The Philadelphia Story (1940)

"Oh Dexter, I'll be yar now... I promise I'll be yar." And with statement, the independent, smart, and funny Tracy Lord (played by Katherine Hepburn) gives in to her ex-husband (Cary Grant) and admits that women should be sweet and manageable and that she has been wrong to be so strong in the past. Warning: Although I do love some things about this movie, I'm not feeling very generous toward it at the moment. I forgot between viewings just how many painfully obnoxious moments there are.

The movie begins with Tracy preparing for her marriage to a second husband. The first marriage, we learn, ended because of Dex's (Grant's) drinking problem. A paper wants to do a story on the wedding (Tracy is high society), but Tracy is too private to allow photos. The paper's head honcho happens to have a story on Tracy's dad, who happens to be having an affair. He blackmails Dex into bringing a reporter and a photographer into Tracy's family home, promising to sit on the story on Mr. Lord as long as there's a story on the wedding. James Stewart plays the wonderfully sarcastic reporter who falls for Tracy. Much hilarity ensues, involving swimming, champagne, crooning, and huge hangovers.
My problem with the plot, is that we are later shown that Dex's drinking wasn't really the worst of things in Dex and Tracy's marriage. The worst of things was that Tracy was a "distant goddess," unable to accept frailty in others or to offer womanly warmth and support. First Dex tells Tracy this. Then James Stewart makes some statements confirming it...only he doesn't mind. He's new enough to like putting her up on a pedestal as a "queen." Then... final straw... Tracy's somewhat-estranged father returns from his affair with a young dancer in NYC and essentially blames Tracy for the fact that he had an affair.

And here it is, the most annoying part of the movie:

Mr. Lord: What most wives fail to realize is that their husband's philandering has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Tracy: Oh? Then what has it to do with?

Mr. Lord: A reluctance to grow old, I think. I suppose the best mainstay a man can have as he gets along in years is a daughter - the right kind of daughter.

And then he goes on to explain. You see, Mr. Lord just needed a way to hold on to some of his youth, but instead of being blessed with a sweet young daughter to help him, he ended up with a harsh, shall we say "shrew," of a daughter who had a "prejudice against weakness." Seems she didn't like putting up with a constantly drunk husband or a dad who was off very publicly cheating on her mom.

Another way of looking at this movie is that it is in the "divorced, but will they find their way back together?" category of films. Cary Grant seems to be in a bunch of these. I believe the lesson in this film is that if you let yourself be tamed, yes, you can have a second chance. Despite my rants, I'm still giving this three stars, because the acting was fantastic, and I'm willing to put some blame on the time period in which it was made. And Dex does at least tell Tracy, "Be whatever you like, you're my redhead," and he has given up his drinking when he returns. Anyways, I know I'll see this and rant and laugh many more times.

P.S. - Something enjoyable that does not come with a rant:

With 12 movies on this blog already tagged with "odd precocious little girl," I can't believe one of them was not this movie. Virginia Weidler, as usual, plays the perfect "odd precocious little girl," from her early comment about the papers being "full of innundo" to her dramatic interpretation of a spoiled little rich girl, when she and Tracy try to mess with the reporters sent to do the story on Tracy's wedding.

And of course there's her comment about the fancy dress she wears to the wedding...

Mrs. Lord: I think that dress hikes up a little behind.

Dinah: No... I do.

I am a huge fan of Virginia Weidler.

Libeled Lady (1936)

Jean Harlow is my new favorite actress. She is the original blonde bombshell. I suppose that Marilyn Munroe did have more vulnerability, but I like Harlow for being the tough broad that she is, always a step ahead of the man, ready to head him off at the pass.

In real life she and William Powell were lovers and went to the Academy Awards together along with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard who was Powell's ex. It all sounds very free and 30s Hollywood.
I love Powell and Myrna Loy, so it's fun to find out who he personally was drawn to and see him play opposite her and Myrna in the same movie. In this movie he's the charming ex-newspaper man who is hired to seduce the heiress who is suing a newspaper for a false story.


In order to make his affair with ML a scandal, he has to be married to JH. It's quite entertaining, and I still don't know how it ends, which is good, but I'm really getting aggravated with Powell.


...

Okay, I finished watching - it was one of those comedies that keep you aggravated till the last second when of course it all works out. I know some people find those the best, but I felt aggravated on behalf of Spencer Tracy's character and Jean Harlow's character even AFTER they were all living happily ever after.

