It’s A Wonderful World: The Original Colbert Report!

This revised version of It's A Wonderful World (1939) comes from The James Stewart Blogathon!  Hosted by The Classic Film & TV Café from April 14th to April 17, 2014! 

Welcome to Edwina Corday's Poetry Corner! Here's her poetry-chart-topping rhyme, "It's A Wonderful World":

The night will be here when we are gone,
Though we are gone, the stars will be here,
And other throats will sing in the dawn,
It’s a wonderful world, my dear

Don’t rack your brain trying to remember Edwina’s lovely poem from your poetry class; you’ll find her body of work in the Hollywood School of Poetry. Our gal Edwina is a ditzy but soulful poetess; yes, that’s what they call her in the comedy-adventure It’s A Wonderful World (1939), a poetess, not a poet.  And no, it’s not Frank Capra's classic Christmas film It’s A Wonderful Life, though we wouldn’t blame you for the confusion; more about that momentarily. I guess poets were like that in 1939.  But I digress!

Things aren't going well for Guy!
Where are Nick & Nora, and Asta when you need them? 

Edwina is played by that luminous Oscar-winner Claudette Colbert of It Happened One Night and  The Palm Beach Story among so many other hits. With that title alone, you’d have every right to expect it to be a wonderful screwball comedy-mystery, at the very least.  It’s got heck of a pedigree, starting with Oscar-winning director W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke, who brought us San Francisco (1936) as well as Team Bartilucci favorite The Thin Man (1934) and several of its sequels. The script was a collaboration between talented, versatile screenwriters Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz (the latter being part of the Mankiewicz filmmaking family, including his grandson Ben Mankiewicz of TCM fame), whose combined resumes included such classics as Nothing Sacred; Twentieth Century; Dinner At Eight; Citizen Kane; The Front Page and its distaff remake His Girl Friday; and several of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films.  Now team up Claudette Colbert with a pre-Oscar James Stewart (note that Colbert’s name appears onscreen in a larger font than Stewart’s, since she was the bigger star at the time).  It didn’t hurt that the film’s title brought to mind the stars’ beloved previous films It Happened One Night and It’s a Wonderful Life (even if …Life took audiences quite a while to get into film fans’ hearts. I won’t lie to you, folks: we of Team Bartilucci have always found It’s a Wonderful Life infuriating for myriad reasons!  But I digress again; sorry about that!). The action is set in both New York City and upstate New York, which is a plus for a native New Yorker like me.  Furthermore, keep in mind that 1939 was a banner year for great movies all around!  With all that going for It’s A Wonderful World, the resulting collaboration should be a real crowd-pleaser, right?

Dig that crazy Coke bottle Boy Scout disguise!
Good thing Edwina has good "Guy" sight!

Well…almost!  It’s A Wonderful World was watchable enough, but for much of its 86-minute running time, I found it more amiable than actually wonderful, or laugh-out-loud funny, or nail-bitingly suspenseful.  Sure, the film has its moments, but as a whole, it didn’t truly grab my undivided attention until about the last 40 minutes  , when the joint was jumpin' with shooting, tension, and clever scheming to unmask the villains. But I’m getting ahead of myself!

Stewart plays a NYC private eye with the manly-man name of Guy Johnson.  Showing his range just as he did in After the Thin Man (1936), Stewart’s Guy is no folksy charmer here, but a cynical tough guy who thinks dames are dopes, and isn’t afraid to cuff ’em one if they start squawking. If Guy tried that today, he’d be in for a lawsuit!  Come to think of it, the role of Guy was probably good practice for the darker, more emotionally-complicated roles Stewart played under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann in the 1950s!

Guy Kibbee as “Cap” Streeter is sapped by Edwina,
who thinks she’s helping and thinks she killed Cap! Oy!

Guy works with his older, more seasoned partner Fred “Cap” Streeter (Guy Kibbee from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; 42nd Street; Babbitt) for a private investigation firm called, appropriately enough, Private Inquiries. Their biggest client is the much-married souse and tobacco heir Willie Heyward, a.k.a. “Willie the Pooh” (played by Ernest Truex, great as put-upon milquetoast types in His Girl Friday; Whistling in the Dark; and TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents). Having previously worked demonstrating electric belts in drugstore windows for all to see before he became a private eye, cynical Guy is determined to hang onto his meal ticket: “Willie the Pooh’s my dream man, and I’m gonna keep fishing him out of manholes just as long as he keeps paying off.”

