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5 Reasons Why English Majors Will Love Ball of Fire

05/01/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 27 Comments

This entry is part of the Romantic Comedy blogathon cohosted by Backlots and Carole and Co.

In trying to get friends to give old movies a chance, I often start with Ball of Fire, mainly because I know many English majors/graduate students, few of whom predict what delights are waiting for them in this 1941 classic. Here are just five of the reasons why everyone who waxes poetic about Shakespeare or Austen needs to spend a little time with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck:

1. The Plot: A Mobster/Moll Romantic Comedy about Language

Professor Bertram Potts (Cooper), on the hunt for colorful subjects to aid him with his encyclopedia entry on slang, enlists a sexy torch singer, Sugarpuss O’Shea (Stanwyck).

O'Shea (Stanwyck) flirting with the professors

O’Shea (Stanwyck) flirting with Potts

Sound ridiculous? It is, wonderfully so.

In the “meet cute” moment, O’Shea has just learned that her mobster boyfriend (Dana Andrews) is in trouble with the law. Fearing the knock on her dressing room door is the DA with a subpoena, she’s hostile to Potts, and when she discovers his mission to study her, dismisses him:

O’Shea: “Shove in your clutch.”

Potts: “Exactly the kind of thing I want”….

O’Shea: “OK, scrow, scram, scraw.”

Potts: “A complete conjugation!”

The opening sequence of Potts’ investigation, in which we learn the sources of such terms as “slap happy” and discover just how old the term “jerk” must be, is equally amusing to those of us who delight in wordplay, as is the nerdy professor’s ignorance of such words as “boogie.”

And that’s just the first half hour.

2. A Clever Take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Fables, folk tales, fairy tales. We English majors love to read them, interpret them, reinvent them. (Angela Carter’s dark The Bloody Chamber traumatized me in an introductory lit course.) Famed writing team Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder turn the tale on its head, making Snow White a seductress and the dwarves a team of innocent professors (six bachelors and a widower) who are writing an encyclopedia together, with Prince Potts acting as the eighth member.

O’Shea seeks shelter from the police at their house, claiming she needs to stay to help with Potts’ research. The proper Potts doesn’t understand why she needs a sleepover, but his elderly companions, used to only the “singularly uninspiring underpinnings” of their housekeeper, outweigh his objections. They have fallen for O’Shea, and their charming antics to gain her attention—wearing new outfits, making sure their pants get ironed, having her teach them the conga—make you wonder just how unfair it is that the prince is the one who wins Snow White’s affection.

Potts (Cooper) and the dwarves reacting to O’Shea

O’Shea has no plans to seduce Potts, but when things get “hotter” for her boyfriend and she’s told “to stay in the icebox like a good little salad,” she gives the impressionable Potts a kiss. And, as in the fairy tale, things escalate from there.

3. The Witty Dialogue/One Liners

What English major isn’t a sucker for good dialogue? With Wilder & Brackett as writers and Howard Hawks as the director, witty banter and frequent double entendres are a matter of course.

Early in the film, Miss Bragg, the housekeeper, badgers Professor Oddly for gobbling up the strawberry jam after writing an encyclopedia entry on strawberries. She then expresses horror at Professor Magenbruch’s studies.

“I’m just starting my article on sex, Miss Bragg,” he answers. “Any objections?”

“No,” she concedes. “I trust you have more control of yourself than Professor Oddly.”

And the one liners! Some favorites:

O’Shea: “Say, who decorated this place, the mug that shot Lincoln?”

Potts: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind; unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.”

O’Shea (describing her throat): “It’s as red as The Daily Worker and just as sore.”

Miss Bragg (speaking of O’Shea): “That is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple!”

I always wonder why so many Gilmore Girls and Aaron Sorkin fans won’t give 30s and 40s comedies a try. Ball of Fire not only employs the banter they love so well, but avoids the trap of making EVERY character eloquent (a Sorkin flaw). The contrast between O’Shea’s wisecracking and Potts’ slow earnestness is one of the delights of the film, and given that Cooper typically played a Clint Eastwood type, his professorial wordiness is particularly amusing. As the Self-Styled Siren put it, “Who besides Billy Wilder would look at Gary Cooper, the most laconic speaker in Hollywood, and think, ‘Linguistics!’”

4. Wonderful Characters (and Performances)

With eight professors, a nightclub singer, a mobster and his minions, the DA and his team, and Potts’ other research subjects, a viewer would be unreasonable to expect much character development in any but the main players. Romantic comedies rarely get beyond stereotypes anyway. But most of the characters in Ball of Fire are unique and memorable, from the prim widower with the sexless interpretation of romance, to the genial Professor Magenbruch, who can’t stop thinking about his need to research for the sex entry. Even Joe Lilac’s two minions are funny in their villainy. And at the center of the film, we have Sugarpuss O’Shea, played by Stanwyck in an Oscar-nominated performance.

Stanwyck’s job as Snow White is to charm, and she takes to it naturally. She’s laid back and confident, and as cool as her companions are geeky. (I kept thinking of an Elizabeth Bennett landing in the middle of The Big Bang Theory.) Most of all, O’Shea’s a great deal of fun, whether leading her band in a quiet version of “Boogie” at the start of the story, or teaching the professors to conga. She doesn’t want to harm any of the professors with her deception, but she is so used to looking out for herself that their brand of vulnerability is foreign to her.

O’Shea too is soon smitten, so unfamiliar with sincerity that it floors her even as her comfort with her sexuality undoes her companions. Her guilt at duping such lovable men is palpable.

