Turnabout

Turnabout
May 17, 1940
United Artists
Comedy, Fantasy
VHS
C+

Unlike most later body-switch comedies, this one also involves a gender swap, between a bickering married couple, the Willowses (John Hubbard and Carole Landis), with the assistance of their talking genie statue, Mr. Ram.  There's also a lumbering Great Dane, a bear cub, an advertising agency that uses surfboards, and the toughest-to-kill radio since Duck Soup.  Among the confused servants, business partners, and potential clients are Donald Meek, Marjorie Main, Adolphe Menjou (top billing), Mary Astor as his wife, and Franklin Pangborn as Mr. Pingboom.  Director Hal Roach's daughter plays a southern belle secretary with the biggest hat bow since probably 1910.

Unfortunately, in a different way than My Little Chickadee, the movie is never as much fun as it could be.  It is interesting though and, yes, there are moments of queer subtext, as when the wife is in the husband's body (still with her own voice) and befriends Mr. Pingboom.  As with the '50s sitcom plots of the husband and wife swapping chores for a day, the message is that the sexes are and should remain very different, although since the Willowses are upper-middle-class, Sally Willows and her friends are more like the women in The Women than like Lucy and Ethel.  But then, just when you think that order is restored, the movie delivers a surprisingly daring ending.  Pity the rest of the script wasn't that sharp.  It's based on a 1931 book by Thorne Smith (of Topper fame), which became a 1979 sitcom, with Sharon Gless!  She obviously went on to better things, but sadly Carole Landis committed suicide in 1948, due to boyfriend Rex Harrison refusing to divorce his wife.

Jack Rice was in Flying Down to Rio.  Carl M. Leviness was in At the Circus.  Jack Egan and William H. O'Brien would go on to Citizen Kane, George[s] Renavent (Mr. Ram) to Road to Zanzibar, and Kenner G. Kemp to Singin' in the Rain.  Buddy Messinger, who's an elevator boy here, would be one in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and The Big Store, along with a bunch of movies I don't own.  (Talk about typecasting!)

My Little Chickadee

My Little Chickadee
March 15, 1940
Universal
Comedy, Western
DVD
C+

This doesn't live up to its potential, considering that W. C. Fields and Mae West not only co-star but co-wrote.  Also, it has Margaret Hamilton as a busybody, but a more prudish one than The Wizard of Oz's Miss Gulch.  There are some funny lines, but the movie never clicks, and there are some serious moral problems.  Yes, partly to do with sex, but not how you might expect.  West gets meek-looking Donald Meek (soon to be in Turnabout) to perform a fake wedding ceremony.  She has tricked herself into thinking Fields has money.  She keeps the "marriage" from being consummated, partly by putting a goat in her bed!  Later, Fields masquerades as the masked bandit she's in love with (although she's never seen the bandit's face), so he's not any better than she is.  (The identity of the bandit seemed painfully obvious to me, partly because he didn't disguise his voice much.  She figures it out from a kiss.)

While on the one hand, it's cool to see West fight off a train robbery almost single-handedly (although Fields is the one who brags about it later), I didn't like the way she joked about shooting the attackers, who are Indians.  And she attempts to rob Fields later, although since he's a dishonest gambler, I can't feel too sorry for him.  West was then 48 and looked it, but she's presented as young, and of course all the men, and a classroom full of teenaged boys, have to swoon at her feet.  Of course, this is nothing compared to the suspension of disbelief in Sextette (1978), but I find that awful movie a lot of fun, and her character much more sympathetic there.  Watch this one just to say that you've seen it, and don't expect much.  (The ending exchange is good however, although it shows some of their offscreen dislike.)

Morgan Wallace was in It's a Gift.  Otto Hoffman was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.  Lita Chevret was in The Women.  Delmar Watson, thirteen at the time of this movie, had appeared in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man and His Girl Friday.  Si Jenks was in some of my other movies, including A Day at the Races.  Jan Duggan has a much less memorable role here than in The Old Fashioned Way and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, but she would appear in The Bank Dick, as would Fay Adler, Harlan Briggs, Charles Hart, George Moran, Dorothy Vernon, and Bill Wolfe.