Too bad Willie gets himself framed for the murder of Dolores Gonzales (Cecilia Callejo from Blood and Sand; The Falcon in Mexico), a “Broadway nymph” and bubble dancer in the Sally Rand mold, who’d been all set to sue Willie for allegedly jilting her—until Guy and New York’s Finest find Dolores murdered on the floor with the ever-drunken Willie not knowing which end is up.

“Willie the Pooh,” found at one of the
places he's been seen going around.

But he brings his troubles on himself, considering he keeps demanding to kill “wops” when he’s “snoozled,” especially when he’s in public.  Where are Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and/or its other sequels when you need them?  The only clue to Dolores’ killer is a dime mysteriously cut in half.  Our perplexed P.I. finds him
self framed by Vivian Tarbel, a.k.a. the newly-minted Mrs. Heyward (Frances Drake of Mad Love and the 1935 version of Les Miserables) and her honey, Al Mallon (Sidney Blackmer, the great character actor who’s graced everything from Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo to Rosemary’s Baby).  Before you can say “Philo Vance,” Guy is charged with conspiracy and sentenced to a year in Sing Sing.

On the train to prison, Guy is handcuffed to Sergeant Koretz (Nat Pendleton, Thin Man alumnus and one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite wrestlers-turned-actors), accompanied by Lieutenant Miller (Edgar Kennedy, Mr. Slow Burn himself) as they pass the time playing poker. Guy notices a personal ad in a nearby newspaper: “Why don’t you come to Saugerties Theater Wednesday evening, and see your long-lost husband? HALF-A-DIME.” (For you readers unfamiliar with upstate New York, yes, Saugerties is a real town.)  Guy tricks Koretz into leaving their compartment for a smoke, and *SPLASH!* Guy manages a watery escape under cover of night (shouldn’t Edwina be in bed at that hour?  Surely she’d lose too much of her beauty sleep).

But our perky poetess happens to see the whole thing. Before you can say “I swear by my eyes,” which Edwina says all through the picture, Guy takes Edwina hostage, and wacky hijinks ensue. Elsewhere, in one of my favorite bits, Sgt. Koretz tries to convince the local police that he was jumped by a mob instead of Guy tricking him and knocking him out singlehandedly. If you ask me, Guy could be so obnoxious sometimes, I wouldn’t have minded if someone had punched his lights out!  For that matter, I’d love to see where Edwina got the notion that criminals are gallant.  Maybe she’s been reading and writing too much poetry?  Then again, Guy isn’t always as smart as he thinks he is, either!  For instance, Edwina actually gets Guy out of a jam when they’re lost in the woods.  Boy Scout Stanley Cavendish pretends to go for help, but Edwina realizes just in time that the scout is about to sic John Law on him!  The kid isn’t even honest about his name; it’s really Herman Plotka!  If you ask me, Guy needs to brush up his P.I. skills.  Where’s Sam Spade when you need him?  Stewart’s Coke-bottle glasses disguise cracked me up!  (Fun Fact: Herman’s name comes from Mildred Plotka, a.k.a. Lily Garland in the 1934 comedy Twentieth Century.)


How do you like them apples?
Isn't this how Stockholm Syndrome starts?

Bit by bit, the comedy starts to percolate as Guy and Edwina find themselves obliged to join forces out in the wilds of upstate New York, with Edwina alternately helping and unwittingly hindering Guy as he tries to prove his innocence and save Willie from the electric chair.  As I said, the first two-thirds of It’s A Wonderful World is watchable, if not exactly full-tilt hilarious.

But.

As our dear friend and fellow blogger R.A. Kerr might say, a miracle happens, as described by my husband Vinnie: “Suddenly Claudette Colbert shifted the plot into reverse psychology!”

A guy, a poetess...romance?

