His Girl Friday (1940)

Based on the classic play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur I think this actually does the play one better by changing one of the characters from a man to a woman. Rumor has it that it was Howard Hawks, the director, who noticed that the relationship between the two lead characters in The Front Page was like a love story and had the idea of adding that element to the play. The result is this brilliant fast paced comedy with a little romance thrown in for good measure.

Synopsis:

The movie begins with former reporter and ex-wife Hildy Johnson Rosalind Russell, calling on her ex-husband Walter Burns, Cary Grant, to tell him she's going to get married again. Her intended is an insurance salesman from Albany named Bruce Baldwin, Ralph Bellamy. Burns clearly has no intention of letting her go, though whether he will miss her more as a wife or as a reporter is not clear. He lures her back in by agreeing to buy a large insurance policy if she will do one final interview with a prisoner scheduled to be hung the next day for having shot a policeman. Hildy gets the interview but then tears it up when Walter has Bruce robbed and unfairly thrown in jail. Just when Hildy is leaving her colleagues in the press-room for good, Earl Williams escapes and she is pulled back in by her love of the story. She is alone in the room when Earl Williams shows up at the window. She hides him in a desk, calls Burns and that's when the action really begins.

The pace of this movie is what everyone talks about. The conversation comes so fast and furious that you really have to listen closely to keep up and get all the joke. In fact, one viewing is really inadequate, you will notice lines you never noticed before each time you see it. Most of this comes directly from the play by the famous team of Hecht and MacArhur. In addition to The Front Page the team wrote several other plays including Billy Rose's Jumbo and 20th Century, separately and together they wrote dozens of screenplays, including Wuthering Heights, Scarface, Nothing Sacred and Angels with Dirty Faces. As fast paced as the play is, Hawks managed to speed it up a little. Howard Hawks is one of the best directors of romantic comedies ever to work in Hollywood, having directed Twentieth Century, the quintessential screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire, To Have and Have Not and dozens of others. Add to this the brilliant performers. Bellamy does such a good job playing the milquetoast insurance salesman that the straw man third party in romantic comedies became referred to as the Ralph Bellamy role. Gene Lockhart plays the crooked Sheriff, and the men in the newsroom is a collection of character actors that any director would kill for. The combination is positively combustible and makes for a truly unique movie experience.

Director ...............................................................Howard Hawks

Writers ................................................................Charles MacAruthur (Play)
               .............................................................Ben Hecht (Play)
              ..............................................................Charles Lederer (Screenplay)

Walter Burns .......................................................Cary Grant
Hildy Johnson ......................................................Rosalind Russell
Bruce Baldwin .....................................................Ralph Bellamy
Gene Lockhart .....................................................Sheriff Hartwell
Porter Hall ...........................................................Murphy
Ernest Truex ........................................................Bensinger
Cliff Edwards ......................................................Endicott
Clarence Colb .....................................................Mayor
Roscoe Carns .....................................................McCue
Frank Jenks ........................................................Wilson
Regis Toomey .....................................................Sanders
Abner Biberman .................................................Louie
Frank Orth .........................................................Duffy
John Qualen .......................................................Earl Williams
Helen Mack .......................................................Molly Malloy
Alma Kruger ......................................................Mrs. Baldwin
Billy Gilbert ........................................................Joe Pettibone

My Favorite Year (1982)

If you like The Dick Van Dyke Show, or clips you may have seen from Sid Ceasar's shows, or if you are a fan of Peter O'Toole or if you are a fan of old swashbuckling movies, you will love this movie. This movie was made by alumni of the great Ceasar's shows and like the Dick Van Dyke show is a look at that era. In this case a week when an Errol Flynn -ish character came to co-star.

