Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame
December 27, 1958
Warner Bros.
Comedy, Historical
DVD
B-

This is based on the Patrick Dennis novel, by way of the hit stageplay that Rosalind Russell starred in.  (My review of the book is here
http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/auntie-mame-irreverent-escapade.html.)  It's much more sentimental, and much more of a star vehicle than the book, with Patrick often offscreen and the focus, sometimes literal, on Mame.  (Many scenes end theatrically, with the spotlight on Mame.)  The movie also isn't as racy as the book, as seen with the most outrageous word on Patrick's vocabulary list being "heterosexual."  Still, for its time it's pretty out there, and it's interesting to contrast the almost casual "unwed" pregnancy of Agnes Gooch with the coyness of the handling of Trudy Kockenlocker's dilemma in Miracle of Morgan's Creek about fifteen years earlier.  The timeline is somewhat different in AM-the-movie than AM-the book, including mistakenly starting things off in 1928 and having the Crash happen a few weeks later.  Still it's a reasonably faithful adaptation and author Patrick Dennis himself approved.  (His good friend Cris Alexander has a small role in the film and apparently played many roles in the stage production.)

I will admit to sometimes finding the 1974 movie musical Mame, with an offkey too old Lucille Ball, more fun because of it's so-bad-it's-goodness, but I'll discuss that when we get there.

Adolph Faylauer, who plays the sleeping audience member at the play, was part of an onscreen audience more than twenty years earlier, in A Night at the Opera.  Margaret Dumont allegedly plays the noblewoman in the play, but I didn't notice her.  (And IMDB is sometimes wrong.)  Frank McClure was in His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane.  Sam Harris was also in Citizen Kane.  Thomas Martin was in All About Eve.  Rand Harper was in Sabrina.  Lee Patrick (Mrs. Upson) was in There's No Business Like Show Business.  I'm pretty sure Colin Kenny and Carl M. Leviness were in some of my earlier movies, although I don't know which ones offhand.

Bert Stevens was in Citizen Kane and would appear in Some Like It Hot.  Harold Miller would be in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Willard Waterman (Mr. Upson) in The Apartment, Peter Bourne in I'll Take Sweden, and Louise Land in Dear Brigitte.  Fred Clark was in Sunset Blvd. and would do Sgt. Deadhead, among other movies.  Peggy Cass, who plays scene-stealing Agnes, would be a very different mother in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.

His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday
January 18, 1940
Columbia
Comedy
VHS
B+

The '40s portion of my movie collection starts with a bang: this funny, fast-paced, smart, still controversial film.  Is the movie feminist or anti-feminist?  Is it racist or anti-racist?  And where does it stand on the death penalty?  It's tempting to say that it's not meant to be a message movie, that its ethics are no purer, its concerns no higher, than those of Walter Burns (Cary Grant), the charming but unscrupulous newspaper publisher who thinks a story about a rooster is "human interest," while "the European war" can be moved off the front page.  (And, yes, this is based on the play The Front Page.)  I think it is a very entertaining movie with a dark side that it hints at without fully exploring.  The reporters, even Hildy (played by Rosalind Russell), think a big story is more important than people.  The movie mocks them but also celebrates them.

Grant and Russell are wonderful together, with Ralph Bellamy as the never-a-real-challenge third side of the triangle, who gets taken advantage of because, well, he looks like Ralph Bellamy.  There are other third-wall-breaking jokes, like Grant's remark about "Archie Leach" and his calling someone a "mock turtle" (his role in the very odd 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland).  Grant and Russell ad-libbed a lot, and director Hawks encouraged them.  But other performers have their moments, mostly funny, although sometimes sad, as with Helen Mack as Mollie Malloy.  I would say, don't watch this expecting a perfect comedy-- it was #19 on the AFI list of 100 best comedies-- but give it a chance, and watch it more than once to really appreciate it.

Frank Orth, who plays Duffy, was the diner chef in At the Circus.  Frank Jenks was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.  Warden Pat Cooley would go on to The Bank Dick, Frank McClure to Citizen Kane.  Regis Toomey, who's Sanders, kept working into the 1980s, among other things playing a priest in Change of Habit (1969).

The Women

The Women
September 1, 1939
MGM
Drama, Comedy
DVD
C+

This movie has an all-female cast, many of them stars, so it's worth watching for that, but I can't say I actually like the movie.  Even the "sympathetic" characters aren't ones I care about.  The tag-line for this movie was "It's all about men."  More specifically, it's about how women deal with the "fact" that "all" husbands commit adultery.  The message, as expressed by the heroine's "wise" mother and the street-wise but classy Paulette Goddard, is that pride is "a luxury a woman in love can't afford."  Better to either say nothing, or fight for your husband.  Not only is this dubious, but because we don't see the husbands (or any men), it's difficult to say whether any of the men are worth it.  I think even more than the main story of the Haineses, I was bothered by the arc for the young newlywed Peggy Day, who gets upset with her husband for "things he said," but reconciles with him when she finds out she's pregnant.  It's impossible to tell whether she overreacted in the first place, or if she was right to seek a divorce, but I definitely don't like that she decides she'll do whatever he says from now on.  And wonderful as it is to see Marjorie Main, the future Ma Kettle, I was bothered by her saying of her husband beating her that there are women there (at her Reno ranch) who deserve beating more.  Also, there's that weird fashion show in color in the middle of the movie, which Cukor reportedly didn't like.  Still, the movie is worth seeing at least once, if only to watch all the different personalities interact.

Main would shortly be in Turnabout.  Rosalind Russell, who transitioned to comedy with her scene-stealing role as gossipy Sylvia, would go on to much better things, including the next year's His Girl Friday.  Cora Witherspoon would be in The Bank Dick, Joan Blair in Citizen Kane, Mary Dees in A Night in Casablanca.  Mabel Colcord was Hannah in Cukor's Little Women.  Josephine Whittell was in It's a Gift, while Beryl Wallace was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.  And, yes, that's none other than "Toto,"AKA Terry, early on in the movie.  Amusingly, Margaret Dumont was in deleted scenes, playing a character named Mrs. Wagstaff!  (The last name of Groucho's professor character in the Dumont-less Horse Feathers.)