Well worth watching, some very fun, funny moments, but can't give it more than two stars and I WON'T watch it again.

It's also interesting to note that William Powell plays the same calm, wry, somewhat smug character out-witting everyone to his own advantage in these movies that he does in the Thin Man, but it's so much less sympathetic when he's outwitting people who you actually can care about like ST and JH's characters here.

The Marrying Kind (1952)

Q: What's not to love about Judy Holliday?
A: Nothing!
She's the best part of this picture, I'd say, and she gets to play a lighthearted but not lightheaded blonde. She's not too ambitious for herself, but she believes in things like her husband's crazy invention and radio contests and bright possibilities for her future.

Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray portray a couple who are divorcing. The story of their marriage told in flashbacks is comic and dramatic in turns and probably plays better with a married audience.
The voice over cleverly does not always match the story as the audience can see it so we're lead to understand how both husband and wife are distorting their side of the story as they are telling it to the judge.
It's reminiscent of the Crowd if anyone has seen that silent film - the young couple living the American dream in the city, trying to make ends meet, having a family, eventually encountering hardship.

Through it all there are glimmers of the couple being something a little bit better than they think they can be - enough to make you believe the judge's conclusion that they will not get a divorce after all.
Of course, she's right, they make up and stay together. It IS a romantic comedy after all.
Not a first date movie, though. One to rent to watch with your spouse during a difficult year.

Bedtime Story (1941)

Frederic March plays the leading man in this and I think the movie was hurt just a little by that - he's funny - so funny that I didn't really recognize him from The Best Years of Our Lives (that and no mustache) - and he's not particularly handsome or charming, even when he's supposed to be trying to be.



(This is the only picture I could find that MIGHT be from the movie - it's the female lead, but it's probably NOT from the movie...some movies are not popular enough to make fan sites, I guess)

In this movie a husband and wife get divorced and then end up together again in the end, a favorite theme for movies in this era.

I'm giving this movie one star, despite it being so promising. It had several things that really annoyed me.

1) the husband unilaterally changes plans on the woman and expects her to just go along with him, when she doesn't, he still doesn't come around. So it's basically a movie about how he forces her to compromise on what she wants. In the end he convinces her it's what she really wants, too, but it's pretty aggravating.

2) The wife is always catching on to the husband's tricks, but she never gets to play any tricks of her own.

3) you know what he's up to, so you're always waiting for the character you sympathize to get duped. I hate that.

Two stars, I guess, just because it has its comic moments.

Forsaking All Others (1934)

I have a confession to make: I mostly watch classic movies because I am so often disappointed by the lack of new movies that suit my taste. I seem to like a kind of movie that's no longer being made: witty, clever, fashionable, romantic, funny and with a good, believable happy ending. I faithfully trudge to the video store to pick up the latest releases (I'm too cheap to see them in the theater) and I'm constantly disappointed by the "Along Came Polly" and the "Failure to Launch" of this world. I find some small comfort in a movie like "Two Weeks' Notice" or "50 First Dates" which have a passable combination of humor and romance. But where is the wit? The costumes? The happy ending that doesn't seem glued on but results from the intrinsic natures of the characters themselves? I basically live for Jane Austen novels to be made and re-made as movies...and therefore I must go backward, into the archives, for my "new" movies.



That's why, when I discover a movie like "Forsaking All Others" I feel a sense of triumph equal to an archaeologist stumbling on a Mayan temple - I didn't create it - I didn't exactly "discover" it - I mean, it was there all along - but I have unearthed it again - brought it to light - and now I can share it. These are the moments I live for!

In Forsaking all others you have a classic, perfect love triangle. Mary, Jeff and Dill grew up together and for as long as they can remember, Mary has loved Dill and Jeff has loved Mary - only of course Mary doesn't know that Jeff loves her - and Dill seems to love Mary. Of course, Jeff has gone off to Spain to make his fortune so he can propose to Mary (he doesn't seem to be born to the purple like Mary and Dill seem to have been) - and he comes home, unfortunately for him, on Mary and Dill's wedding night.

Poor Jeffy - they all have nicknames - he takes the news of his beloved's impending marriage well and stands by while all kinds of OTHER hijinks mess it up. He patiently rescues Mary from one scrape after another, cheers her up, puts her back together, chides her - you begin to see how he got the nickname "Uncle Jeff" or why people are constantly referring to him as "like her big brother".

