Carole Lombard

Made for Each Other (1939)

Made for Each Other (1939)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, November 2019) I’ll watch James Stewart in just about everything he’s done, and the first few minutes of Made for Each Other certainly give us a good example of what was Stewart’s first memorable screen person—that of a romantic lead, eager and competent and sweet and likable at once. As he comes back from a trip to Boston with a new bride, his issues multiply at home and at work. His mom doesn’t like his new wife, his boss doesn’t like that he married someone other than his daughter and with a new baby and a Depression-era pay cut soon following, the romance, initially so charming, ends up turning sour. But if you thought there were two movies here, rest assured that there’s yet another one as the third act: a highly melodramatic conclusion which their baby can only be saved through a daredevil flight to deliver crucial medicine. Everything turns out to be OK, but the final result feels like three different movies crashing into each other: a quirky sweet romance that turns into domestic drama that turns into faintly ludicrous melodrama. Stewart remains good throughout—and having Carole Lombard as the female lead doesn’t hurt either. But Made for Each Other ends up feeling lesser than its parts, not quite managing the tonal shifts that the narrative’s swerves require. It’s still worth a look for the actors and the period atmosphere, but it’s not what it could have been. At least we have another movie showcasing Stewart as a dashing young man.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, April 2019) There are plenty of good reasons to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but one of the best has to be able to drop “You know, Alfred Hitchcock once did a screwball comedy” in conversation knowing fully well what you’re talking about. Bonus points given for the incredulousness of convincing people that the 1941 Mr. & Mrs. Smith has nothing to do with the 2005 spy-versus-spy action comedy even though you would think that Hitchcock would have been a good fit for that kind of material. No, this version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is about a happily arguing couple that goes through a crisis of un-marriage, romantically bickering in fine screwball comedy fashion until they make up at the end. It feels very similar to other “comedies of remarriage” of the time (allowing the thrill of quasi-adultery without actually having adultery in the eyes of the Production Code) although that comes with a caveat for twenty-first century viewers: Even if the banter is equally distributed between female and male protagonists, the film clearly plays on very 1940s assumptions about gender roles and contrivances. Today’s viewers almost have to be trained to get over some of the material in order to enjoy the rest of it. If you can get past that hurdle, it’s quite a bit of fun: Carole Lombard is quite good here in one of her last films before her untimely death, while Robert Montgomery is a good foil throughout it all. The likable look at upper-class New Yorkers in their apartment, offices and privileged romantic squabbles is very much in-line with the rest of the screwball comedy genre. It’s not always convincing, though (even if you accept its contrivances), and the conclusion is a bit abrupt, but it’s not as if the reconciliation wasn’t already a forgone thing. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is goofy fun, though, and that’s more than you’d expect from Hitchcock.

Twentieth Century (1934)

Twentieth Century (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2019) I like our modern era and wouldn’t go back to an era of information scarcity, racial segregation, and polio for anything in the world, but there are a few characteristics of the 1930s that I would like to see revived, and long-distance train journeys throughout North America are certainly one of them. Fortunately, there are movies such as Twentieth Century to illustrate what we’re missing. In this Howard Hawks comedy, the mayhem gets going as an actress boards a train going from Chicago to New York City, and encounters her ex-impresario. He, after a string of flops, is eager to get her to sign up for his next play … but there are complications: many, many complications played aboard the train as it makes its overnight trip, with zany characters to colour the proceedings. Handled through Hawks’ trademark speed and rapid-fire dialogue, Twentieth Century is a pure pre-Code screwball comedy, as blistering fast as modern movies and with dialogue so delicious that it has a strong re-watchability factor. It certainly helps to have John Barrymore onboard, going over-the-top as a grandiose, domineering, overly dramatic Broadway mogul. Playing opposite him in her breakout role is none other than Carole Lombard as the actress in the middle of the interleaved subplots. Adapted from a Broadway play, the film does remains bound to its train setting—presenting Hawks with few opportunities to break out of its confines, but that works better than you’d expect as the film becomes a multi-room theatrical play where the comic action takes centre stage. While the beginning of the film is relatively slow, it quickly speeds up along the pace of its train setting—and it never gets better than when Lombard and Barrymore get in screaming matches with each other. It’s not the best Hawks comedy, but it’s still really enjoyable even now. The Pre-Code nature of the film is muted compared to other films of the era (indeed, the film was among the first to get notes from the Hays Office), but you can still see a few racier references to religious icons and a revealing lingerie shot. Still, Twentieth Century has no need for racy material when its crowd-pleasing fundamentals are so well handled: It’s still a great movie, and deserves its perennial high rankings in the lists of the best 1930s movie comedies.

