Eve Arden

  • Bedtime Story (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) As far as innocuous late-era screwball comedies go, Bedtime Story isn’t fun as much as it’s bland—familiar actors doing their shtick, characters from the stock repertory of genre archetypes, a plot built around a predictable comedy of remarriage, and so on. Fredric March and Loretta Young have starring roles as, respectively, a playwright and an actress—she wants to retire to the countryside, but he wants to keep working, and he wants her to star in his next play. (Twenty-first century viewers, however, may be more interested in Robert Benchley and Eve Arden in supporting roles.)  It’s all meant to be fun and frothy and innocuous at the end, except that from today’s perspective there are some very dodgy things going on in the male character tricking and manipulating his wife into doing his bidding, not to mention the not-so-fun aspects of her divorcing him and remarrying another man, something that the film presents him as justified in stopping. Such plot devices were distressingly common in screwball comedies, though—even the better ones—so think of them as the price to pay (if you want: no one’s forcing you) in order to appreciate the results. Otherwise, Bedtime Story doesn’t really break new ground or leave much of an impression.

  • The Unfaithful (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) While The Unfaithful’s kinship to the film noir genre may not be as obvious as the private-eye-murder-thriller exemplars of the genre, it does have murder, morally dubious actions and there certainly, to a degree seldom acknowledged in other noir movies, a clear sense of time and historical consequences driving the plot forward. It starts with the murder, as a woman alone in a house kills a male intruder. She says he’s unknown to her, but that lie is exposed in the form of a bust of her made by him—exposing a wartime affair between the two. If you’re looking for more death, you’re out of luck: the initial murder is all you get. But if you’re looking for near-fatalistic “suffering with style,” then this is where the film’s meatiest moments start, as the husband of the woman is incensed at her affair and threatens divorce, but a stern talking to (from an exceptionally well-cast Eve Arden) introduces some complexity in what could have been a punitive moralistic conclusion. While noir almost always takes place in the shadow of WW2 and the reintegration of a fighting force into a general population (something seldom explicitly mentioned), The Unfaithful squarely talks about the toll of wartime separation, and suggests that, since the war drove everyone to behave in less-than-ideal ways, maybe we should be compassionate about it. That explicit call-out may be the noirest thing about The Unfaithful, and a good reason to take it in as a companion to other more conventional film noirs. It remains what they called “a woman’s picture,” but there’s a four-quadrant appeal in what the film has to say.

  • Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) As much as there are many things to like about Goodbye, My Fancy, the film can’t escape vexing issues that accumulate until they stain the overall result. The setup is relatively solid, as Joan Crawford plays a congresswoman who returns to visit her alma mater after considerable professional success. Much of the film’s comedy comes from attempts to make her regress to her college-day friendships and rituals, helped along with a few very comic supporting roles, especially from Eve Arden. But there are also much weightier subplots to contend with, the biggest being an unresolved romance with what was then a teacher (wait, what?) and is now the university’s president. The romantic triangle emerges when the protagonist is antagonistically courted by another ex-flame and she has to decide between one of them. While the comedy aspects of Goodbye, My Fancy are relatively amusing, one can’t quite say the same about the romantic and dramatic subplots, which are either based on dodgy past behaviour, or illustrated by even more dodgy behaviour. One suitor is such a badgering cad that it seems implausible that she’d give him more than the time of the day… but then comes the conclusion meant as a triumph but about as high-flying as a lead dud. There’s a lot in the film, or underneath its surface, about the post-WW2 order—whether political, global or social. That makes for further fascinating viewing—but it further troubles the impact of a film that can’t quite decide whether it’s a college comedy, a wistful romantic drama or a propaganda piece for a strong United States. Goodbye, My Fancy is worth a look if you like conflicted films—but skip it if you’re just jonesing for straightforward 1950s Hollywood fare.