But an interesting thing happens - Jeff continually reveals himself to be competent and resourceful, while Dill just seems more and more childish. Eventually I was yelling at the screen "he's an IDIOT" - and then Kim agreed "yeah, you're right, she IS an idiot." I didn't quibble. You just can't see by the end how Mary ever missed the fact that Jeff has all the same cute punchy playfulness that she loves in Dill but without the helplessness and foolishness.

Okay, I can find no photos to represent this to you, but I MUST say a word about the costumes: there are no words to describe the costumes. I was on the phone with my friend Renea when I got home and I started playing the movie on mute while we were talking. "Oh I wish you could see this outfit," I said, "it's like she's wearing a wedding veil around her neck upside down..." and then I gave up...there just are no words for the wackiness that fashion would tolerate in the 1930s. It was like - hey, prohibition is over and the stock market crashed so we have no actual runway fashion - let's see if we can pull THIS off!

I found a photo, though it hardly does it justice:

It's wild and woolly and in some cases gorgeous - this this is this one weird dress that has all kinds of ropey loops on it that Joan Crawford wears under a sparkly Elvira-like wrap while carrying a similarly ropey evening bag - it's so strange but it's totally flattering - I couldn't take my eyes off it - I sort of missed the importance of the scene she played in it, really, until later.

Apart from the fashion, the entire script is just full of exchanges that boggle the mind, like this one:

(a word of explanation - Paula is some kind of slightly older friend who acts as a sort of mother to Mary - I wonder whether she is a step-mother and the father has passed away, but it's not clear)

Mary: All I know about Spain is that they have bull fights and eat red pepper. What else is there to know?
Jeff: Well that's about all.
[Paula rushes in]
Paula: What have you done with him? Let me look at him! That's what happens the minute you get out of my sight, eating all that native food! Did you wear your rubbers? I understand it rains for months at a time in Spain. And all those poisonous insects.
Jeff: Why darling, I lived in Madrid - it's like Paris.
Paula: Really? I understand it's quite savage. Jungles and things.
Mary: Paula's never read Ernest Hemingway.
Jeff: Evidently not.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mary: Say where IS dinner?
Paula: You'll make it yourself tonight, the only nail I've got left on either hand is on my right thumb and I need that to start with when I get back to town.
Mary: Isn't she difficult? You know, cooks get like that when you're too familiar with them.
Jeff: Yes, well, I have something to confess.
Mary: What?
Jeff: I, um, I'm a very fine cook.
Paula: What?
Mary: Wonderful!
Jeff: All I need's a frying pan, a piece of string and some tinfoil.
Shemp: I'd like to be excused from dinner, I don't feel very well tonight.
Mary: Imagine knowing a man who can cook!
Shemp: You should see some of his hem-stitching!

It doesn't all make a whole lot of sense, but it's awesome.

Also, I am really beginning to be sold on Clark Gable, who I never liked. He's so suave, and he just exudes a kind of easiness that's totally charming - plus he does great things with his eyes whenever Joan Crawford is in the room. You really feel he's pining for her, even though all he's doing is joking and chiding her.

This really is almost a humorous, short version of Gone with the Wind, only Mary does the right thing in the end, unlike Scarlett.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Four stars for sure - this is one of those movies that is well made and really moving and has a complexity that really makes you reflect on serious themes - and yet at the same time, you don't stop just enjoying wondering what's going to happen next.



Okay, so this is three hours long and it took us two nights to finish because we started it kind of late on Memorial Day (TCM was running a bunch of war/veteran-themed movies in honor of Memorial Day, while we were mostly drinking margaritas -I had the day off - my network always airs a COPS marathon in honor of three-day-weekends and all the drunk driving that goes on I guess). On Tuesday while I was at work, I found myself looking forward to going home to watch the second half, so that's always a good sign.

I remember in college studying about this movie and how it showed the true impact of the war, through the eyes of three returning veterans, whereas the wartime movies were all upbeat and positive. It's clear of course that this movie aims to tell the harsh truth about the effects of war, but it's still got a lot of all those things movie-goers love: two and a half love stories, a fist-fight, a cooch dancer, a dash of humor, and Myrna Loy.