By some miracle, comedy and suspense suddenly blend together beautifully at the Saugerties County Theatre’s production of the Maxwell Anderson/Laurence Stallings play What Price Glory?  Slowly but surely, Guy warms up to Edwina , who’s already falling in love with Guy despite the bickering that always seems to be expected in such situations; just ask Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps.  Our heroes infiltrate the theater when scene-stealing grand-dame theater director Madame J. L. Chambers (Cecil Cunningham from the 1931 Monkey Business; The Awful Truth) hires Guy as the play’s new Southern-accented actor, “Cyril Hemingway.”

"Do you-all have shootin' in this play?"
"Nothing but. It's the noisiest backstage since Ben Hur".

Cap comes to help Guy, only to become a human Whack-A-Mole as Edwina’s well-meant attempts to help both men keep backfiring. I was worried that poor Cap would be brain-damaged before this dizzy tale was over!  What’s more, Vivian’s Aussie ex turns up, unaware he’s got a target on his back, poor fella! The stage cast within the movie’s cast (is there a scorecard in the house?) includes Team Bartilucci favorite Hans Conried (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.; TV’s Make Room For Daddy; Fractured Flickers); as well as George Chandler (Bogart fans will remember Chandler as nervous bartender Louis Ord in Dead Reckoning); as well as Anchors Aweigh; and Grady Sutton, who I always remember from TV’s Odd Couple episode “The Flying Felix” as Tony Randall tries lip-reading: “I sense…much…trouble…in…the…fuselage…Frederick!”

CATFIGHT!!!

 All kidding aside, there’s genuine suspense in the urgently-whispered conversation between Cap and Guy as we’re reminded that Willie’s life is at stake. There’s even a nifty little catfight between Edwina and Vivian at the end!
 Leading man Stewart was under contract to MGM at the time, but the studio never seemed to know how to exploit his talents until other studios led the way for them. A 1937 loan-out to Columbia for Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You had proven his skill at folksy comedy, which explains Stewart’s casting in this screwball farce. But his fans at the time were horrified to see him playing a cynical, chauvinistic private eye who at one point even slugs his leading lady!

As Frank Miller explains in his article on the TCM Web site, “Claudette Colbert had looked forward to getting MGM’s legendary glamour treatment. However, her hopes “were dashed when director W.S. Van Dyke was assigned to the picture. Although he had helped create the screwball genre as director of The Thin Man in 1934, he was popular with studio head Louis B. Mayer mainly because he worked quickly, earning the nickname ‘One-Take Woody.’ His female star was appalled at how quickly he threw the film together, being used to the more leisurely pace at her home studio, Paramount, where great care was always taken to showcase her beauty.” Anyway, Colbert got more opportunities for glamour roles at MGM in films like The Secret Heart (1946).
 
 Although It's a Wonderful World got some good reviews, particularly from Hecht fan Otis Ferguson in The New Republic, it was mostly dismissed by critics for having too many cheap laughs. Writing for the New York Times, Frank Nugent complained, “Ben Hecht must have sent out native beaters with tom-toms and slapsticks to drive stray gags from miles around into the Metro corral for It's a Wonderful World....The comedy is almost too strenuous for relaxation." After only three years as an MGM producer, Frank Davis would return to writing after this picture, scoring some of his biggest successes with his scripts for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and The Train (1964). Before that, however, he would issue his own rather prophetic assessment of the production: “The studio should have known that Jimmy Stewart would never do any of those unconvincing things. However, I predict that his next film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939], will more than make up.”  And how!

Mary Astor Blogathon - The Palm Beach Story: The Subject Was “Snoodles”

This post is part of the Mary Astor Blogathon, hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and Silver Screenings, running from May 3rd through May 10th, 2013!

Ah, how times and mores change over the decades!  Consider this:

1.)  In 1942, writer/director Preston Sturges brought us The Palm Beach Story (TPBS, a riff on the 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story), in which a young couple find themselves living beyond their means and about to be evicted from their New York City duplex apartment.  As potential renters circle the couple like vultures, one would-be renter, an elderly gent, takes a liking to the young wife.

The older man turns out to be “The Wienie King…Home of the Texas Wienie.” (Make your own naughty jokes here, as needed.)  And he’s loaded—with money, not just wienies!  Despite the wife’s kind but firm no-thank-yous, the older man is touched by the young couple’s financial predicament, and gives her $700, which went a long way back then!  He doesn’t want to bed down with our heroine or get into any indecent proposals; he just wants to give these crazy kids a hand, not a handout!

