The Wedding Present (1936)

So, Richard Wallace creates a film in which Cary Grant and Joan Bennett are witty newspaper reporters in love who just can't seem to end up together. Then four years later Howard Hawks makes a film in which Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are two witty, divorced-from-each-other newspaper reporters who just can't seem to end up back together. Hmmm. Very popular theme of the time?

In this one, Charlie (Cary Grant) and Rusty (Joan Bennett) work on the paper together and are "almost married." After a botched attempt to get a marriage license, Rusty declares that it was silly of them to try, and they should just stay in their happy "almost married" state. Not even a night spent carousing with a silly archduke, about whom they want to write a story, can convince Rusty that really they should just break down and try to get married again. Not even when the archduke tells them, "Oh, but [marriage] is a divine madness."

So on they go with their lives as flirting reporters until Rusty is granted a month's vacation. While she is in New York trying to make Charlie jealous, Charlie gets a surprise promotion to editor. Rusty returns to find him no longer his old fun-loving self. She thinks up a giant prank to help him get his sense of humor back, but ends up getting herself fired.

Rusty meets a new man on her way to New York to find a new job and soon finds herself engaged. What will Charlie do? Why, travel to New York to give her the best wedding present ever (involving fire trucks, ambulances, police sirens...).

No, the wedding movies are not my new theme (did you notice I watched Night of the Living Dead?), but maybe I can gleam some tips from all of these wedding-related movies... In any case, I would see this again (and probably will since David got me a box set that contains it). Probably just two stars from me, though: Fun and silly, but also dopey and silly if I'm thinking seriously about it, and it's definitely not as brilliant as its witty newspaper movie rival.

Father of the Bride (1950)

Poor Stanley (Spencer Tracy) has to deal not only with the fact that his daughter is getting married...and he doesn't even know the financial stability or sense of the groom... but also with the fact that the wedding is going to be a humongous, expensive affair.

The conflicts the characters had were just so silly. The wedding was almost called off when the groom had an idea that the bride didn't like for a honeymoon destination. Also, if the family couldn't afford it and the bride, Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), really wanted a small wedding as she claimed, why did the family pay movers to have all of the furniture removed from their home so that they could host almost 500 people at the reception? And why was Kay wearing this dress?

Weddings don't always have to make people crazy, right?
Two stars. I'm not sorry I watched it, but I probably won't watch it again.

Big Brown Eyes (1936)

My *current favorite* - four stars!
Will definitely watch again!

This may be the only romantic comedy I've ever seen in which a baby is shot. Yes, the baby is shot by the villain's henchman, and yes, the happy couple spends the rest of the movie tracking him down and bringing him to justice. But still, you have to imagine how today's studio executive would have treated this script. I imagine the meeting in his office the day after he reads the script.
"In act two, a baby is shot?"
"It drives the plot!"
"A baby! Gets shot!"
"But it gives the story a moral depth..."
"Moral Schmoral, why can't we kill a bum - or a really fat guy? Nobody minds seeing an ugly person get shot!"
"But you see then it wouldn't be something the reporter could sensationalize!"
"You can sensationalize a bum!"
"How do you sensationalize a bum? A bum's not sentimental!"
"You're the writer, that's your job! You can make a bum sentimental if I tell you to!"

But I digress. This is my new favorite movie so I must tell you why! Cary Grant impersonates a woman flirting with himself (he's an amateur ventriloquist). Manicurists wear uniforms with little bows on them. The dialogue is faster than a machine gun. The women are smart and sassy and the men are big lugs who do their bidding without being aware of how easily they are played.

Can you see how all this adds up to a movie in which a baby being shot seems kind of irrelevant?

Benny: And me as honest as the day is long.
Eve: Yeah, but how 'bout the nights?
Benny: The nights too! I'm the soul of honesty.
Eve: You sure you don't mean 'the heel?'