Synopsis:
We begin by following Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker)describing 1954, his favorite year that he spent as part of the writing staff of the King Kaiser comedy cavalcade and specifically the week his idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole) was going to guest-star on the show. A major turning point for him, he says. We meet the other writers and see clips from Swann's alleged movies then we cut to Swann waking up next to a beautiful, very young girl and promptly going into a horrible hacking cough. We also meet the object of Benjy's affections, not thus far reciprocated, King Kaiser's secretary K.C. Downing (Jessica Harper). We meet producers, including the great songwriter and sometime actor, Adolphe Green. Then we meet the great King himself (Joseph Bologna) as he berates the head writer's monologue in front of the whole crew. Finally, the great Alan Swann shows up to set only to pass out. The decision is made to replace him but Benjy argues against it. King relents but assigns Benjy to watch him for the week, Swann has to be at every rehearsal, sober, or Benjy pays. That's when the fun really begins.

The key to this movie is the casting. With any actor less larger-than-life than Peter O'Toole it would be hard to believe that all that follows really could happen, but O'Toole makes you believe it. You believe his escapades and you believe his humanity. He not only takes Benjy on drunken hijinks throughout the city he dedicates himself to helping him win over K.C. and even agrees to dinner with Benjy's relatives in Brooklyn. We also learn some of the self-loathing that just may be part and parcel of the alcoholism - Swann, it seems has a daughter he has been unable to face for years. The final face-off comes the night of the show when Swann find out for the first time that the show is done live. He panics and leaves threatening everything that he and Benjy have built over the week. Mostly the movie is very, very, funny with each character cast perfectly. The director is the actor Richard Benjamin of Goodbye Columbus fame.

We really get the feel of early television and all that it entailed.There are little things that harken back to the Sid Caesar show specifically, for example, there is a writer that only whispers comments to his colleague who then voices them. This allegedly hearkens back to the behavior of Neil Simon on the Ceasar show who would speak so softly someone else would have to repeat them to the room. This type of inside baseball makes the movie all the more authentic and funny.

Director ............................................................Richard Benjamin

Writers .............................................................Norman Steinberg
              ...........................................................Dennis Palumbo

Alan Swann ......................................................Peter O'Toole
Benjy Stone ......................................................Mark Linn-Baker
K.C. Downing ..................................................Jessica Harper
King Kaiser ......................................................Joseph Bologna
Sy Benson ........................................................Bill Macy
Belle Carroca ...................................................Lainie Kazan
Alice Miller ......................................................Anne De Salvo
Herb Lee .........................................................Basil Hoffman
Uncle Morty ....................................................Lou Jacobi
Leo Silver .......................................................Adolph Green
Alfie Bumbacelli ..............................................Tony DiBenedetto

Modern Times (1936)

I know most people hear silent movie and their eyes glaze over. There aren't many that I would argue you must see, but at least one Chaplin movie is essential just to see this genius in action. Charlie Chaplin is an icon for a reason. His voice was unique and brilliant. He was a true auteur before the term became vogue. He not only wrote, directed and acted in his pictures, he wrote the music and even did most of the editing. Which is his best movie? Many would say the one before this, City Lights, I can't really argue with that, it's also a wonderful movie, but this is my personal favorite, maybe because his co-star is his then wife Paulette Goddard. For whatever reason I prefer it, so I am writing about this first. I might also add that this is not an entirely silent movie. The leads do not speak, (though the tramp does sing -- in french) but some of the minor characters do - only, interestingly enough, those with power.

Synopsis:

The movie begins by looking a bit of an homage to Metropolis. It shoes sheep being herded then shows factory workers from a similar angle looking the same as the move from subway to factory floor. Meanwhile the president of the company is doing a jigsaw puzzle and reading the comics in the newspaper. He gives orders to speed up the line forcing the workers, including charlie to work faster than it would seem to be humanly possible. The Tramp's (Charlie's) job is to tighten two nuts on each piece of machinery that passes by. He does this act so often that when his brake comes he can't stop moving his hands in that motion. The dehumanizing conditions in the factory only go downhill from there. After being caught in this machinery of capitalism (literally) for too long Charlie finally has a break down and loses it on the factory floor.