I adore Myrna Loy because of the Thin Man movies so of course that's how this movie came to be on my Tivo Monday night. And she does a great job playing the mother and wife who can handle it all with a smile. In fact so does her daughter. You could probably subtitle this movie "hey guys, women are tough, too".

The story follows three men: Al, Fred and Butch, all returning from the war to the same fictional home town, Boone City - at least, I assume it's fictional...where's my research department when I need them? Al is middle-aged and I guess was an officer in the army, hard to be sure they don't talk much about the war in the movie. Fred was a pilot, a bomber, and Butch was in the Navy and lost both his hands.


Left to right: Butch, Al's daughter Peggy, Fred, Al's wife Milly, Al.

Butch is like the sweetest character ever, Fred is troubled by nightmares about the war, and Al is returning to a wife and two almost-grown children, and a job at the bank. Al's just having a hard time remembering how to be a civilian. Fred doesn't have a job, but he does have a ditzy wife who he married in a hurry before he shipped off to war, and she seems to have been working as a cooch dancer while he was away. Butch has the most trouble re-adjusting, although he seems at first completely relaxed about his hooks-instead-of-hands - making jokes and showing off tricks he has taught himself - this belies a deep uneasiness.


Cooch Dancer? Couldn't find a picture of her in character, but the part is played by Christina Applegate-ish Virginia Mayo.

The movie is full of fun things to look at - the side characters are excellent - from Butch's uncle who owns the bar in town to the drug-store assistant manager who bosses Fred around, to Fred's poor down-on-their-luck parents. Myrna Loy herself is really just a side character, but she is so great she steals every scene she is in - God, if anyone could really be a wife and mother like that - taking everything in stride and with a sense of humor and kindness - well - there would a lot of out-of-work therapists for one thing.



I also have to say I really loved watching Butch - who in real life lost his hands - grapple with things - no pun intended, really - it was Freudian, I guess. He won two Oscars for the role, according to Robert Osbourne, and in my opinion they were well deserved. Normally I would say two Oscars for one role is excessive...but what other leading role are you going to play as a guy with no hands? Right. Therefore, totally fair.

Great movie, awesome ending - thankfully a Hollywood ending despite the serious themes (I don't think you have to have a sad ending to make a point). Will definitely watch again. Would make a great double-header next Memorial Day with "Till They Sail" - ooh - that's an idea so good I might just have to host a party!

Houseboat (1958)

This is kind of like "Parent Trap" meets "Swiss Family Robinson" or something...


Cary Grant plays a successful businessman - or is he a diplomat? I forget - oh he's a lawyer - whose estranged wife is killed suddenly before they are officially divorced. The wife's parents and sister expect to take his three children and keep them on the family farm, but the CG impulsively decides he will take them to live with him.

However, he hasn't been a hands-on parent in a long time and he quickly loses track of his impish son. Cue Sophia Loren, the bored daughter of a famous conductor who is being wined and dined in Washington while her father conducts the symphony. She sneaks out to go slumming a la Audrey H. in Roman Holiday, really.

Along the way, she picks up the runaway boy with a kind word and then can't shake him. Finally she takes him home, but they've both become so disheveled that his father assumes she is a maid. Treats her quite rudely. Soon he has a change of heart and decides to hire her as a nanny.

All this leaves us with...no house boat. The house boat is the result of a very silly side plot but the whole story unfolds pretty amusingly. There is even a boy chasing Sophia and the sister of the dead wife chasing Cary to add to the fun.

The odd, precocious young children and the absurdity of a stunning, accomplished young woman (Sophia Loren!) chasing after an older man with three kids are outweighed by the sheer silly charm of the scenes.

Also, there are a few songs. The catchiest song became my anthem this spring when I watched the movie - it's about living life with a Bim Bom Bam and it's as nonsensical and pleasant as the whole darn film.

Three Stars, will watch again.

Side note: Cary Grant had been married to Betsy Drake for nine years at the time of the filming (I put Deborah Kerr the first time I posted this but I was tragically WRONG thanks Barbara for figuring it out!). But he had a terrible crush on Sophia Loren and insisted that she be cast in this movie (did they invent the traveling composer father to explain why she was foreign?). Unfortunately for him, Sophia was already involved with Carlo Ponti, the Italian filmmaker, to whom she became engaged during the course of filming. Apparently this made for a rather tense time on the set once it was announced. OMG just found out that Betsy Drake wrote the original script which was then re-written to accommodate Sophia AWK-ward.