O’Shea, discovering Potts’ love for her

Stanwyck lost the Oscar to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion that year. Fontaine’s was a strong performance, but I think Stanwyck’s dazzling turn should have guaranteed her win. Though some of the credit for her fully rounded performance definitely goes to the writers, Stanwyck is so believable in the midst of this crazy plot that she grounds the film. A once reluctant watcher of black and white flicks, I became a classic movie enthusiast and lifelong Stanwyck fan after watching this movie. I suspect I’m not the only one.

5. The Grammarian Winning the Girl?

English majors—especially males—don’t get a lot of cred in the romantic lead department, especially when up against mobsters like Joe Lilac.

Dana Andrews playing the suave Joe Lilac

Suave Lilac (Dana Andrews), Potts’ rival

At least women can get the “sexy librarian” rep. Occasionally, poets can win some attention in film (and I know such gifts helped my friends on Valentine’s Day). But grammarians? Teachers of the comma splice? Among an unglamorous profession, grammar professors are the nadir when it comes to sexy reps, right down there with nuclear physicists.

Potts, trying to box based on a book’s lessons

“You see, this is the first time anybody moved in on my brain,” says O’Shea after entering Potts’ home, and you know when she later glows at the possibility of becoming “Mrs. Lilac” just how unlikely the brain is to triumph.

But slowly, Potts makes inroads. O’Shea even reads a grammar book in her spare time, and there’s a whole discussion about the repetitiveness of her phrase “on account of because” in the midst of a romantic interlude. Only Wilder and Brackett could not only make this scene romantic, but convincing. Due to the caliber of their writing and Stanwyck’s performance, we trust that this cynical nightclub singer really does get so flushed in company with “corny” Potts that she needs to take the movie’s equivalent of a cold shower (a towel to the neck).

And this triumph, my English major friends, is a rare treat to witness. Good luck finding a modern film so generous in its treatment of grammarians. When you find one, be sure to let me know. In the meantime, I’ll take another serving of Ball of Fire.

Check out the other romantic comedy entries in the blogathon!

The Sadistic Spouse: Charles Boyer in Gaslight

04/23/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 22 Comments

This post is part of the Great Villain Blogathon cohosted by Speakeasy, Shadows and Satin, and Silver Screenings. Check out other entries on one of their sites!

When it comes to villains, Gregory Anton in Gaslight lacks the theatricality of The Joker or Lecter. He wants the presence of Harry Lime or the narcissism of Ellen Harland. He doesn’t chill the viewer as do Maleficent and Mrs. Danvers. On the surface, therefore, Gregory might not seem a villain worthy of comment. As played by Charles Boyer, the role is so two-dimensional as to approach camp. You can almost hear Boyer saying to himself, “Time for the faux-loving face—wait, too long on that one, stern face time.”

Boyer’s stern face

Yes, Gregory seems as commonplace a villain as his name would suggest. But in terms of his effect on his victim, Gregory is a master among villains. Having convinced his new wife, Paula (Ingrid Bergman), to move back to the house where her aunt was murdered, he creates a series of sounds and sights he pretends not to notice. He expresses concern at Paula’s supposedly imaginary observations; he chides her for forgetfulness when items disappear (due to his own actions). She believes him because she loves him. The term “gaslighting,” which originated with this story, refers to Gregory’s sinister brand of psychological abuse: trying to convince his wife she’s going insane. While the motives of his actions are not immediately apparent, he clearly feels no remorse for his cruelty.

Gregory, celebrating his victory over his wife

So often, we side with the criminal in a plot like this one: with a wife this gullible, it’s easy to go for the laugh rather than the shiver. It would be common too to dismiss Paula as stupid, to fail to sympathize due to her blindness and fragility. But the nineteenth-century timeline of the story counters our usual impulses, making us uneasy and fearful from the start. (Just what were those stories about men committing their wives to asylums on questionable grounds again?) And Paula is not just any victim: She is a victim played by Ingrid Bergman.

Bergman beautifully illustrates the extent of her heroine’s downfall at Gregory’s hands. She is incandescent as a woman in love before his plot takes off.

Paula in love

Her fears about her sanity, which first dim, and then blot out any semblance of happiness or reason, are terrifying to watch. Just when she thinks she can trust in his love for her and have faith in herself again, Gregory cuts off her giddiness with a chilling expression, claims she’s unwell, forgetful, unworthy, childish. Her jealousy of a cruel maid (Angela Lansbury) he flirts with in her own home is nothing, he suggests, but a sign of her sickness.

Using the maid to torture his wife

Think of Betty Draper in the first season of Mad Men, then quadruple the vulnerability, make Don evil rather than sick, take away his love, and remove any right Betty has to defend herself against his duplicity, and you have poor Paula in Gaslight.

Season 1 Betty Draper a powerhouse compared to Paula

Paula’s weakness is her love for her husband; without it to prey upon, Gregory would have no chance of winning this psychological battle against her. And it’s just this level of cruelty she can’t accept. Of course she finds her own forgetfulness more believable. Not content with the damage he’s done, Gregory shuts her away from others, guaranteeing she spends most of her time obsessing over whether she’s mad–hardly a healthy pastime. How long, we wonder, CAN Paula stay sane, trapped in a loveless marriage, a frightening house, and fears she can no longer control? While there’s hope in the form of a suspicious detective (Joseph Cotten), even if Paula escapes, can anyone recover from this kind of treatment?