Next we see Charlie being released from the hospital cured, but unemployed. Almost immediately after his release he lands, unfairly, in jail. Meanwhile, we meet the delightful "gamin" (Paulette Goddard) (too old to be playing a gamin but we can overlook this) as she steals food for herself and other hungry waterfront kids. Despite hers and her unemployed father's best efforts, her two youngest sisters are taken away to an orphanage.

Charlie is let out of jail when his innocence is determined but he regrets the loss of the steady meals and a bed. In his efforts to get sent back to jail, he tries to take the fall for Paulette when she is caught staling a loaf of bread. They are two of the poorest of the poor, unemployed and without prospects who find themselves joining forces first as friends then, maybe, as something more. Charlie convinces her that one must smile and carry on even during the hardest of times, a popular message during the depression and the idea that led to the lyrics of the song "Smile" the music of which is first heard here.

This is a lovely, moving film that manages to combine romantic comedy and social commentary brilliantly. Keep in mind this came out in the depths of the depression, union fever was growing as workers became more discouraged by conditions. Rather than being a diatribe against the owners, the movie uses comedy and satire to make it's point. Meanwhile, Paulette Goddard is such an engaging presence that one cannot help getting caught up in the romance. It's interesting the limited way that Chaplin experiments with sound in this movie. By 1936 almost no one else in Hollywood was making silent pictures and one get's the sense of a compromise being struck in this movie between Charlie, worried that the tramp character could not survive the shift to sound and the forces arguing for modernization. It's the last gasp for Charlie, however, as his next film The Great Dictator is largely a talking movie (another great Chaplin movie if you just can't handle silent).The movie is short by today's standards, only 87 minutes so it won't take much investment to see what all the idolatry of Charlie is all about.

Director .........................................................Charles Chaplin

Writer ...........................................................Charles Chaplin

Charles Chaplin .............................................A Factory Worker
Paulette Goddard ..........................................A Gamin
Henry Bergman .............................................Cafe Proprietor
Tiny Sandford ...............................................Big Bill
Chester Conklin ............................................Mechanic
Hank Mann ..................................................Burglar
Stanley Blystone ...........................................Gamin's Father
Allan Garcia .................................................Factory President

Annie Hall (1977)

This is a great movie, one of Woody Allen's best done at a time when he had really found his voice. It stars Woody and his then-partner Diane Keaton, making it pre- Mia Farrow so there's no need to get into any of the thorny issues arising from that relationship. Also it was made in an era when Woody could still play the heroes of his movies before he started casting stand-ins like Owen Wilson and John Cusack. Both perfectly good performers but not better at being Woody, than Woody.

Synopsis:

Woodie begins the movie with two jokes one of which about not wanting to be a part of a group that would have him as a member he says sums up the problems he's had with women. Then he tells us that he and Annie have broken up, which he can't believe. The rest of the movie we see his relationship with Annie in flashbacks - out of order glimpses of times in their relationship in an effort to see what went wrong. We don't just look at the time he was in the relationship, we look at Woddy's childhood, we get a glimpse of Annie's when they go to her family's Midwestern home. we even see part of his relationships before he met Annie to see how they colors the later relationship. There are wonderful moments and painful moments and through it all we get a really good picture of the relationship.

Review:

Because he has been so prolific, chances are you have seen at least one Woody Allen movie by now. However, if you have not seen this movie you really haven't seen the best Woody Allen film. It won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay. That is an unheard of number of awards for a comedy. Comedies are notoriously overlooked at award time - not given the respect of hard core dramas, and even though this counts as part drama, part comedy it still was an amazing feat to win those awards. This is one of Woody's best scripts and that is saying something because no matter what one might think of him - the man can write ..... and direct. The performance of Diane Keaton is brilliant and charming. Not for nothing was her quirky clothing style from the movie copied by every woman in America that year. The clothes became a phenomenon because her performance was phenomenal. The supporting players are also excellent, including Carol Kane as the old girlfriend, Tony Roberts, a Woody Allen regular for years as Woody's best friend, Shelley Duvall, Colleen Dewhurst, and even Christopher Walken in a small but HILARIOUS part. The most notable supporting cast member is Paul Simon - the Paul Simon the songwriter - that alone makes it worth seeing. I promise that this is the quintessential Woody Allen movie, so if you see it and you don't like it you have an excuse not to see any others.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