My Man Godfrey (1936)

My Man Godfrey (1936)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, February 2019) There’s a good reason why My Man Godfrey comes up again and again on lists of classic 1930s comedies—it impeccably charming, and still oozes class and cool even eighty years later. The star of the show, of course, is William Powell, who’s unflappable as a homeless man plucked out of the scrap heap by a rich family on a dare, and who eventually becomes an all-knowing, all-capable butler to a quirky dysfunctional family. It’s a kind of suave character that he’d play many times later on, and you can see why. Carole Lombard is just as good in her own way as a flighty socialite, and they play off each other beautifully: neither would be as funny without the dynamic created by the other. While incredibly accessible to modern audiences, My Man Godfrey does remain a clear product of the mid-1930s—there’s an oblique reference to the Dionne quintuplets, for instance, and the film does start by taking for granted a social situation that would only exist in Depression-era America. Surprisingly enough for Depression-era Hollywood, there is a fair amount of class critique here (after all, the film does begin with a treasure hunt in which one of the collectibles in a homeless man), with the deck clearly stacked against the rich characters. (It can’t quite reconcile its populist intent with its escapism.) Interestingly enough, though, much of the humour in My Man Godfrey isn’t in the one-liners or crazy situation as much as it’s found in the coolness and eccentricity of the characters, with a little bit of physical comedy thrown in. The script is a bit rough around the edges—the beginning is a bit much to take, and the ending has pieces falling together so quickly that it becomes unconvincing—but the result is one great film, one that has aged gracefully as a terrific product of its era.

To Be or Not To Be (1942)

To Be or Not To Be (1942)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Youtube Streaming, November 2018) The famed “Lubitsch touch” referred to director Ernst Lubitsch’s ability to … well, no one can quite agree about the exact definition of the Lubitsch touch, but there is something in his movies that separate them from other films of the period. So it is that To Be or Not To Be remains striking even today for the sheer number of spinning plates that Lubitsch is able to keep in the air without having them all crash to the ground. Consider that it’s a comedy set during the earliest days of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Consider that it mixes anti-Nazi critique with a portrayal of egomaniac theatrical actors dealing with mortal suspense and perceptions of infidelity. It’s a wonder that the film hold together at all, let alone that it manages to be hilarious and thrilling at once. Jack Benny is excellent as an actor whose ego nearly derails resistance plans, while Carole Lombard is the other half of the couple at the centre of the story. The treatment of Nazis really isn’t sympathetic, and there’s a vertiginous quality to the film when you consider that it was shot and released in the middle of World War II, as these things were still very much going on and liberation was just a distant goal. The opening sequence is terrific, which leads to a rather less interesting first act in which the pieces of the plot are slowly put together. The dialogue is slyly funny (it may take you a while to catch a joke given the dry delivery) and occasionally mordant: I almost gasped at “What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland.”—the film gets away with a lot considering that it’s a post-Code production. To Be or Not To Be does get its rhythm back in the second half as complications pile on, the danger becomes more immediate and we see the characters thinking fast on their feet in order to get out of ever-more complex situations, sometimes caused by their own doings. There’s a very appropriate Mel Brooksian quality to Jack Benny considering that Brooks would take over the role in the 1983 remake. Audacious even today, To Be or Not To Be has survived exceptionally well and remains just as funny as it ever was.