Despite a largely passive performance, Bergman is stunning to watch in Gaslight. I can think of no actress but Meryl Streep who could accomplish so much with just expressions, who could deliver enough pain and fear to carry the film and beat out Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, and Greer Garson for the Oscar.

Paula as her situation worsens

Just a few years after Gaslight, Bergman would fall for Roberto Rossellini and become involved in an affair with him so scandalous Congress and many of her American fans would condemn her. But she would make a Hollywood comeback less than a decade later, and her union with the famous director would result in a daughter, Isabella, who, in a curious twist, would make a splash of her own as a victim in another famous film, Blue Velvet. Who could forget torch singer Dorothy Vallens, the target of creepy villain Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper)?

Like mother, like daughter

Be sure to check out the other villains in the blogathon!

Nazis and Humor: The Shock of Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be (1942)

04/17/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 2 Comments

Wrap your head around this fact: Two decades before Quentin Tarantino was born, Ernst Lubitsch directed a comedy about Nazis. Unlike Tarantino, whose own Nazi film was typically bloodthirsty, Lubitsch was best known for light fare, especially sophisticated sex farces so insightful and lacking in prudery that they remain startlingly modern and funny still today. Not surprisingly, Wes Anderson recently cited To Be or Not to Be, Lubitsch’s anti-Nazi comedy, as influential. Lubitsch and Anderson share a joy in puncturing human vanity and hypocrisy, a gift for efficiency in their visual symbolism, and an appreciation for moments of pathos within otherwise humorous films. They also are in love with silliness, and this film is full of it.

To Be or Not to Be is almost as frantic in pace as Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, so I’ll just explain the basics: An acting troupe in Warsaw pretends to be Nazis to undermine a plot against the Resistance. The troupe is led by Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), a man arrogant about his acting but insecure about his wife Maria’s (Carole Lombard’s) fidelity—and rightly so: She invites an aviator (a very young Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries fame) to her dressing room every time her husband begins the famous speech in Hamlet that gives the movie its name. (Joseph’s not initially aware of her flirtation, though he becomes obsessed with the flier’s rudeness in leaving during his soliloquy.)

Who knew Robert Stack could be funny?

Like Joseph, the Nazis in the film are obsessed with the reactions of others to their words. When they joke about their leader’s vegetarianism or reputation, they fear their peers’ reprisals, and quickly state “Heil Hitler” to appear patriotic. The implication throughout the film is that the Nazis are much like the actors imitating them: full of insecurity and quick to express pronouncements they utter rather than feel.

The movie begins with an actor from the troupe who is playing Hitler in a play that’s about to fold. He’s anxious to prove his plausibility in the role due to a blistering attack by his director. “I don’t know. It’s not convincing,” the director says, looking at the clothes and makeup meant to imitate the Führer. “To me, he’s just a man with a little mustache.”

“But so is Hitler,” the actor responds defensively.

An actor (Tom Dugan) saying “Heil myself” as Hitler in a doomed production.

As in most of Lubitsch’s films, the marital sexual farce is highly entertaining. In a typical moment, Maria’s assistant quips, “What a husband doesn’t know won’t hurt his wife.” But this farce goes beyond the main couple. The Nazis are not only fooled by these actors’ poor performances as Gestapo, but are also easily convinced that the beautiful Maria will be captivated by their power. They repeat “Heil Hitler” not only as a defense or conversation filler, but as a pickup line. Clearly, Lubitsch feels these Nazis are using their lethal reputation as a substitute for manhood. “And before the evening is over,” a Nazi spy says suggestively to Maria, “I’m sure you’ll say ‘Heil, Hitler.’” (I gasped when I heard this—Did I just hear a racy use of Hitler?) Sure enough, after he kisses her, Maria replies, “Heil Hitler” in a loaded, sexy tone in imitation of the man she’s duping.

Maria (Lombard) feigning attraction to a Nazi spy.

Maria’s faux seduction mimics her earlier comforting of her needy spouse, though this time it’s for a worthier cause. But just as with Joseph, Maria’s cooing words mean little. She proves that it’s a man of action, not the Nazis or her narcissistic husband, who will likely win her bed in the end. When the RAF flier (Stack) gushes about the thrill of meeting an actress, Maria breathily replies, “Lieutenant, this is the first time I’ve ever met a man who could drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes.”

As for the Nazis, the actors do occasionally falter against them, mainly due to their inability to get over their egos. But there’s something gallant about these blundering Warsaw patriots, and one in particular, just as with M. Gustave of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This troupe of actors is goofy and flawed and outrageously vain. But as Lubitsch implies in the film, what act isn’t noble, against such enemies as these?

The Gatsbys of Wes Anderson Films: Climbing above Archie Leach

04/10/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com Leave a Comment

M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes); the impeccable, refined, and deeply sketchy hero of The Grand Budapest Hotel; is the kind of character who made me fall for Wes Anderson films: men with a flair for self-creation so extreme that I can’t help rooting for them because my own imagination, by comparison, seems embryonic.

In my favorite of Anderson’s films, Bottle Rocket, the hero is Dignan (Owen Wilson), whose first steps in a 50-year plan of becoming a criminal mastermind involve stealing from friends’ houses for practice, moving on to a bookstore heist wearing nose tape, and then promptly going on the lam. No unimportant detail escapes Dignan’s dedication to this persona: note the binoculars he uses when springing his friend Anthony (Luke Wilson) from a voluntary stay at a mental health facility.