OK so once upon a time (1958) a man named Peter George wrote a novel called Red Alert. It was a serious novel about the possibility that the madness of one low level military general could lead to all out nuclear war. Stanley Kubrick was intrigued by the novel and it's concept, but the more he thought about it the less possible it seemed to take the disastrous circumstances seriously. Consequently, for a serious interpretation of the book, one must turn to the rather turgid movie Fail-Safe. Kubrick instead decided to present the blatant absurdity that mankind could choose to annihilate itself.

Synopsis:

The action begins with General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) being informed of the crazy actions of Brigadier General Jack Ripper played by Sterling Hayden (yes even character names are absurd in this movie). He has issued an order for his bombers to drop their nuclear bombs over the Soviet Union. He was able to do so thanks to a loophole that was designed to allow us to blow up the Russians even if the first assault against us managed to take out the President and other people in the chain of command. The Brig. Gen then goes incommunicado, making it impossible to obtain the recall codes without which the planes will, indeed, drop their bombs on Russia. Soon all the powers that be have been assembled in the war room (a FAR more impressive location than the White House situation room) in order to brainstorm - and I use the term very loosely -- about how to stop the attack. Not everyone, I should point out wants to stop the attack, some, notably Scott's Turgidson believe that the U.S. should take advantage of this inevitable first strike to push ahead and finish off the enemy. Others, most importantly President Merkin Muffley (one of three roles played by Peter Sellers) disagree. Can and will the attack be stopped in time???

Now nuclear war may not sound that funny but with Terry Southern's script, Kubrick's direction and the madness of Peter Sellers it is HILARIOUS! Now don't get me wrong - it isn't hilarious like the three stooges or even the hangover it's dry as dust humor and humor you have to think about a minute. But I promise it is hilarious. In addition to the mealy mouthed president, Sellers plays a rather demented nuclear scientist (Dr. Strangelove) who was clearly a Nazi before he joined the U.S. team (not unlike many of our actual nuclear scientists and rocket scientists in the 60s), and he plays the only truly sane character in the movie, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake who spends most of the movie trying to pry the recall codes from the mouth of the brilliantly insane Sterling Hayden. There is the Russian Ambassador played by Peter Bull who not only has his own role to portray but also gets to relay the words of Soviet Premier Kissoff who has been raised on the red phone as part of the effort to avert disaster. The interaction of all these men (and they are all men with the exception of brief moments with Buck Turgidson's secretary/girlfriend there are no women in the movie) most of whom seem determined to prove their manhood, by destroying their lives and everyone else's, is hilarious because it is just so stupid.  This really is a movie you will find people reference regularly, meaning it's worth seeing just so you know what they are talking about. Fortunately, it's also very fun to watch.

Charade (1963)

Some of you may recall seeing Director Stanley Donen tap dance at the Oscars a few years ago at age 80+. The tap dance was a hearkening back to his days as a choreographer and director of musicals. However, he was also one of the most versatile directors ever. With Charade he made what I'd call the only non-Hitchcock directed Hitchcock movie. This is an excellent thriller worthy of Hitch, but it's not a clawing homage like many of Brian DePalma's movies or a direct copy like that ridiculous Psycho remake from a few years ago.

Synopsis:

Charade begins with Audrey Hepburn, as Regina Lampert, has just decided to divorce her husband. Unfortunately by the time she returns from the vacation where she makes this decision - he has clearly left her and then been murdered. Even more unfortunately for Regina, it turns out that the men who killed her husband failed to get what they wanted from him first. He allegedly stole money from a motley group of them (played by George Kennedy, James Coburn and Ned Glass) and since he didn't have it on him when he was attacked the reason that she must have the money and they go after her. Her only allies are Cary Grant and Walter Matthau. As allies go, of course, They're pretty good, but they may not be what they seem.

