving of Henry Fonda in a comedy even though I know he has been in many (such Rings On Her Fingers, Mister Roberts and The Cheyenne Social Club).

Even if I can get a hold on the idea of Hank Fonda in a comedy … a Preston Sturges comedy? With all the physicality that entails? The dialogue, sure; but the pratfalls? Henry Fonda?

So whenever I watch The Lady Eve, I always have this little mental hurdle I have to get past.

Yet there he is in one of the gems of Hollywood cinema, an almost perfect screwball comedy. In fact, the year 1941 could be considered the Preston Sturges’ year because he didn’t just make The Lady Eve, he also made Sullivan’s Travels, not simply two good comedies but two of the best comedies ever made and classics of screwball.

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda following one of many Fonda pratfalls.

A lot of different elements come together in the unique recipe of a Sturges comedy. There is witty dialogue and there is slapstick. There is a certain social awareness (including commentary) and there is romance, to varying degrees.

In the introduction to the movie on the Criterion edition, Peter Bogdanovich gives an off-the-cuff definition of screwball and makes the interesting observation that it is farce but people aren’t interested in farce until it’s called screwball.

In other words, screwball is synonymous with farce. I think that’s true to a large extent.

Fonda plays Charles Pike, son of a beer magnate and heir to a huge fortune. He is the gullible innocent, a head-in-the-clouds scientist almost exclusively interested in snakes. He’s very similar to the Cary Grant character of Dr. David Huxley in Bringing Up Baby.

Charles being seduced and made helpless by Jane and her charms.

Returning from a scientific expedition to the jungles of South America, he boards a cruise ship where he is spotted by Jean (Barbara Stanwyck), part of team of grifters who see Charles as the perfect mark. Her father is ‘Colonel’ Harrington (Charles Coburn) who famously scolds his daughter with, “Don’t be vulgar, Jane. Let us be crooked, but never common.”

This Sturges comedy has two key parts – a first and second half. There is a con in each, both involving Jane and Charles, the second involving the tried and true comedy device of confused identities.

In the first half, Jane works a con on Charles but the two fall in love. Then Charles discovers the con and utterly rejects her. Angered, Jane works another con on him – this time, it’s not about the money. It’s about revenge.

As an audience we are never confused about identities but the other characters, especially Henry Fonda’s Charles, are. There is one exception, however.

William Demarest as a suspicious Muggsy is not at all happy with what he is seeing.

William Demarest is Charles’ long-standing and long-suffering father figure stand-in, valet and bodyguard, with the common sense everyone else in the movie is lacking. In that sense, he is us, the audience, and in true Demarest style blusters and fumes with his frustration over how dim-witted everyone else seems to be. How could it be they don’t see it?

Well, it wouldn’t be much of a comedy if they did. But Demarest’s character is a key, for me, because he expresses the same frustration I feel watching The Lady Eve. For me, Charles is just too obtuse. He’s also too prissy. And the problem with that for me is it makes the romance aspect of the film lose some credibility.

It’s just personal taste, but I really need Fonda’s Charles to have some qualities that make him a bit more likable. He is such an innocent he comes across as a complete bonehead and I can’t help thinking that once the glow of the romance wears off, Stanwyck’s Jane will wake up some morning and say to herself, “Good grief. I’m married to an idiot.”

Charles listens as his new bride rhymes off the rather lengthy list of her previous lovers.

Having said that, however, Fonda does work the comedy extremely well. For the role, he is spot on.

My favourite scene is the relatively lengthy shot where Jane talks, seducing Charles as she twirls his hair in her fingers, and Charles sits beside her on the floor with a look of a smitten simpleton who is utterly powerless.

It’s a funny and pivotal scene because we see Charles being wholly overwhelmed by her spell and, more importantly, Stanwyck’s character Jane change. It is in this scene Stanwyck deftly moves Jane from woman working a con to woman falling in love.

Stanwyck is masteful as seductive con working her magic on simple Charles and nicely manages her transitions from swindler to woman in love to woman scorned to woman in love again. In a career highlighted by many great performances, this has to be one of her best.

Despite what I’ve said, Fonda is also about as perfect as it gets in his role. I don’t know if my problems with him are his character being too clueless, my image of Fonda as dramatic actor hobbling my perceptions or if it’s something else. I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about the character had someone like a Joel McCrae been in the role. Fonda is the straight man in the movie and he plays it with dead on precision.

This is rightly considered a great comedy. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched it. As writer-director, this is Preston Sturges at the height of his abilities and one of his best — some feel it is his best.

