|
|
What We're Watching
The Man Who Came to Dinner
1942 Directed by William Keighley
Starring: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan and Monty Woolley
This isn't really a holiday film, though all the trappings of Christmas are wrapped around it: snow-laden streets, ice skating, Christmas Trees and gift giving.
Instead it is a showpiece of one-liners (many vicious) and the humor of a upper middle class midwestern family with cultural ambitions getting saddled with visiting radio celebrity Sheridan Whiteside when he busts a hip on their iced-over steps.
Actor Monty Woolley mostly badgers and yells at them during the course of 112 minutes of barbed-wit and over-the-top theatrics from the troupe of actors supporting Woolley: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Billie Burke, Grant Mitchell and Jimmy Durante. Written by Julius and Philip Epstein from the Moss Hart and George Kaufman play, the tale is unevenly carried over to the screen, and the cast is uneven in delivering the minimal story.
It seems to be the lineage of the material that affects these actors. Most of the cast is projecting to the far seats of a theatre, loudly and dramatically exploding their lines in front of the camera. This movie set mainly features the interior front entrance of a house and an enormous staircase going to an unseen second floor, this stage-left and stage-right set being a kind of bleachers for the two-room arena in the center where Whiteside issues his bombardment of vitriol. Example:
”My great-aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life; she lived to be 102, and when she had been dead three days, she looked better than you do now”
The exceptions to the pyrotechnics are Bette Davis and Mary Wilkes (as the put upon Nurse Preen who literally runs from the room after each sonic assault from Woolley). These two instead play right to the cameras, which adds that much more contrast to everyone else (especially Ann Sheridan, Durante and Woolley) who shoot all their cannons at once whenever they have the center of the stage.
Also on screen is the midwest families live-in aunt, Harriet Stanley (played by Ruth Vivian in her only onscreen movie role) who has a perfect and quiet speaking diction, and a secret which gives Whiteside the leverage he needs when he is about to finally be evicted by force by the long-suffering owner of the home (Grant Mitchell).
It is an entertaining film because of the quality of the writing, and certainly with this cast you will always be seeing something interesting happening on screen. Actor Richard Travis as the play writing newsman Bert Jefferson is handsome and grins a lot, but seems under-rehearsed or simply boring as the "love interest" for Bette Davis. I would have liked to have seen Nurse Preen go berserk and give Whiteside what he richly deserves, but instead Whiteside is triumphant in the end, encased in sentiment and a mischievous goodwill that makes this movie a kind of holiday film after all.
Directed by William Keighley
Written for the screen by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein
From the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Original Music by Friedrich Hollaender (as Frederick Hollander)
Cinematography by Tony Gaudio (director of photography)
Film Editing by Jack Killifer
Art Direction by Robert M. Haas (as Robert Haas)
Costume Design by Orry-Kelly (gowns)
Belle Davis Ann Sheridan Monty Woolley Richard Travis Jimmy Durante Billie Burke Reginald Gardiner Elisabeth Fraser Grant Mitchell George Barbier Mary Wickes Russell Arms Ruth Vivian Edwin Stanley Belly Roadman Charles Drake Nanette Vallon John Ridgely |
Maggie Cutler Lorraine Sheldon Sheridan Whiteside Bert Jefferson Banio Mrs. Ernest Stanley Beverly Carlton June Stanley Mr. Ernest Stanley Dr. Bradley Miss Preen Richard Stanley Harriet John Sarah Sandy Cosette Radio Man |
Original page December 2009 | Updated July 2011
New Jean Harlow book
I've not seen a copy of the book yet, but simply put, the Vieira Hollywood picture-books are the best albums on Hollywood, bar none, for well over a decade now. No one puts as much attention to the production aspects, design, picture choices, and then ladles the whole affair with affection and admiration in the text. Classic Hollywood has not had a modern explainer and admirer like Vieira for decades now, and the taste and skill brought to bear on his books make them both readable-fun and collectible (some of his past books are out of print and instead of dropping down to the remainder pricing so many used Hollywood books seem to end up at, his instead get harder to find and buy).
Book is by Darrell Rooney and Mark Vieira, 240 pages, Angel City Press. Available from amazon.com
New Book: Broken Silence: Conversations with 23 Silent Film Stars
This is a collection of 23 original interviews with stars of the silent screen, with biographical information and a filmography included for each.
Interviewed are Lew Ayres, William Bakewell, Lina Basquette, Madge Bellamy, Eleanor Boardman, Ethlyne Clair, Junior Coghlan, Joyce Compton, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Dorothy Gulliver, Maxine Elliott Hicks, Dorothy Janis, George Lewis, Marion Mack, Patsy Ruth Miller, Lois Moran, Baby Marie Osborne, Muriel Ostriche, Eddie Quillan, Esther Ralston, Dorothy Revier, David Rollins and Gladys Walton.
About the Author Michael G. Ankerich is a writer whose work focuses on the silent film era of Hollywood. A former newspaper reporter, he has written extensively for Classic Images, Films of the Golden Age, and Hollywood Studio Magazine, which featured his interview with Butterfly McQueen (Prissy) on the 50th anniversary of the release of Gone With The Wind.
Book is 319 pages, McFarland. Available from amazon.com
New Busby Berkeley book
Maybe the most revered of musical directors was the extreme-stylist of the golden era of Hollywood movies, Busby Berkeley, a man who changed what a stage-production meant on film by taking the camera and making it move like a winged-eye that could see the motion of actors from every angle. Whether they were underwater, behind glass, or below a skyward lense, Berkeley made synchronized motion more than a filmed reproduction of a Broadway play.
Book is by Jeffrey Spivak, 408 pages, University Press of Kentucky. Available from amazon.com