This movie will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time you are watching. For one thing there is a constant question mark about Cary Grant and whether he is really on Regina (Reggie's) side. In addition to the suspense this is a very funny and fairly romantic movie - great for date night. And did I mention the whole thing is shot in Paris! What more could you want? Speaking of the romantic aspect, when the movie was just being put together, Cary Grant felt that it would be unseemly for him at age 59 to pursue Audrey who was then 34 (and age difference that sadly wouldn't cause today's male leads a moment's hesitation), so he, Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone solved the problem with a rewrite that had her pursuing him romantically. Her pursuit includes arguably the best lines ever about Cary Grant - I'll leave it to you to find out what that is.

Raising Arizona (1987)

The Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel) are two of the most creative and most demented people working in hollywood today. For anyone who doesn't know they are a writing and directing team that is responsible for a series of mostly hilarious movies with the occasional horror tinged movie thrown in.  Their most popular movie with younger viewers is probably The Big Lebowski with the iconic character Dave the dude. But it was Raising Arizona that got it all started. Actually, Blood Simple pre-dates Raising Arizona but that is a serious movie with fewer of the well known Coen brothers quirks than Raising Arizona has so I stand by my characterization.

Synopsis (spoiler free)

Before the opening credits ever run in the movie we are treated to the meeting and courtship of H.I. McDunnough and his future wife Edwina - the fact that the courtship takes place as H.I. is having his mugshots taken by Edwina is classic Coen brothers. They are filled with hope for the future until they find out that Edwina cannot have children. Coincidentally, the wife of local businessman Nathan Arizona has quints  and is quoted in the newspaper as saying that she basically too many. H.I. and Ed decide to even things out a bit for both families and that is when the action really begins. Believe it or not all of this information and exposition doesn't spoil the movie - so much happens after they decide to get one of the babies it would be nearly impossible to summarize here.

This movie is quite simply hilarious. Funny lines, funny images, funny accents, funny characters, memorable lines .... all are part of a Coen brothers movie in general and Raising Arizona in particular. I'm not usually a big Nicolas Cage fan but he is genuinely hilarious in this movie as is Holly Hunter. This is John Goodman's first appearance as a Coen brother's staple. Academy award winner Frances McDormand (Mrs. Joel Coen) is also present here as the quirkiest and most hilarious supporting character. I wholeheartedly recommend this for the first time or the fifteenth - it just seems to get funnier every time I see it.

Pre-Production Code shockers - Baby Face (1933) and Red Headed Woman (1932)

In 1930 The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America adopted the productione code to govern the making of motion pictures. For the next 34 years it controlled what could and could not be shown in the movies. Not just language and nudity were proscribed - the movies were required to show positive messages - evil people always had to get what was coming to them and sex could only be hinted at. For this reason, I fear many people have come to believe that no one really had sex outside of marriage prior to the sexual revolution (which just happened to coincide with the end of the production code. Luckily, we still have several pre-production code movies that prove otherwise.  Two of the best are featured here.

Red-Headed Woman synopsis:


Anita Loos wrote the screenplay for this tale of a blatant social climber. The film begins with a brief montage of Lillian or Lil Andrews, played by Jean Harlow, telling us just what kind of woman we are dealing with - dyed red hair and see through clothing! Determined not to live her whole life on the wrong side of the tracks, she first seduces her boss then. Then continues to manipulate him into finally leaving his wife for her. Her goal is to become part of high society. Unfortunately, despite all of her discussion of Louis  Quinze chairs they are having none of her - remaining loyal to the first wife. Her answer is to try to climb higher but she has trouble up there - all of her own making.

Baby Face synopsis:

The climb to the to of Barbra Stanwyck's character, Lily (oddly enough), in Baby Face is, amazingly enough, more directly linked to her sexuality than Jean Harlow's is in Red-Headed Woman, though the basic idea is the same. Born to a bar owner and abandoned by her mother, she grows up in the bar and becomes, as she calls herself, a tramp. She decides to change things after she gets a pep-talk from a professorial customer and his interpretation of Nietzsche. He urges her to use her beauty, which he assures her gives her power over men. Soon she has moved to New York. Taken by a high rise bank building and the money that must be inside, so she proceeds to sleep her way into and to the top of that building, literally. Meanwhile, she internalizes the professor's version of Nietzsche - determined to stay cold and distant.