“Look how excited he is,” says Anthony when his doctor protests the sheets hanging from the window. “I gotta do it this way…I have to climb out. It’s so important to him.” Dignan’s enthusiasm is so contagious that Anthony continues to go along with his buddy’s increasingly ill-conceived plans just because he can’t bear to deflate him. And when you hear Dignan’s prattle and see that grin, you can’t blame him. (Admittedly, I think Owen Wilson, who co-wrote the film, largely responsible for the success of this character; his considerable charm made even the overrated Midnight in Paris palatable.)

And, of course, there’s Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) in Rushmore, who puts more energy into his school activities than the rest of the student body combined. As Anthony Lane put it, “To say [Max] attends Rushmore is like saying the Holy Father hangs out at the Vatican: Rushmore could exist without Max, but there would be no point to the place.”

In the newest Anderson installment, M. Gustave’s considers the care of his establishment, guests, and the new bell boy of paramount importance. He is the platonic version of a hotel concierge, a fussy perfectionist so accommodating he knows guests’ wishes in advance, and he’ll go to absurd (and disturbing) lengths to satisfy them. But unlike with most of Anderson’s heroes, M. Gustave’s refined veneer slips regularly in The Grand Budapest Hotel. In difficult situations, coarse language breaks through the stylized version of himself he’s created, and these curious, funny instances cause viewers to wonder just who this guy is.

That’s probably why the film reminded me of Cary Grant’s classic comment about the style and sophistication that became synonymous with his name: “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.” Because of course, he wasn’t. Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, Cary Grant was poor, largely abandoned by his family, and making a living as a juggler/acrobat by his early teens. Not exactly the pedigree we all might expect given his dashing presence on the screen.

I think what I love so much about Anderson’s heroes—his Gustaves, Maxes, and Dignans—is also what I admire most about Grant: not only do these heroes envision an impossibly large, glorious version of themselves, but they also manage, despite the many obstacles Anderson—and life—stacks up against them, to pull it off.

How to Crash a Party, Claudette Colbert Style

04/03/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

Want to crash a party, but not sure how? Mimic Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) in Midnight.

Enter with Attitude
You don’t have an invite? So what. A pawn ticket will do. Who looks at a piece of paper when a woman is sufficiently glamorous?

Draw Attention to Yourself
You might think you’d be safer slipping into the background, but who will question your presence if you’re as much fun as this guy?

And who will kick you out if, Jennifer Lawrence-style, you make not one, but two ungraceful attempts to find seating, ensuring that other guests will not be the sole klutzes and/or drunken fools of the evening?

Relax
You’re in the door, so let the nerves go. After all, what’s to fear? Being caught could be amusing. Settle into some cushions, smile, kick off those high-heeled shoes.

Be a Generous Guest
Make sure you’re the kind of guest the host/hostess wants back. Buy gifts for the couples whose receptions you crash, like a guy from my high school did. Lead the chicken dance, cut the cake, make balloon animals. (In other words, channel Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers.) Join the bridge game when a mysterious man asks you, especially if he has a good line, as he does when meeting Eve: “You look charming, you look bored, you look as though you wouldn’t trump your partner’s ace.”

Play it right, and you could end the night like this:

Beating the March Madness Blues with Knute

03/26/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

Little Mercer defeating the Big Bad Duke. That stunning Laettner shot you prayed wouldn’t go in. Davidson paying for busloads of its students to attend the Elite Eight. If you were born near corn and have since transplanted to either coast, I don’t care how thin your grasp of the finer rules (a pick and roll?) or how few Big 10 games you’ve managed to catch on your TV. Come March, homesickness arrives in the form of a basketball hitting a gym floor. So you fill out two brackets (one with viable predictions, another with your 13-seed team triumphing), frantically text childhood friends, and download a NCAA app, hoping to recapture some of the thrill that is watching the Madness in the Midwest.

In my case, the outsized crankiness ushered in with Selection Sunday, as I rambled to all in ear range about the cruelties of New England living: hockey on the big screens and game commentary drowned out by 80s tunes in sports bars, radio stations blaring Spring Training garbage. Why hadn’t I flown to watch the games in Chicago again, as my two sisters and friend once had? So I decided in breaks between shouting over Cinderella beauties alone in my living room (with an occasional pity join-in by my uninterested spouse), I would console myself with a sports film. Since I already have viewed my favorites (Hoosiers & Hoop Dreams) many times, and classic basketball flicks are scarce, I chose the movie starring our former president and the much-loved other Midwestern sport, Knute Rockne-All American (1940).

Pat O’Brien and Ronald Reagan in Knute Rockne-All American

It’s hard to believe now that Notre Dame was ever an underdog, but if you’ve been to South Bend, you understand: a sleepy town you wouldn’t know was there but for the golden dome, breathtaking church, and lovely campus buildings. Of course, once Rockne (Pat O’Brien) started making a name for himself and the school, he was lured by the big-name programs, but like many loyal coaches who followed him (I’m looking at you, Shaka Smart), he stayed put.

Of course, the whole beginning of the bio-flick, I was waiting for George Gipp (Ronald Reagan), the stunning athlete who would set off Rockne’s career in his four seasons of play (1916-1920). Though I expected it, I was startled to see the ex-president so young, handsome, and fit.

Gipper was an intriguing person, hardworking in games, but nonchalant about practice, and more committed to baseball than football. Particularly surprising was his habit of shying from the limelight: He was known for dodging reporters. The film doesn’t explore another interesting trait: he liked to gamble, fooling out-of-towners who suspected he was just a naïve hick. And then he quietly would give much of the money to those in need.