When Ladies Meet (1941)

Whoah.



Great premise! Will definitely watch again, four stars.
I got this on Tivo when, after seeing The Women and then No More Ladies, I created a Joan Crawford wish list. This movie begs the question - are all Joan Crawford movies about infidelity and do they all have either the word "women" or "ladies" in the title? Can all problems be solved by inviting the key players to a weekend in the country? So far, the answer is yes!

An idealistic young novelist falls for her publisher, a married man. While writing a book about it, she theorizes what she would say to his wife if they met. Of course, in her book the two women speak to each other respectfully and with calm understanding of each other's position. Both her former boyfriend and the publisher try to tell her that in real life it would never be like that and try to convince her that her book has to be changed to make it more real (i.e. to make the women more selfish and more black and white - one evil and one good).

This movie also reminded me that when I was 19, I found myself canoodling with a guy one night and then the next day being introduced to his girlfriend. I was very proud of myself when I managed to get her alone and tell her the situation. She walked right back into the cafe (which he owned), slapped him in the face, and walked out again. She got in my car, and I drove her home - one of the single most gratifying evenings of my life. (But then again, I _am_ a lesbian, so I guess I'm _bound_ to pick loyalty to a girl over loyalty to some guy I didn't even like.) Anyhow, I was also young and idealistic enough to believe that there was good and there was evil and it was easy to tell the difference. Later, when I met my wife and she was in a relationship, I played the same tune that Crawford plays in this movie "if it's really the love of my life, it's all right" - and the truth is, it's not all right, it's terrible, but sometimes it happens. Very, very rarely do women stick together in this situation, but Joan Crawford and I can be forgiven for dreaming that it might be possible, I think.

But, I digress - back to the plot: in desperation, (desperation to win her back, not desperation to fix the book) the ex-boyfriend befriends the wife and brings about a meeting between her and the novelist in real life. We get to watch the scenario play out, and it's great!

At first, the two women don't know their relationship to each other, and they get along well. You find yourself cursing the evil ex-boyfriend. Then they begin to talk about the book and each woman makes her case for her own perspective...respectfully and with understanding of the other woman's position. You find yourself half rooting for them to be grown-ups and half wanting the other shoe to drop so that they can have their cat-fight.

Of course the truth comes out and then things get heated pretty quickly, but it's really interesting to see a movie that allows characters to have a certain degree of honesty about themselves...and yet each one has a blind spot. By meeting, they are able to point out each other's blind spots and there is a resolution, even if it's not a happy ending, per se.

On Tivo's LiveGuide this movie was billed as a romantic comedy, but the comedy is lightly sprinkled over the movie rather than really a part of it. However, there were some great comic moments, mostly derived from the interactions of the oblivious hostess with her weekend guests. I leave you with the words of the dotty hostess, Bridgie Drake:
"If a woman must make a fool of herself, the least a man can do is to let her be one in her own way."

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Four stars, will definitely watch again.

A shipwrecked woman returns to her family after seven years on a desert island and finds that she has been declared dead and her husband has just married another woman.

There is no sympathy for the other woman, she is an absolute pill but after a half hour of Cary Grant not being able to figure out how to tell his second wife that his first wife is still alive you do kind of want to just pick him up and shake him.



But he just looks so darn cute in his leopard-print bathrobe.

Anyhow, eventually Grant figures out that his wife wasn't alone on the island, he tries to figure out what happened on the island, she tries to hide it, and hilarity ensues!

It's akin to Bringing Up Baby in the combination of physical comedy and comedy of errors.

No More Ladies (1935)

There is another movie like the Women!!



More Joan Crawford!
More Witty lines!
Another wise older relative! (Grandmother instead of mother).
And now with - large shaggy dog! (instead of the oddly precocious child, I suppose).

This seems to have been the prequel to the Women - in it one woman is determined to keep her playboy husband at home. At least in this version of the story the other woman is not an inhuman bitch and the man takes most of the blame for his own behavior.

Also, you have to love the grandmother - clearly she was the inspiration behind several Carol Burnett characters. It makes me very sad that I could not find a picture of her to share with you.

What is it with the 30s and divorce movies? I guess the 30s were pretty hard times for the family values crowd. These movies put the controversy at the center of the story, but the main characters end up not divorcing.