Got them to the church on time—eventually!

 2.)  Now fast-forward to Adrien Lyne’s much-discussed 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.  This time, the helpful wealthy stranger wants to have sex with lovely young Wifey for a million dollars!  Granted, most folks would probably consider Indecent Proposal’s co-star Robert Redford to be a lot sexier than TPBS supporting actor Robert Dudley (scene-stealer though he is), but even when comparing the mores of both the early 1940s and the mid-1990s, as well as today’s attitudes, there are gals out there who’d gladly hop in the sack with Redford, or with Dudley’s Wienie King, for that matter. For many people, money talks!  As for me, I’ll take The Palm Beach Story anytime; all told, it’s got way more laughs and far less agita!  Indeed, audiences embraced TPBS as a welcome tonic to the downbeat war movies focusing on combat and troubled families shattered by war.  Who could blame moviegoers for wanting to laugh?  Hey, it worked for another great Sturges hit, Sullivan’s Travels!

Scenes from a marriage ceremony?!

For all its American-ness, TPBS feels to me like both a French farce and a surreal lunatic 1940s version of Christopher Nolan’s thriller Memento (2000).  Claudette Colbert is first seen tied up in a muffler that Doctor Who would envy.  Then she’s shoved into a closet, and apparently there’s another Claudette Colbert who kicks her way out. All the while, their maid keeps fainting with each new unexpected version of our heroine. Meanwhile, bridegroom Joel McCrea is scrambling to get himself to the church on time, as is our heroine on the other side of New York City.  What the Sam Hill is going on?!  Luckily, Entertainment Weekly’s Keith Staskiewicz explains it all for us, courtesy of http://popwatch.ew.com/author/keithstaskiewicz/

“Preston Sturges had one of the most impressive runs of any writer-director:  In a span of five years, he produced more classic comedies than most do in a lifetime. That easily includes this hilarious, Hays Code-testing film about love and marriage, but it should also include a film he didn't make, the finale of which we glimpse at the start of The Palm Beach Story.  As the opening credits roll, we see a madcap dash to the altar involving not only stars Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert, but also their respective twins, as well as a series of accidental switcheroos. Only Sturges would be so wackily brilliant as to start his movie with the conclusion of another, and then tie them both perfectly together once more at the end.”

Our heroine gets no kick
from matrimony, Sturges-style!

Well, that explains that, at least for the nonce!  I guess that also explains why Tom and Gerry (appropriate names for a screwball comedy couple) apparently gave their maid her walking papers, or maybe the poor frazzled woman ran screaming from the Jeffers’ employ; it takes stamina to work in a screwball comedy!  Since Tom and Gerry finally made it to the altar, I bet Gerry’s twin also finally left in a huff or some other form of transportation.  Or maybe getting tied up in a thick muffler left Gerry’s twin with second thoughts: “If this is marriage, you can keep it!  I’m gonna live happily ever after with my dozen cats!  Here, kitty, kitty….”  Anyway, our lovebirds finally got married and lived happily ever after!  Or did they? 

TPBS is an irresistible blend of screwball comedy and surprisingly tender romance, with a great cast of Preston Sturges’ zanies.  Actually, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther resisted it with a vengeance, but I think he might have been the only one.  Besides, Crowther was a mercurial kind of guy anyway; there’s just no pleasing some people!  But whether they’re happy or sad or freaking out, the characters really get an emotional workout.  Sure, it’s mostly laugh-out-loud funny, but you can also feel the characters’ anxiety beneath their witty repartee, making me sympathize with them.  Even now in 2013, our country’s financial issues make it easy to sympathize with Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea from Sullivan’s Travels; Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent; Ride the High Country) and his wife Gerry (Claudette Colbert from It Happened One Night; It’s A Wonderful World; So Proudly We Hail!)

Meet The Wienie King, 
Fairy Godfather-type! Who knew?

Murder, My Sweet's Mrs. Florian is in the chips;
now she's after the Jeffers' joint
as Franklin Pangborn dithers!