It’s difficult to disagree.

Directed by Preston Sturges

Those words, of course, are from Preston Sturges, writer and director of Sullivan’s Travels. This movie is, for me, the best of Sturges — though it’s really hard to say one is better than another when you consider movies like The Lady Eve, The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek and others.

If you’ve ever seen the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? you may be interested in knowing Sullivan’s Travels is where that title came from. It’s the movie Sullivan, a Hollywood director of light, comedic fluff, a man with a well-to-do, somewhat privileged background, wants to make.

It’s to be a serious movie about how tough and awful this life is with, “…Bodies piling up in the street.” It’s to be, “A true canvas of the suffering of humanity!”

As his producers point out, what would he know about it? Realizing the truth in what they say, he sets off to find out, decked out like a tramp (from the wardrobe department) and with only ten cents in his pocket.

Joel McCrae as John L. Lloyd 'Sully' Sullivan.

Unfortunately for Sullivan, despite his best efforts he keeps ending up in Hollywood.

In the third act, however, when he has finally given up his quest, that’s when he actually stumbles into the “trouble” he’s been trying to discover.

A plot summary does little to communicate why this movie is so good.

To begin with, it’s incredibly funny with the humour finding two sources: visual (slapstick) and verbal (witty dialogue).

For slapstick, see the chase scene with the kid driving the rigged up “go-cart.” For dialogue, see the scene near the beginning where Sullivan argues for his idea with the producers (“But with a little sex!”).

While very funny (and a romance to boot, with Veronica Lake), it’s a satire of movie makers, particularly of the Hollywood variety. Some even argue that Sullivan’s Travels is the best movie ever about making movies. I think, however, Sturges’ satire goes beyond movies to culture overall.

Joel McCae as Sullivan and Veronica Lake as 'The Girl' in Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.

His complaint is that comedy, and fluff generally, gets dismissed because, being light and agreeable when well done, it isn’t serious, or what we consider to be serious.

A history of comedy at the Oscars gives credence to his complaint. It’s ignored when it comes to the “serious” categories like Best Picture.

I think his argument is two-fold: 1) audiences, on the whole, prefer lighter films — comedy, action, etc., and 2) the people who make the serious ones about such topics as homelessness, have no idea, no experience, no real understanding of what they are making a movie about.

For one thing, the very people those films are sympathetic to, and that they stand morally side by side with, are the very people they show disrespect to by dismissing the kinds of films they like.

There’s a fabulous speech prior to Sullivan heading out to “learn something about trouble,” meaning homelessness. It’s made by Robert Greig as Sullivan’s butler Burroughs. He says he doesn’t think the plan is a good one because Sullivan has no clue about what poverty is: it’s not some romantic condition to be discovered but something virulent to be avoided. I think this is Sturges saying there is often a patronizing, even parasitic element to serious films and the subjects they treat. That’s probably far too extreme a view, but I think there is an element of truth in it. It makes for an interesting question though: can something not truly lived, something only experienced in a kind of vacation mode, meaning briefly, truly be understood? How often do we bring our assumptions about what something is, assumptions that come from a very different perspective, into our assessments and treatments, such as a in a film?

Of course, the movie doesn’t come across as pontificating, as the above makes it sound. It’s great fun, incredibly funny and with a beautiful Veronica Lake, romantic too. And even if the overall sentiment and the closing lines sound a bit cornball to us, I think it’s a legitimate view and never more passionately expressed as in Sullivan’s Travels.

I’ll have to watch the Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? again because I’m now wondering if they were not only agreeing with Sturges and his argument in comedy’s favour but doing so by making Sullivan’s intended movie, one about a serious subject as done by a patronizing, uninformed fool? My guess is yes.

Directed by Mark Joffe

I have to confess, I love these kinds of movies — romantic comedies, especially those that make an effort to avoid excessive sentimentality.

Of course, you can’t really avoid it; it’s the nature of the genre.

For The Matchmaker, Janeane Garofalo is perfectly cast.

There’s something essentially funny about seeing a smartass cynic meeting their match.

This is pretty traditional stuff from screwball comedies like The Lady Eve and His Girl Friday to Annie Hall and so on.

It’s a formula that works, and it’s always gratifying seeing it work, especially when some sort of spin is put on it.

Milo O'Shea as Dermot O'Brien, the matchmaker, and Janeane Garofalo as Marcy Tizard.

In this case, the spin is Ireland although anywhere that is not-America would suffice for the story.