But then again, what movie has a happy divorce? It just doesn't make a good movie. Nope, the prerequisite of a romantic comedy is that it must end in marriage.

Philadelphia Story, The Awful Truth, The Women, His Girl Friday - all of these almost-divorce movies end with happy marriages - and three end with a recently divorced couple getting back together again and, presumably getting re-married to each other.

Joan Crawford's wardrobe could have won a best supporting actor award - except for the one that looks like the dog's post-surgery collar got stuck to her head by accident. They had some pretty out-there ideas in the thirties.

Cousin Edgar and Granny Fanny alone are worth the price of admission. Someday I will go back and transcribe some of the better lines for you.

Four Stars. Will definitely watch again - probably as a double-feature with the women.

Until They Sail (1957)

Four Stars - and I don't usually like dramas.


Four sisters: Anne, Barbara, Delia and Evelyn (pronounced Eve-lyn) - are left alone in the world with their parents dead and their brother and Barbara's husband gone off to war. Each one copes differently: pragmatic Barbara puts up a map to track the soldiers' movements, prim Anne makes a pot of tea, little Evelyn day-dreams about her young boyfriend going off to war like the men, but flirtatious Delia matter-of-factly marries the town slob and then, desperately bored, runs off to meet more men as soon as her husband is finally drafted. She might as well be called Scarlett Delia O'Hara - I'm sure she is the descendant of the New Zealand Branch of that same family.

Anne considers Delia's actions indecent, but Barbara is less judgmental, even going so far as to visit a bar with Delia and her soldier beau. The beau insists on introducing the prim and proper sister Barbara to his mopey recently-divorced Major played by a young and very pretty Paul Newman. You can see how the guy became an institution, he has the same lips that Michelangelo carved onto David.


These newly arrived soldiers that Delia befriends are Americans and they are ruder and raunchier than the nice young men who went off to war. Anne's so incensed with them that she writes a letter to the paper. In answer to her letter a very well-bred American officer stops by to apologize. Decent Anne becomes a little more human under his influence, but then he, too has to leave.

The youngest daughter, played by Sandra Dee, is of course innocently fascinated with the Americans - just as she is genuinely touched by all the losses the sisters experience.

First their brother, Kit, then Barbara's husband, Mark are killed. The worthless slob that Delia married just ends up a prisoner of war, but that doesn't stop Delia from taking up with the American soldiers.

Barbara seems to hold up the best to all of this loss, but she is lonely. Ultimately, the whole movie is about what people will do to combat lonliness - but it's remarkably un-sad. There are sad moments, of course - it would make a good movie to cry to if you were feeling lonely and sorry for yourself - but it's plenty entertaining and really what pulls you through is knowing that Barbara, who seems to be the most reasonable, is the most desperately lonely, from the beginning. She is the lonliest the longest and in the end, she and the Mopey Major make for an interesting, and ultimately satisfying ending.


The Mopey Major Makes His Move

I love a sad movie with a Happy Ending :)
Will watch again, maybe right now!

The Women (1939)

Four Stars. Will watch again forever!



Norma Shearer plays a wealthy New York woman who learns that her husband is cheating on her from a gossipy manicurist. Her gossip-loving friend Syliva is played by Rosalind Russell who also stars in "His Girl Friday".

There are so many things to love about this movie. Starting with the opening credits where each character is introduced as an animal first, and then converted to a woman:
Norma Shearer as the Doe ~ Mrs. Stephen Haines (Mary)
Joan Crawford as the Leopard ~ Crystal Allen
Rosalind Russell as the Cat ~ Mrs. Howard Fowler (Sylvia)
Mary Boland as the Monkey ~ The Countess DeLave (Flora)
Paulette Goddard as the Fox ~ Miriam Aarons
Joan Fontaine as the Lamb ~ Mrs. John Day (Peggy)
Lucile Watson as the Owl ~ Mrs. Morehead
Phyllis Povah as the Cow ~ Mrs. Phelps Potter (Edith)
Virginia Weidler as the Fawn ~ Little Mary
Marjorie Main as the Horse ~ Lucy

Virginia Weidler is Dinah in the Philadelphia Story making her the strange precocious young girl in two of my favorite movies.

The movie is also deliciously self-conscious. "I know plenty I wouldn't breathe about my friends' husbands," says one woman, "oh, so do I!" responds another - they both stop talking for a moment and the thought is so clear it doesn't need to be said - what might my friends know about me? A minute later the subject of the juicy gossip, Mary, leaves the room singing "please don't talk about me when I'm gone..." fat chance, Mary.