Reagan delivering Gipp’s famous speech

His famous sickbed speech was thankfully muted in the film, without crass Hollywood dramatization, and Reagan delivered the lines well: “Rock, some day when the team is up against it, when breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they’ve got, win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.”

The rest of the movie is, as you would guess by its title, about Rockne rather than his illustrious player: the coach’s dedication to his team, the success of his program, and the sacrifices he made for his athletes. Rockne was renowned not only for popularizing the forward pass, but for his commitment to teamwork over individual talent. Sound familiar, NCAA basketball fans? In a funny scene, Rockne watches chorus girls and takes notes on their performance that will become the famous shift he teaches first his wife, and then his Four Horsemen (the gifted group who led the Fighting Irish to 28 wins and only 2 losses). How like a coach to appreciate the coordination of dancers. We always think of basketball in balletic terms too: seamless passes, graceful turns and fakes, fluid jumps to the rim.

The Four Horsemen mid-shift

What I enjoyed most about Knute Rockne-All American was the man himself, especially his unusual, clipped patterns of speech and motion, which Pat O’Brien captures perfectly without ever slipping into parody. (See footage of the real man here.) Rockne’s intelligence is established early on, when a famous chemist in his department tries to turn him into one. But it’s his enthusiasm for his boys that gets you, even when his wife has to go without vacation for 17 years as a result (probably true since his widow was involved with the film and unlikely to forget such a betrayal). When Rockne disappoints his team with a bad decision, the devastation of this loyal coach is painful to watch.

The most celebrated moment in the film is when Rockne repeats Gipp’s words to his players in the locker room during a losing game. The scene is surprisingly understated, even for its time: No close-ups to show tears in the eyes of athletes. No uplifting music except for the muffled marching band in the background. No shouting. It feels less like a moment to rile up the team than the coach’s need to honor a promise. Affected as I was by the speech, I couldn’t refrain my dismay at the ways that modest athlete’s name has been abused since. Reagan—or his PR machine—used the line for political gain repeated times; our most camera-happy chief of state is now referred to as “The Gipper.”

Rockne (O’Brien) delivering Gipp’s words

Late in the film, college football is accused of the usual: passing failing students, subsidizing players, subverting the intentions of an education, etc., so Rockne goes to New York to defend his team and football as a whole to a committee of educators investigating the charges. How disturbingly prescient the claims were. But Rockne’s defense is powerful, as when he’s asked whether he changes his athletes’ grades:

“Any player who flunks in his class is no good to his coach, nor to the school he attends. And any coach who goes around trying to fix it for his athletes to become eligible scholastically when mentally they’re not is just a plain everyday fool.”

Shortly afterward, a professor on the committee expresses his skepticism about sports: “Where do these elaborate spectacles of sport fit into the scheme of education?” he says. “How would you grade an average athlete’s contribution to the national intelligence?”

Rockne has spent his life answering this question, and does so now with spirit:
“…To limit a college education to books, classrooms, and laboratories is to give to education too narrow a meaning for modern times….We’ve tried to build courage and initiative and tolerance and persistence, without which the most educated brain of man is not worth very much….Now I don’t know, I don’t know how you grade a boy for learning these things, professor…But wouldn’t it be a good idea not to grade anybody’s contribution to the national intelligence, until all the results are in, maybe five or ten years after graduation, when his record and character are not hung on the wall like a diploma, but inside the man himself?”

Rockne (O’Brien) defending football

I nearly cheered. I wonder if everyone could listen to Rockne’s words with as little cynicism as I did. But year after year, college athletes are among my hardest-working students, and former high school players write that their teams made them less selfish, more mature, stronger leaders, better people. And maybe that explains my bafflement that the New Englanders around me fail to embrace March Madness as I do, maybe thinking of it as only another gambling opportunity, another set of games, just brackets whole or broken. Perhaps they are too disgusted by the power and dollar signs we now associate with the NCAA to watch its most famous tournament, or think because appearances by most of their own teams are rare that it isn’t worth their time.

But I found in Knute Rockne-All American a perfect supplement to my March Madness optimism, which, despite my blues at being away from home, returned with the first upset. There are so few reliable forms of inspiration in our lives, and even fewer that we can experience collectively. But for a short span of weeks, even just a night, we can witness heart and teamwork triumphing over power and ability; we can experience a little school we’ve never heard of and players we’ve never seen get on that floor and ignore the hoopla and the lights and what big money has wrought—and just play. We watch these games expecting to be inspired. And like Rockne’s once-underdog team, with every play, with every goal, whether they win or lose, they deliver.

Like Liz Lemon’s Sugarbaker Meltdown? See Bette Davis in All about Eve

03/20/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com Leave a Comment

I always love a comedic meltdown, and 30 Rock‘s Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is brilliant at them. In one of my favorite episodes, The C Word (Season 1, Episode 14), Lemon tries to earn a reputation as a nice boss by spoiling her staff. Of course, her subordinates quickly exploit her kindness, resulting in an all-nighter to finish their work and one of my favorite breakdowns of all time: Lemon forces her employees to watch a Designing Women episode she taped at 5:30 a.m., hoping to channel Julia Sugarbaker’s (Dixie Carter’s) strong-willed feminism, but succeeding only in destroying the tape and breaking into hysterics.

Like in a later episode’s meltdown (Season 1, Episode 17), when Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) says Lemon has “gone chicken killer” on him, Fey plays the moment perfectly. I am a Designing Women fan as well, but if Lemon really wanted to see histrionics for the ages, she should have put All about Eve into her VCR instead.