Tom and Gerry have been happy with each other for the past 5 years, but they’ve also  faced lean financial times. (As a native New Yorker, I can’t remember a time when The Big Apple WASN’T an expensive town!)  Tom and Gerry still love each other (even when they try to convince themselves they're not), but right now, they’re not exactly thrilled about the high cost of living in a Manhattan duplex!  I bet Tom’s the type who won’t let his wife work; it’s probably a pride thing for him, especially during that era.  If only Tom could get his floating airport off the ground!  Well, that’s where the aforementioned Wienie King (played by scene-stealing Sturges stalwart Robert Dudley from The Lady Eve; The Sin of Harold Diddlebock; The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek) comes in—right into the couple’s bathroom, in fact!  It’s OK, he’s just checking out his potential new home, like any savvy real estate prospect would:  “I'm the Wienie King!  Invented the Texas Wienie!  Lay off 'em, you'll live longer.” 

While Tom is out trying to interest prospects in his revolutionary airport,The Wienie King’s garrulous wife (Esther Howard of Murder, My Sweet; Detour; Born to Kill) cases the Jeffers’ joint while Gerry and the Wienie King chat.   It becomes clear that although The Wienie King is half-deaf, he’s also all heart and deep pockets!  He has the kindness and the means to give Gerry a lucky financial break.  Gerry keeps spurning the dough, but The Wienie King won’t take “No!” for an answer, so despite her protests, The Wienie King gives her $700 (big bucks back then!) to pay off the couple’s debts. Gerry gratefully gives The Wienie King a kiss on the cheek, then uses the money to pay off all their overdue bills.  Happy days are here again!

Tom and Gerry's love is sole-deep!

Or are they?  When Tom comes home and finds out about The Wienie King’s generous windfall, he’s peeved instead of grateful, letting his pride mess with him.  We see Tom has a history of giving the heave-ho to any man Gerry gets friendly with—and we really mean only friendly, no hanky-panky.  But when Gerry turns on her natural charm, Tom votes with his fists (only with guys, not Gerry).  Just out of curiosity and empathy, I’d love to know more about how Gerry and Tom got themselves in such dire financial straits after 5 otherwise happy years together.  Was it because of World War 2, or were Tom and Gerry unwittingly careless with their money, as many young married couples have been? (Even Vinnie and I had tight financial times in our younger days, like many others in today’s economy; no shame in it if you learn from your mistakes, like we did.)  Goshdarnit, Sturges has me caring about those wacky lovebirds!  Where the heck is Spellbound’s Dr. Constance Petersen when you need her?

Too bad those crazy kids didn’t get some kind of budget counseling (presuming such things existed back then) before the couple’s ensuing nutzoid hijinks became necessary, but otherwise, we wouldn’t have a movie!   If Tom would get over his stupid jealousy and misplaced pride, and let backers at least give Gerry a discreet, tasteful flash of leg like she did in another Colbert classic, It Happened One Night, Tom and Gerry’s problems would be fixed in a jiffy!  Admittedly, I’m no aviation expert; does anyone reading this post know if Tom Jeffers’ floating airport could have worked in the real world (the real world of 1942, at least)?

So our lovebirds have a heart-to-heart talk about the situation:

Tom:  “We’ll get ahead someday.”

Gerry:  “But I don’t want it ‘someday.’  I want it now, while I can still enjoy it.  Anyway, men don’t get smarter as they grow older, they just lose their hair…I’m very tired of being broke, darling, and feeling so helpless about having my hands tied.  I could have helped you so many times, but every time I tried to, you tried to punch the man in the nose."

Heartbroken yet determined, Gerry decides there’s only one solution:  she must go to Palm Beach, Florida, where millionaires meet millionairesses and marry them, living happily and wealthily ever after.  If all goes well, whatever new millionaire falls in love with Gerry and wants to marry her will be able to fund Tom’s revolutionary airport.  Granted, neither Tom nor Gerry can afford a divorce, but she figures whatever new rich hubby she finds will surely cough up dough for said divorce, and make his airport dream a beautiful reality.  Only in the movies! 

100 (or so) drunk Ale & Quail Clubbers and a girl!

Of course, Tom doesn’t want any part of this hare-brained scheme, but once Gerry accidentally sticks a farewell note in her hubby’s rump via safety pin after their tipsy night of love, the chase is on, and hilarity ensues, Sturges-style!  Tom does his best to catch up with Gerry, but she reaches Pennsylvania Station (Penn Station, as it’s called today) first. Still, all isn’t lost yet, thanks to The Wienie King, bless him.  Mr. and Mrs. Wienie King have rented the Jeffers’ duplex, and he also he gave Tom money to go and catch up with Gerry, and nobody had to get punched in the nose, at least not yet!