The funny thing about the movie is it celebrates the epitome of cattiness without letting it triumph in the end...although sexism and classism come out on top. The rich and virtuous triumph over the poor and slutty and the men are proven to be the victims and the women the instigators of all the evils of divorce and adultery. The [Evils of] Women could be the unofficial title of this film.

One of the central morals of the story is that the woman whose husband is cheating on her should stick loyally by his side and say nothing. A man is a man and adultery is just what comes with the territory. She should wait for him to come to his senses (it's okay to wait in Bermuda, for example) - but she most certainly shouldn't let her girlfriends talk her into divorcing him.

"Don't confide in your friends. They'll see to it in the name of friendship that you lose your husband and your home."

So instead the woman in question decides to fight the "other woman" (OW) - not the cheating man. This is in direct contradiction to what Oprah tells us to do! Eventually she caves to the advice of the crowd and finds herself divorced and - naturally - miserable. What's a woman without her man?

There are echoes of The Awful Truth, here - you can leave your spouse, but you will eventually regret it!

Not surprisingly, in the movie we learn conclusively that the man in question is hapless and a little helpless and was lured into the arms of a cunning and conniving woman a "terrible man trap". It's hard not to get enraged while at the same time being amused watching Joan Crawford curl an imaginary man on the telephone around her little finger.

Of course, in real life, ninety-nine times out of a hundred "the other woman" is the hapless-helpless one and the man is cunning and conniving. Or the OW is hapless and desperate and the man is helpless and lying. Or all three parties are hapless, desperate and miserable. Watch Jerry Springer if you need a case in point.

However you slice it, I wouldn't say this movie contains a lesson to be absorbed too deeply. What it can teach you is how to converse with queens. Try these lines for instant success at gay tupperware parties:
About red nails: "Jungle red - looks as if you've been tearing at somebody's throat."
About bread: "Go ahead, dear no starch it's gluten."
About hand towels: "Cheap chinese embroidery - I bet Peggy gave these to her."
About the man trap: "She's got those eyes that run up and down a man like a searchlight."
About adulterous husbands: "Say nothing, and don't forget that's my handkerchief."
About children: "I'm all the baby he wants, toots!"

You'll want to keep your remote handy for this one - and if you don't have Tivo, rent it - there is no possible way a human being could catch all the catty one-liners without rewind or instant replay. And if you love catty one-liners as much as we women do, you will love this movie.

Two for the Road (1967)

Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney star in this kooky romance. It's not exactly a comedy although I think it's supposed to be sort of funny. It's just undercut by all the sad moments.


Here they are happy (movie is actually color).

The premise is that you are seeing scenes from a series of road trips taken throughout the romance of a couple. The first road trip when they are falling in love, then one when they are newlywed, one when they are with obnoxious friends, one when they are successful but unhappy, one with a small child, and then one when they are on the verge of divorce.

It keeps cutting back and forth and reminds me of an avant-garde Broadway play.

If I could make a whole movie out of just their first two or three trips (the one where they fall in love and the one they take as newlyweds and maybe the one with the obnoxious friends) I think I would like it a lot better. The audience for romantic comedy and the audience for divorce comedy just aren't the same.

Will not watch again, deleted it already without watching.
Two stars.

The Awful Truth (1937)

Cary Grant wishlist again! I've seen this one so I only watched half of it and then Jess and I fast-forwarded through the end to remind ourselves how it ended. She remembered the weird cuckoo-clock and the door that factors into the happy reunion of the couple.



Basically, this is one of those movies where a married couple starts the movie off with a hasty divorce and we wait for them to get reunited (and remarried) at the end.

Cary Grant also does this in The Philadelphia Story, doesn't he? He's often divorced. In House Boat, too, he's about to get a divorce when his wife dies.

Anyhow, they are supposedly sharing custody of the dog, who is played by Asta again! In the movie his name is Mr. Smith.

I have to say, though, I love Irene Dunne's outfits, even her cooky hats are kind of entertaining more than annoying, but I HATE her hair.

I feel too sorry for the characters (especially Ralph Bellamy's Oklahoma Oilman) to give it more than three stars, but it's a great romantic comedy.

Will definitely watch again, sometime.
Three stars.