The primary difference between these two movies is that Baby Face is on the side of the social climber (more or less) while Red-Headed Woman is more on the side of the climbed upon. The behavior of Jean Harlow's, Lil is presented as shocking at every turn. No one wants anything to do with her, including to some extent her husband. Their union is presented as one of lust alone from the beginning.

In Baby Face on the other hand, Stanwyck's Lily is presented as cold and manipulative but her conquests are presented as being in love. She appears to get everything she seeks at each step, the only question being is what she seeks really what she wants.

Both scripts are very good making their points very succinctly. Loos was one of the great playwright/screenwriters of her day culminating in her famous book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Baby Face was written by the tea of Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola, a team so successful that Markey managed to marry Joan Bennet, Hedy Lamarr, AND Myrna Loy.  Besides you have to love the mere mention of Nietzsche in a movie, let alone making his philosophy a primary plot point is amazing. The directing is also top notch with Baby Face it was Alfred E. Green a solid journeyman director under the tutelage of Darryl Zanuck - one of the most hands-on producers of that era. Red-Headed Woman's director is Jack Conway a key director at Irving Thalberg's MGM who went on to direct higher brow material with even bigger stars (though it was hard to get bigger than Harlow).

Both movies really rise and fall on the backs of their female stars, however and you couldn't ask for two better. Barbra Stanwyck was marvelous in everything she did even this early outing. Be careful not to mistake her character's coldness at the beginning with bad acting. Harlow took Hollywood by storm with her first leading role, in Hell's Angels Howard Hughes magnum opus about World War I. Her sexuality was blatant from the beginning, but her performances got better and better with each film she did as did the camera's love affair with her.

I've linked these movies not just because they are so similar but because the would make a great double feature Neither is very long, Red-Headed Woman runs 79 minutes and Baby Face is 71. Basically you could see both in the same time you could see any single current movie and you'll have plenty of time to discuss afterward. I think the sexual and class politics involved should make for a lively discussion - particularly if there are lots of couples in the audience.

To Be or Not To Be (1942)

Ernst Lubitsch was such a unique director that the phrase 'the Lubitsch touch' became a popular way to describe that certain something that he brought to his movies, mostly romantic comedies that gave them a special feel. This is one of his best.

The movie begins in 1939 just as the Germans are taking over Poland.  It's the story of Maria and Joseph Tura, husband and wife actors and heads of a popular Polish theater group. They are played by Carole Lombard and Jack Benny two of the best screen comedians ever. (Sadly it was Lombard's last role, released after she died in a plane crash while on a war bond sales tour.) Change comes immediately to Poland, of course, and the Tura's theater is closed. The closure, though, turns out to be the least of Tura's problems. A polish aviator that Maria was flirting with before he left to join the resistance in London is parachuted back into Poland with an urgent need to find and silence a Nazi spy. As they try to help him, avoid further trouble with the Nazis and sort our their marriage hilarity ensues despite the dire situation. The movie is most definitely a comedy (remember the stars). The Nazi's often seem like a secondary obstacle compared with Joseph's ego, Maria's excessive need for male attention, and the other petty squabbles within the theater company. Still the seriousness of the situation is not completely lost. In on triumphant moment in the movie, the whole theater company and the aviator are saved and able to evade the Nazis because of a ruse involving the recitation by the most obviously Jewish looking actor reciting Shylock's speech from The Merchant of Venice. I point out that the actor is obviously Jewish, because one of the many fascinating things about this movie is that despite dealing quite openly with many Nazi horrors (at least to the extent that they were known by the West in 1942), the words Jew and Jewish are never uttered. Remember that by 1942, most of what Hollywood was producing was designed to help the war effort - meaning there had to be a little propaganda in every film. Nonetheless, Hollywood studios, which were then mostly run by Jews, didn't want to go there. So Lubitch, makes it about the Jewish guy without ever saying he's Jewish.