At Pennsylvania Station, Gerry stands around looking like a foundling waif (a well-dressed waif, granted) until a group of wacky rich hunters calling themselves The Ale and Quail Club take Gerry under their collective wing and into their private railroad car.  The First Ale & Quail member (William Demarest, another Sturges stalwart from The Great McGinty and The Lady Eve) is peeved at having to put up with dames in his hunting car, but the rest of the gents take a shine to her, dubbing her their mascot.  Gerry doesn’t get much sleep, though, what with the happy hunters alternately trying to sing Gerry to sleep, using the Club Car for target practice, and disconnecting the Club Car when the conductors get fed up with the drunken dopes.  It’s pandemonium in the funniest sense! 

The Ale & Quail Club puts on the dogs!

Luckily, the good-natured bespectacled gent who ends up stranded along with Gerry is none other than millionaire John D. Hackensacker 3rd (Rudy Vallee, crooner and actor, who’d also starred in George White’s Scandals; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Live A Little, Love a Little with Elvis Presley; and of course, many Sturges comedies).  Kind, chivalrous, deep-pocketed John falls in love with Gerry, taking great pleasure in buying her gifts, jewelry, and gorgeous fashions by Irene, kinda like a far more cheerful, upbeat version of Vertigo. It looks like smooth sailing for Gerry and her hopes of getting John to fund Tom’s airport.  Considering how generous he is to Gerry, I’m surprised John isn’t into tipping, claiming “It’s un-American.”  Then again, maybe that’s why he's fabulously wealthy while Tom and Gerry have been struggling. I must say I admire John’s thriftiness and generosity, inside and out, and he did bestow help and gifts on our heroes when they were up against it. Maybe Tom and Gerry could learn something from him?  What’s your opinion?  We’d like to know!

And then there's Maude, a.k.a. The Princess Centimilla!
(Our birthday girl Mary Astor!)

We got us a speedboat, it seats about twenty...

John’s sister Maude, a.k.a. The Princess Centimillia, (our gal Mary Astor from The Maltese Falcon; Across the Pacific; and Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner for The Great Lie), likes Gerry instantly:  “We can look for new husbands together!”  Maude is also delighted to see how happy Gerry has already made “Snoodles,” as she affectionately calls her brother.  Ironically, our Ms. Astor wasn’t crazy about her own performance in TPBS, and for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.  As far as I’m concerned, Mary steals the show; heck, I think she deserved another Best Supporting Actress Oscar for TPBS!  It’s too bad that she didn’t appreciate her own wonderful performance as much as the rest of us do.  She's got terrific comic timing, looked lovely in her stylish Irene fashions, and she looks fabulous as a blonde. I can well imagine that a gal like Maude would probably enjoy trying different hairstyles and haircolors, a la Auntie Mame.

But whango, is Gerry ever surprised when Tom turns up on the dock at sunny West Palm Beach, with roses yet!  (My late mom and stepdad lived about an hour’s drive or so from West Palm Beach, and we had plenty of vacation fun in the sun during our visits to their home!  But I digress…)  Blindsided by Tom’s passionate kiss, Gerry quickly introduces Tom as her brother, “Captain McGloo” so as not to give the scheme away:

Gerry: “I thought your mother’s maiden name was McGloo.” 
Tom:  “That was McGrew!”)

And so, the gals’ husband-hunting gets underway.  With both playfulness and determination, Maude takes quite a liking to Tom (“I grow on people…like moss.”), to the frustration of perennial houseguest Toto (Sig Arno from of On Moonlight Bay; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Up in Arms with Danny Kaye.)  Arno steals his scenes armed only with indecipherable gibberish and natural zaniness. This makes Gerry all the more frustrated when the loving but frustrated Tom won’t play along (not that this stops the irrepressible Maude).  Even supporting players steal the show here! 

Here's one of my favorite scenes between Maude and "Snoodles" regarding Gerry:

Maude : “Why don’t you marry her?  She’s lovely.” 