In the film, theater star Margo Channing (Davis) has been generous to her one-time fan, now employee, Eve (Anne Baxter), whom she finds destitute at the start of the story. But slowly, Margo begins to question Eve’s loyalty. Once she suspects Eve of flirting with her boyfriend, Bill (Gary Merrill), Margo begins insulting everyone, essentially sabotaging her own party for him, and it’s hilarious to watch. Early in the night, her friend (the gifted Thelma Ritter) asks, “And there’s a message from the bartender. Does Miss Channing know that she ordered domestic gin by mistake?”

“The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests,” answers Margo.

And the party’s just the beginning.

If you want to see rage done right, you can’t do better than Bette Davis, and with a script this perfect, there’s no holding her back. As Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), the drama critic, says about Margo’s increasingly bad behavior as the party progresses, but could just as easily have characterized Davis’s entire performance in the film, “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent!”

Sherlock Holmes Meets Paris Hilton: The Mad Miss Manton (1938)

03/16/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 12 Comments

This post is part of Movies Silently’s Sleuthathon. Check out other entries on her site!

Imagine pitching this story idea: a Paris Hilton type with a pack of tiny dogs solves a crime New York cops can’t. It sounds like a Beyond Balderdash card, doesn’t it? That couldn’t possibly be a real movie plot. Luckily for us, it is. The Mad Miss Manton stars Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, but as you might guess, it’s not of the same caliber as their later pairing. The mystery is ridiculous, the plot convoluted, and the character development all over the place. But who cares? Just let the film be what it wants to be: crazy fun.

The Mad Miss Manton

Melsa Manton is a society girl known for “pranks” she claims are in the name of charity. She and her bevy of like-minded friends are suspected of constant mischief, and when Manton finds a body that disappears before help arrives, the police and newspaper editor Peter Ames (Henry Fonda) cry foul. Manton sets out to solve the crime to redeem the reputation of her crew, and along the way, Ames falls in love with her. As you might expect, this loopy story leads to some sticky problems for the filmmakers, but never fear: Philip Epstein is the primary writer, so some of those problems end up being hysterical to watch, including….

The Heroine with the Vanishing Trait—and Pets
Barbara Stanwyck is my favorite actress. She can portray a character who is terrified (Sorry, Wrong Number), sinister (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers), funny (Ball of Fire), or heartbroken (Stella Dallas). But there’s one thing this tough Brooklyn-born actress could not do, and that’s act like a flake. The problem is, without that trait, the beginning of the film is incomprehensible, even in screwball land. You simply can’t buy this woman with a bunch of precious dogs, prancing around the city on pranks or building mansions for her pooches, as Paris Hilton did.

To make the “madness” of Manton plausible, you would need an actress who could play naïve, who could be as trusting as Carole Lombard’s character in My Man Godfrey or Goldie Hawn’s in Seems Like Old Times. Only an actress like that could have pulled off a heroine who is not lacking in intelligence, but is lacking in cynicism. At first, therefore, I thought Stanwyck miscast.

Clearly, I underestimated the audacity of Epstein and his uncredited cowriters as they developed Wilson Collison’s story. Fewer than 10 minutes into the film, Epstein conveniently erases the airhead tendencies that he created in the opening scenes. Now, it seems, Manton is simply misunderstood (forget the film’s title). From the moment she’s on the case, Stanwyck is in familiar territory, fast-acting and thinking, with the assurance she’ll bring to her reporters in Meet John Doe and Christmas in Connecticut. To illustrate this change in Manton’s character, the screenwriters eliminate all of her dogs. Poof! No Fifis in her apartment. No Fidos tracking her along her crime-solving path.

The dogs in one of their last appearances

I think I fell for this movie when they vanished. It reminded me of the kind of bravado later soap opera writers would emulate in developing their narratives, with conveniently erased back stories and children growing up at Chia Pet speed.

A Bewildering Plot
The Mad Miss Manton is only 80 minutes long, yet I could have sworn it ended twice before it actually did. I felt a little like I used to reading Agatha Christie novels, when she conveniently left out information I needed to solve the crime myself. Who are all these suspects? Why do some of them appear on the screen for a few minutes, then reappear twenty minutes later, without my understanding anything new about them? There are multiple crime scenes, attempts on Manton’s life, ranting scenes by the police lieutenant, a hospital visit, an effort to lure in the killer, and much clue following. And, of course, multiple clips of the suspects that are meant to be illuminating/mysterious. But every time the chaos begins to overwhelm viewers, Manton’s friends rush in and save the film, which brings me to….

An Amazing Crew
I love the “Park Avenue pranksters,” the group of women whose help Manton enlists to solve the crime. My favorite is Pat (Whitney Bourne), who keeps stopping to snack at the crime scenes, à la Shawn Spencer.

Who can beat a troop of friends, armed with flashlights and ermine, creeping through the window of a house the cops have inconveniently locked?

“I found a blood stain,” says one woman, perching on the floor.

“Oh, how can it be blood? It’s blue,” replies Manton.

“Maybe they shot Mrs. Astor,” retorts her friend.

Manton and her “pranksters”

Most of these accomplices are clever, and all are fun and fabulous company. They seem to live an endless string of parties and sleepovers. Unlike Blair Waldorf’s Gossip Girl minions, however, these women are sweet-natured without sacrificing their blistering wit, as when they mock their ringleader for starting to like Ames:

“You know psychiatrists say hate’s just a step away from love,” says one.

“Yeah, but it’s the lull in between that drives you crazy,” replies another.

The film suffers every time the crew leaves the screen.

