This week, we see Ms.de Havilland at her screwball best in It's Love I'm After.
She plays Marcia West, a young woman who spends her life falling in
love with actors; this time, it is stage actor Basil Underwood (played
by Leslie Howard), a vain ham who is engaged (off and on) to the equally
vain Joyce Arden (Bette Davis), his frequent stage costar. When
Marcia's fiance Henry Grant (played by Patric Knowles) decides that the
best way to get Marcia's infatuation quashed is to invite Basil for the
weekend, mayhem ensures. Especially when the irritated Joyce arrives at
the house party.
This is a truly funny movie, and Olivia is a riot
as the avid - and rabid - pursuer of Basil's affections. She has some
terrific scenes here. One, when Basil decides that the best way to
cool her ardor is to lock her bedroom door (with him inside) and
threaten her with "a fate worse than death". Her reaction is
priceless. Another, when Marcia decides that Basil is perhaps not all
he is cracked up to be, and announced that she should have just
continued her adoration of Clark Gable. "Clark who?" poses the baffled
Basil. (Six years earlier, he and Gable had costarred in A Free Soul).
This was the third, and final, paring of Leslie Howard and Bette Davis (they had earlier appeared together in The Petrified Forest and Of Human Bondage),
and their only comedy together. Neither really made all that many
comedies. However, there is a scene here, in which Davis, attempting to
keep Howard out of her room, piles furniture in front of her door.
Meanwhile, Howard climbs in the window. The scene would be copied years
later in another Davis comedy (this time with James Cagney) The Bride Came C.O.D. In either movie, it is still funny.
Our
discussion of the movie ended with a rather long discussion of Leslie
Howard. His early death in World War II, his sponsorship of Humphrey
Bogart, and his film career in general make him an interesting actor.
We've all seen many of his films. This was was a real breath of fresh
air, giving him the chance to do something he almost never gets to do -
be funny. We thought he sort of had that opportunity in The Scarlet Pimpernel (where
the comedy serves as a mask for his real identity.), but other than
that, this screwball comedy gave us a new vision of a wonderful actor. Here's a trailer:
Next week, we'll return with a later de Havilland comedy, The Male Animal.
We begin our latest film festival with The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.
It's true, our guest for this film festival has only a small part in
it, but it is such a good movie, we decided to start with Ms. de
Havilland in a supporting role. She plays Lady Penelope Gray,
lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth (Bette Davis). Madly in love with
the Earl of Essex (Errol Flynn), it is her manipulations that help bring
about his downfall. We did a little reading after the movie. Ms. D.
did NOT want to be in this film - after all, it really isn't much of one
for her (though she is still wonderful in it). The movie is all about
Bette Davis' Elizabeth and Errol Flynn's Essex. When they are on the
screen, you watch them. When they are NOT on the screen, you wait for
them to come back. Lady Penelope is just window dressing to propel the
action forward. But when you have an actress of the caliber of Olivia de
Havilland doing it, the part becomes memorable as well. (And, is this
the only movie in which she appeared with Flynn, in which she DIDN'T end
up with him in one way or another?) We were able to find a scene with Davis and de Havilland:
Again, our reading reminded
us of the story that I heard on TCM some time ago. That Davis loathed
Errol Flynn, feeling he was not an actor worthy of her talent. But that,
years later, she re-saw the movie (in fact, with Ms. D. in attendance)
and admitted that it was, in fact, a wonderful movie and that Flynn was
excellent in it. Just the final scene, as he goes to the block,
demonstrates the subtlety of his acting.
We also enjoyed seeing
the very young Nanette Fabray as Mistress Margaret Radcliffe, another
lady-in-waiting who is yearning for the return of her lover - a soldier
in Ireland. She is delightful; it is a treat to see her in a very
different part from the musicals we were used to.
On a recommendation, we broke up our festivals with a foreign film, Babette's Feast.The
story of two sisters in a remote Danish village, who give up their
chances at love to work with their father in his religious ministry.
The sisters, at the request of a soldier who once loved one of them,
take in a refugee from France, Babette Hursant (Stephane Audran), who
becomes their housekeeper. The sisters begin by teaching Babette how to
cook THEIR way (and it is pretty revolting-looking), but gradually,
Babette begins to cook her way, making their simple fare that much
better. Years pass, and Babette comes into a sum of money. The sisters,
sure Babette is about to leave, accede to her request to cook them one
great meal to celebrate the 100 anniversary of their late father's
birth. The entire ministry is invited, and Babette prepares a meal-to-end-all meals.
This is a lovely movie; we felt very sorry for
the sisters, who seem to almost have no choice than to stay buried in
this barren wasteland of a village. Their food is atrocious - salted
fish and bland bread. Only Babette's presence adds a little spice to
their culinary life. Contrast the scene where Babette makes their first
meal, per their instructions, to the feast she later prepares - and the
looks on the attendees faces as they sample these delicacies for the
first (and possibly last) time in their lives.
Certainly a movie worth a viewing. We heartily recommend it. And here's a trailer to introduce you to the film:
Next week, we start a new festival of Hollywood movies.
This week, we watched Nothing Sacred, a screwball comedy
which stars Carole Lombard as Hazel Flagg, a young woman from Warsaw, a
tiny New England town, who is diagnosed with radium poisoning. When
reporter Wally Cook (Frederic March) is looking for a story to get him
back on top, he hits on Hazel's misfortune as a means to re-ingratiating
himself with his boss. Only problem is, Hazel has since found out that
her doctor (Charles Winninger) was mistaken. She's fine. Hazel however,
wants her free trip to New York City (the gift promised by Wally), and
to get out of Warsaw, so she conceals her health, and goes to town as
the Martyr Who is About to Die. (My favorite line: "It's kind of
startling to be brought to life twice - and each time in Warsaw!")
In
some senses, it feels as though the writers wrote themselves into a
corner, and couldn't get out. They need a way to end it, so they do,
but whether it exactly works, is a matter of opinion. However, this is
screwball comedy, so on some levels it doesn't really matter. Ms.
Lombard is adorable as Hazel; loving the attention she is getting, but
horrified because people seem to so genuinely care that she is dying.
And, of course, falling in love with Wally who ALSO thinks she is about
to die. Here's a trailer:
There is also a great deal of wonderful character support
here. We were particularly tickled by a brief, uncredited appearance by
Hattie McDaniel, as the wife of a man pretending to be a Middle Eastern
potentate. One word from her, and we were laughing. You can't miss
that voice. Even without the closeup that we never got, we knew it was
her! Another delightful surprise was Margaret Hamilton as a local
neighbor of Hazel. She doesn't have a huge part, doesn't even have a
lot of dialog, but again, she is hysterically funny. We loved it.
Interesting to note is that both actresses were 2 years from their
breakthrough 1939 performances in Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.