John:  “In the first place, she isn’t free yet.  In the second place, you don’t marry someone you just met.  At least, I don’t.”
Maude:  “But that’s the only way, dear.  If you get to know too much about them, you’d never marry them….nothing is permanent in this world except Roosevelt...”

The Palm Beach Story is a "bundle" of joy! Just ask Princess Maude and company!

Truly, TPBS is one of the zaniest yet endearing comedies yet in movie history!  Watch and enjoy!

CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon - IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD: The Original Colbert Report!

Welcome to Edwina Corday's Poetry Corner! Here's her poetry-chart-topping rhyme, "It's A Wonderful World":

The night will be here when we are gone,
Though we are gone, the stars will be here,
And other throats will sing in the dawn,
It’s a wonderful world, my dear.

Don't rack your brain trying to remember Edwina's lovely poem from your English class; you'll find her verses in the Hollywood school of poetry. This charming if somewhat ditzy and eccentric poetess (that’s what they call her, a poetess, not a poet. It’s a 1939 thing) is played by that luminous, long-running Oscar-winner Claudette Colbert in It’s a Wonderful World (IaWW). With that title alone, you’d have every right to expect IaWW to be a wonderful screwball comedy-mystery. It’s got a heck of a pedigree. For starters, the director is none other than Oscar-nominee W.S. Van Dyke, who brought us San Francisco (1936) as well as The Thin Man (1934) and several of its sequels. The script was a collaboration between talented, versatile screenwriters Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz (the latter being part of the Mankiewicz filmmaking family, including his grandson Ben Mankiewicz of TCM fame), whose combined resumes included such classics as Nothing Sacred, Twentieth Century, Dinner at Eight, Citizen Kane, The Front Page and its distaff remake His Girl Friday, and several of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films. Now team up Claudette Colbert with a pre-Oscar James Stewart (note that Colbert’s name appears onscreen in a larger font than Stewart’s, since she was the bigger star at the time). It didn’t hurt that the film’s title brought to mind the stars’ beloved films It Happened One Night and It’s a Wonderful Life (even if …Life took audiences quite a while to get into film fans’ hearts. I won’t lie to you, folks: we of Team Bartilucci have always found It’s a Wonderful Life infuriating for myriad reasons. But I digress….). The action is set in both New York City and upstate New York, which is a plus for a native New Yorker like me. On top of that, keep in mind that the year was 1939, a banner year for great movies! With all that going for IaWW, the resulting collaboration should be a real crowd-pleaser, right?

Well…almost. IaWW wasn’t bad, but for much of its 86-minute running time, I found it amiable at best, as opposed to actually wonderful, laugh-out-loud funny, or nail-bitingly suspenseful. Make no mistake, the film has its moments, but as a whole, it didn’t truly grab my undivided attention until about the last 40 minutes or so, when there was shooting, tension, and clever scheming to unmask the villains. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Stewart plays a NYC private eye with the manly-man name of Guy Johnson. Showing his range just as he did in After the Thin Man (1936), Stewart’s Guy is no folksy charmer here, but a cynical tough guy who thinks dames are dopes, and isn’t afraid to cuff ’em one if they start squawking. (If Guy tried that today, he’d be in for a lawsuit!) Come to think of it, the role of Guy was probably good practice for the darker, more emotionally complicated roles Stewart played under the direction of Hitchcock and Anthony Mann in the 1950s.

Guy works with his older, more seasoned partner “Cap” Streeter (Guy Kibbee) for a private investigation firm called, appropriately enough, Private Inquiries. Their biggest client is the much-married souse and tobacco heir Willie Heyward, a.k.a. “Willie the Pooh” (played by Ernest Truex, great as put-upon milquetoast types in His Girl Friday, Whistling in the Dark, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, among others). Having previously worked “demonstrating electric belts in drugstore windows,” Guy’s determined to hang onto his meal ticket: “Willie the Pooh’s my dream man, and I’m gonna keep fishing him out of manholes just as long as he keeps paying off.” Too bad Willie gets himself framed for the murder of Dolores Gonzales (Cecilia Callejo), a “Broadway nymph” and bubble dancer a la Sally Rand who was all set to sue Willie for allegedly jilting her. The only clue to her killer is a dime mysteriously cut in half. Our perplexed P.I. finds himself framed by Vivian Tarbel, a.k.a. the newly-minted Mrs. Heyward (Frances Drake of Mad Love and the 1935 version of Les Miserables) and her honey, Al Mallon (Sidney Blackmer, the great character actor who’s graced everything from Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo to Rosemary’s Baby). Before you can say “Nick Charles,” Guy is charged with conspiracy and sentenced to a year in Sing Sing.