Distracting Minor Characters
I did not feel the same delight in encountering Manton’s maid, Hilda (Hattie McDaniel). While her sassy replies to her employer are sometimes amusing, it’s difficult to view McDaniel in a maid costume without picturing Mammy from Gone with the Wind, the part she’d win an Oscar for a year later. While this is not the type of servile performance the actress would later be asked to defend, the role is not as progressive (and therefore her part less funny) than we might have hoped.

Hilda (Hattie McDaniel)

The police lieutenant (Sam Levene) sometimes distracts from the story as well. Like one of the suspects (Penny Singleton), Levene is stolen straight from After the Thin Man (which tells you how seriously the director, Leigh Jason, and his writers take the crime itself).

Unfortunately, Levene can’t turn off the beleaguered, badgering tone he used in the earlier film. While his attitude toward Manton initially adds to the humor, his grumbling soon becomes tiresome. Nick Charles could be just as withholding with clues as Manton, but never was treated with such disrespect. Wouldn’t the lieutenant’s opinion of her alter when he discovered her sleuthing skills, even with their class and gender differences?

The lieutenant (Levene) dismissing Manton

Henry Fonda in Screwball Mode
The only actor who surprised me in this film was Henry Fonda. I’ll admit that I’ve never been a fan; I’d usually rather see someone else in his place: John Garfield in The Grapes of Wrath, Joel McCrea in The Lady Eve. But Fonda is exuberant in The Mad Miss Manton, so at home with the one liners and silly antics that I kept checking the credits to make sure it was the same man. (Interestingly, Fonda himself disliked the part.) He’s surprisingly confident and attractive as Peter Ames, the editor in love with Manton, and it’s hilarious to watch him trying to romance her, while admitting that he’s enough of a pragmatist to appreciate that she’s rolling in it.

Ames (Fonda) and Manton (Stanwyck)

The relationship begins in hostility. He’s written an editorial dismissing Manton’s supposedly nonexistent body discovery as one of her group’s “escapades.” She slaps him with her hand and a libel suit on their first meeting. Of course, they start to fall in love from there.

The two take turns outwitting one another in His Girl Friday style (though at a less frantic pace). After Manton agrees to pretend they’re engaged to dupe a suspect, Ames comes to her apartment with champagne to celebrate. “Well, if I want to marry a fortune hunter,” she answers, “I can go to Europe and marry a professional one.”

“I’m determined to make you happy if I have to drag your name through the breach-of-promise courts to do it,” he answers.

It’s startling how suggestive the film is. The two are in her bedroom as she smokes in her nightgown and he gets flustered. She ties him up regularly, and once she even takes off his pants. The love/hate battle between them is exhilarating, and while much of the credit goes to Stanwyck, for once she has an equal sparring partner in Fonda.

As you can tell from my review, this is a far from perfect film. But I would encourage you to embrace it just the same: the disappearing dogs, the ever-changing heroine, the unlikely romance, the bizarre crew, even the occasional joke about communism. It’s a bit “mad,” but it’s a lot of fun.

The Death of the Marital Rom-Com: Where Have All the Toppers Gone?

03/10/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 6 Comments

When is the last time you watched a rom-com about a married couple? Aside from the occasional indie and rare mainstream flick, Hollywood seems to have retired this subject matter, despite the success of TV shows such as Mad about You, Everybody Loves Raymond, and The King of Queens.

Yet I came up with this list of famous 30s and 40s rom-coms about married couples in just two minutes:

Married: Topper, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, My Favorite Wife, and I Was a Male War Bride
Separated/Divorced: The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and His Girl Friday.

Those familiar with these titles might notice that these are just some of the marital rom-coms starring Cary Grant. In comparison, I came up with three mainstream marital rom-coms in the past three decades altogether—with help.

Even if married couples in 2014 are more likely to attend animated flicks with their kids, as my husband theorized, that doesn’t explain what Hollywood is producing for those without kids. And I’m not buying that we’re all boring enough to only like films about ourselves. We don’t all cook meth in our basements or fight to the death in dystopian universes. We don’t watch The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones because they remind us of barbeques with our buddies. I discovered most of my favorite marital rom-coms when single. Is it possible that Hollywood thinks singles’ imaginations fertile enough to envision shooting webs out of their wrists or being born in Middle Earth, but not to conceive of being married?

Whatever the reasoning for the endangerment of the marital rom-com, the result is unfortunate: there’s a sameness to romantic comedies now that simply didn’t exist in the 30s or 40s. While there are only so many ways we can meet and fall in love, there is an infinite variety of methods for teasing, imitating, and torturing those we know well.

One of Cary Grant’s best marital rom-coms is The Awful Truth (1937), a film my friend Tonya introduced me to many years ago that I’ve been recommending ever since. Grant’s and costar Irene Dunne’s impeccable timing and believable performances make this one of the funniest screwball comedies I’ve ever seen.

Dunne and Grant dazzling in The Awful Truth

In the film, Jerry (Grant) and Lucy (Dunne) suspect one another of infidelity. Lucy decides to trust Jerry, anticipating Elvis’s famous song about suspicion in explaining her reasoning. Jerry, however, can’t trust her, and the two divorce. But since they’re both still in love, they can’t help sabotaging one another’s new relationships.

I have so many favorite moments from this film. One is when Jerry plays a song for his dog (during his custodial pet visit) to annoy Lucy as she’s meeting her new fiancé’s mom. In another Jerry pays the orchestra conductor to re-play a song just to watch his wife trip as her fiancé tries to lead her in a rambunctious dance.