It’s the fish-out-of-water thing.

Marcy Tizzard (Garofalo) is a senator’s assistant. The superficial senator (Jay O. Sanders) is seeking re-election and the campaign is not going well.

Being from the area of the country he represents, he hopes to grab the Irish vote by tracing his Irish roots — despite knowing nothing of Ireland and having no previous interest in it.

So Marcy is off to Ireland to find the source of the Senator’s Irish background. Her task would be far easier to manage were there something to find. What she does find, however, is a feisty romance that she has no interest in — but a certain matchmaker does.

There’s really not much else to say. If you like romantic comedies, you’ll like The Matchmaker. Anyone I have recommended it to has liked it and liked it a lot.

Several things distinguish Easy Living but the two that stand out for me are Preston Sturges and Jean Arthur. While the movie isn’t directed by Sturges (it was directed by Mitchell Leisen), he wrote the screenplay and does it ever show.

How do you know a movie is a Preston Sturges movie? Everybody falls down, or at least they seem to. There are so many pratfalls here you could easily lose count.

While a screwball comedy, there is almost always a strong slapstick element in Sturges’ movies, particularly the earlier ones.

Edward Arnold and Jean Arthur in Easy Living.

His movies are distinguished by their comedic brilliance. Much more than slapstick, they also have a high level of verbal wit which here, in Easy Living, is often from Jean Arthur as Mary Smith. Arthur delivers her lines with aplomb — something quite amazing given how insecure she was as an actress.

Like Cary Grant, her high level of insecurity is in contrast with the high degree of confidence that comes through in her on screen performances.

Arthur had more in common with Grant than insecurity, however. They also shared a desire to be free of the whims of studios and be independent — though Grant was, I think, more for financial reasons and Arthur more for personal.

In the case of Easy Living, John Oller in his biography Jean Arthur:The Actress Nobody Knew, says:

“… Ever since Mr. Deeds [Goes to Town], Arthur was finding her best roles and films on loanout from Columbia, and she was beginning to question the value of her affiliation with her home studio. She particularly resented Columbia’s ability to make money by loaning her to other studios for substantially more than her weekly salary, while she saw none of the profit. She also detested being told when, where and how often she had to work … Now that she was approaching forty, she found the experience of having to carry large segments of each film a physical and emotional drain.

“Deciding enough was enough, Arthur suddenly and unilaterally declared her independence. In March 1937, she signed with Paramount for her next film, called Easy Living …”

Jean Arthur hoping for food in Easy Living.

Arthur was feisty, independent, insecure and had fragile physical and emotional health. She was a bundle of contradictions but perhaps it’s the conflict of all those contradictions that made her so good on screen.

Easy Living was not the end of her studio struggles. She was at war with Harry Cohn — she even went so far as to plot to kill him, which she related to friends in blase style.

Cohn, for his part, was doing everything he could legally and (as court decisions would later state) sometimes not so legally to keep Jean Arthur in line.

There is yet one more thing Jean Arthur and Cary Grant had in common: timing. Arthur’s timing is dead on in Easy Living and much of what is really funny and holds an audiences’ attention resides in that.

Ray Milland and Jean Arthur sleep together in Easy Living.

There is, for example, the scene where she and an extraordinarily youthful Ray Milland go to sleep together then … one of Arthur’s eyes opens. Then, she sits up. As the short sequence plays, you see every thought cross her face as it is thought.

And yes, the movie also stars a young Ray Milland. He had been in a number of movies prior to this one, but a certain rawness still comes across. While his performance is suitable for the kind of movie this is, I found he lacked the naturalness that he would later mature into.

There is also Edward Arnold brilliantly playing the role he played so many times — the gruff, money-focused businessman. (See You Can’t Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.) He’s the one who throws the fur coat off a balcony that lands on Arthur initiating everything in the movie. (He also begins the movie taking more than a few pratfalls.)

The movie is also peppered with wonderful characters from its supporting cast, one of the load-bearing beams of great screwball comedies.

Ray Milland and Jean Arthur in Easy Living.

Easy Living is a wonderful comedy, one that for me is founded on one of Jean Arthur’s best performances and the pervasive Preston Sturges influence.

It mixes slapstick, romance and even another subtle Sturges touch, social awareness — the vacuous, self-absorbed rich and the hard-working, decent poor.

This is a Depression-era film and this contrast is common in the comedies of the 1930s. See My Man Godfrey, for example.

It’s a movie well worth seeing, and more than once. I know I will.