I'd swear by my eyes if I could
see through these glasses!

On the train to prison, Guy is handcuffed to Sergeant Koretz (Nat Pendleton, Thin Man alumnus and one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite wrestlers-turned-actors), accompanied by Lieutenant Miller (Edgar Kennedy, Mr. Slow Burn himself) as they pass the time playing poker. Guy notices a personal ad in a nearby newspaper: “Why don’t you come to Saugerties Theater Wednesday evening, and see your long-lost husband? HALF-A-DIME.” (For you readers unfamiliar with upstate New York, yes, Saugerties is a real town.) Guy tricks Koretz into leaving their compartment for a smoke, and *SPLASH!* Guy manages a watery escape under cover of night. But our perky poetess Edwina happens to see the whole thing. Before you can say “I swear by my eyes,” (Edwina says that through the whole picture, not unlike Little John in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit Hood), Guy takes Edwina hostage, and wacky hijinks ensue, including Guy's hilarious attempt to pass himself off as a scoutmaster. Elsewhere, in one of my favorite bits, Koretz tries to convince the local police that he was jumped by a mob instead of Guy tricking him and knocking him out singlehandedly. I must say, Guy could be so obnoxious sometimes, I wouldn’t have minded if someone had punched his lights out!



How do you like them apples?
Isn't this how Stockholm Syndrome starts?

 Bit by bit, the comedy starts to percolate as Guy and Edwina find themselves obliged to join forces out in the wilds of upstate New York, with Edwina alternately helping and unwittingly hindering Guy as he tries to prove his innocence and save Willie from the electric chair. As I said, the first two-thirds of IaWW were watchable if not exactly full-tilt hilarious—but then a miracle happens, as described by my husband Vinnie: “Suddenly Claudette Colbert shifted the plot into reverse psychology!” Quick thinking, comedy and suspense suddenly blend together beautifully during the climax at the Saugerties County Theatre’s production of the Maxwell Anderson/Laurence Stallings play What Price Glory? Slowly but surely, Guy warms up to Edwina, who’s already falling in love with him despite the bickering you'd expect in such a situation (just ask Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll of The 39 Steps, among others). They infiltrate the theater when scene-stealing grand dame theater director Cecil Cunningham hires Guy as the play’s new Southern-accented actor “Cyril Hemingway.”

Cap comes to help Guy, only to become a human Whack-A-Mole as Edwina’s well-meant attempts to help both men keep backfiring. (I was starting to worry that poor Cap would be brain-damaged before this dizzy tale was over!) Vivian’s long-lost actor hubby turns up, unaware he’s got a target on his back, the poor slob! The stage cast within the movie cast includes Team Bartilucci faves Hans Conried, George Chandler (nervous bartender Louis Ord in Dead Reckoning) and Grady Sutton (who I always remember from the Odd Couple TV series episode “The Flying Felix” with Tony Randall’s attempt at lip-reading: “I…sense…much… trouble…in…the…fuselage…Frederick!” I know, I know, I’m digressing again! J)  There’s genuine suspense in the urgently-whispered conversation between Cap and Guy as we’re reminded that Willie’s life is at stake. There’s even a nifty little catfight between Edwina and Vivian at the end!

As Frank Miller explains in his article on the TCM Web site, Claudette Colbert had looked forward to getting MGM’s legendary glamour treatment. However, her hopes “were dashed when director W.S. Van Dyke was assigned to the picture. Although he had helped create the screwball genre as director of The Thin Man in 1934, he was popular with studio head Louis B. Mayer mainly because he worked quickly, earning the nickname ‘One-Take Woody.’ His female star was appalled at how quickly he threw the film together, being used to the more leisurely pace at her home studio, Paramount, where great care was always taken to showcase her beauty.” Anyway, Colbert got more opportunities for glamour roles at MGM in films like The Secret Heart (1946)