Jerry appreciating the dance moves of Lucy’s fiancé

And there’s the scene when Lucy, aware of Jerry’s pride, shows up at his fiancée’s house pretending to be his wasted sister.

Lucy humiliating Jerry

She begins the visit by demanding a drink and ends by performing a Marilyn Monroe-over-grate move for Jerry’s soon-to-be in-laws (years before that famous siren’s).

But perhaps the scene I enjoy most is when Jerry gushes about how much his hard-partying wife will appreciate Oklahoma, where her fiancé lives:

“Lucy, you lucky girl,” Jerry says. “No more running around the night spots. No more prowling around in New York shops. I shall think of you every time a new show opens and say to myself, she’s well out of it….”

“I know I’ll enjoy Oklahoma City,” Lucy replies stiffly.

“But of course,” he answers, “and if it should get dull, you can always go over to Tulsa for the weekend.”

Contrast these scenes with those in 1997 rom-com My Best Friend’s Wedding, technically a film of the single-gal variety, but adopting some situations from the marital rom-com. Yes, Rupert Everett is glorious in it, and Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts are effective rivals.

Diaz confronting Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding

But the message is appalling: you’ll lose the guy if you’re dedicated to your profession and unwilling to ditch your education/career for his. No matter, therefore, how funny some of Roberts’ antics seem, I can’t laugh at the antiquated, offensive cliché of the desperate single woman, as the film asks me to do. But I do laugh at the partners in The Awful Truth, both so anxious to get each other back that they’re willing to forgo pride to do so. Due to his unreasonable suspicions, Jerry looks like more of a buffoon than Lucy, but neither comes out of the experience unscathed. (Of course, since Lucy trusts Jerry, we don’t know whether he just likes his space, or has cheated and the filmmakers have given him a pass for sexist reasons.)

The Awful Truth is just one of many delightful 30s marital rom-coms. There are so many more. Until current Hollywood producers come to their senses and resuscitate the subgenre, you’ll be stuck with the half-attempts at marital rom-coms like My Best Friend’s Wedding, in which the humor is only at the woman’s expense. (Forget viewing films about long-term relationships between unmarried couples–an even rarer subgenre.) So give some classic marital comedies a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Incidentally, next Sunday and Monday (March 16 and 17^th), I’ll be participating in a classic detective blogathon hosted by Movies Silently. Please check out my entry in this Sleuthathon at my blog next week. I’ll be reviewing The Mad Miss Manton (1938), featuring Barbara Stanwyck as a Sherlock Holmes-Paris Hilton hybrid. And be sure to view the entries of my much more knowledgeable blogging peers!

Three Hypocritical Oscar Moments

03/05/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com Leave a Comment

1. Ellen Insulting Her Wife’s Arrested Development Costar
I don’t know about you, but if my wife had been flayed in the press for her plastic surgery, I would avoid digs like the one Ellen gave Liza Minnelli at Sunday’s Oscars.

Kimmel’s Spoof Oscars Night: Perhaps Pre-Spat?

While Portia de Rossi didn’t seem offended, it’s hard to believe a woman who has written a book about the suffering she endured to look perfect would approve. I would have expected this kind of behavior from Seth MacFarlane, not from the usually affable Ellen. Talk about marital insensitivity.

2. Oscar Commentators Praising “Not Looking Old” and “Growing Old Gracefully” Simultaneously
The online attacks on Vertigo (1958) star and Oscar presenter Kim Novak for her looks were appalling, especially since this is a woman who left Hollywood at the peak of her fame and lived privately for decades because she couldn’t take the objectification she experienced as a bombshell in Tinseltown. She’s been lured back into the limelight in her eighties, and look how she’s treated. Because for what would we judge a woman who starred in the film now ranked best of all time but her looks?

Vertigo

Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote that 1976 Oscar viewers were outraged about seeing silent film star Mary Pickford (who had “grown old gracefully”) on their screens because they wanted to remember her cute and pretty, like this:

Mary Pickford (right)

Royko didn’t understand why people preferred “facial skin stretched out like a drumhead.” “They cheer the illusion of Zsa Zsa,” he wrote, “but they flinch at the reality of Mary Pickford.” In 2014 an elderly woman can’t get away with natural aging or plastic surgery unless her surgeon is some kind of Houdini. Novak had the right idea originally—just get out.

3. Bestowing Honor by Awarding on the DL
Do you feel honored for a lifetime of achievement if the Academy deems the moment you’re given the statue not exciting enough for the big night? I was reminded of host Chris Rock’s reaction in 2005 when the technical awards were given in the aisle and sometimes en masse instead of individually onstage: “Next they’re gonna give the Oscars in the parking lot. It’ll be like a drive-through Oscar lane. You get an Oscar and a McFlurry and keep on moving.”

I found the choice to separate the honorary and competitive awards especially disturbing given that the former are so often given to those the Academy considers unworthy of notice for years and belatedly realizes they unjustifiably snubbed; such as one of this year’s honorees, Steve Martin, and Cary Grant (yes, the only classic film star many people can name).

Steve Martin, honored at separate event

Unsurprisingly, honorary Oscars are frequently awarded to those who mainly appear in/write/direct comedies, so I thought Jim Carrey’s jokes and Bill Murray’s shout-out to Harold Ramis were timely reminders that comedians receive no credit unless they appear in dramas—and usually not then—until the Academy’s honoree-may-be-near-death-oops awards, honors that now aren’t even bestowed on the night itself. Classy.

What bothered you most about this year’s Oscars?