Even now it's considered pretty dicey to make a comedy about Nazi's, and yet this comedy manages to evoke laughter and not cringes 72 years later.  This movie was remade by Mel Brooks - one of the only other people brave enough to mock the Nazis then or now -- and it was good, but this is better. Carole Lombard (Mrs. Clark Gable at the time) was beautiful and funny, VERY funny. Jack Benny has never been better and the supporting cast is excellent. An added bonus for those of you who only know Robert Stack from America's Most Wanted you see him here at age 21 or 22 and pretty darn good looking.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, what more could you ask for? Well, you may not ask but it has a brilliant script and excellent direction by George Cukor as well. The movie was based on a successful play by Phillip Barry. Hepburn had starred in the play on Broadway, where she had gone for refuge when her career hit a very rough patch in the late 1930s (she was famously declared to be box office poison by the theater owners). She planned her return to Hollywood brilliantly, however, by purchasing the rights to the play (with the financial support of her then-boyfriend Howard Hughes) so that she could have the last word on co-stars and director. Her first choice for the Cary Grant role was Spencer Tracy whom she had not yet met, but he was tied up so she settled for Grant only slightly reluctantly. This meant the postponement of their romance but it did the movie no harm.

The movie begins with a classic, the wordless end of the marriage of Tracy Lord (Hepburn) and C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant), childhood sweethearts from neighboring main-line Philadelphia families. We then immediately fast forward two years to the week before Tracy's second wedding to George Kittredge, self-made man who just happens to work for her father. In order to kill a story about Tracy's father and his chorus-girl paramour, Grant agrees to get access for two reporters from Spy magazine to do a story on Tracy's wedding. The reporter (Jimmy Stewart) and photographer (Ruth Hussey) are installed as house guests at the Lord mansion. Stewart is a serious writer who writes garbage for Spy to make the living that his serious writing does not produce. He and Hussey are a couple, but he's never been ready to settle down. The presence of these two and ex-husband Dexter wreak havoc on Tracy's wedding plans, thank goodness!

I've made this all sound very serious, but it's really a very funny movie. Of course all turns out well in the end but getting there is full of pitfalls and more importantly a VERY good script. Jimmy Stewart won best supporting actor for his role, although he was quoted as saying he really thought he was given the award because he didn't win for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the year before. Really it's Katherine Hepburn's movie, as she knew it would be when she acquired the play and insisted they make the movie with her.

Duck Soup (1933)

This is about as far as you can get from The Godfather but it may have one thing in common - not enough female fans. I think that a lot of women hear Marx Brothers and think guy thing like The Three Stooges. But the Marx Brothers had an intelligence behind their low brow humor that the Stooges never did. Certainly everyone should see at least one Marx Brothers movie so you can judge for yourself and my personal recommendation is Duck Soup. Some Film experts prefer the better plotted and written movies that they made under the tutelage of Irving Thalberg at MGM, but I still think that plot is as superfluous to a Marx Brothers movie as it is to an Astaire and Rogers musical. We really only care about the jokes, and Duck Soup is as chock full of one liners and sight gags as any movie you'll ever see.

Still, the plot, such as it is, is particularly timely in its anti-war message. The tiny European nation of Fredonia is rescued from bankruptcy by wealthy widow Mrs. Teasdale (played by the perennial Groucho foil Margaret Dumont). Her loan, however, is conditional on Rufus T. Firefly's (Groucho) being made President. Firefly is clearly mad, and immediately gets into a fight with the ambassador from neighboring Sylvania over the affections of Mrs. Teasdale. Their fight quickly escalates into war!

Francois Truffaut once said that Duck Soup was the best anti-war film ever because it refuses to take war seriously. I personally agree and I agree that movies and other cultural phenomena can have an enormous effect on people's view of any subject. But politics aside, this is mostly just hilarious nonsense. Harpo is at his slapstick best. Groucho does some hilarious songs and has numerous lines that can bring real laughter, not just wry smiles.  Check it out ladies I promise it's worth it.