DVD Review: Screwball Comedies Release, Vol. 1
Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell Star in Obscure Columbia Films
Aug 3, 2009
The two-disc, four-picture Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 1 includes two films with the great Jean Arthur, whose squeaky-croaky voice and beguiling manner made her among the most engaging of screen heroines. The other two movies feature Rosalind Russell, again playing to her screen image as the strong career woman whose life would certainly be better if only a man somehow were in it.
In the case of these films, both actresses are much better than the material.
If You Could Only Cook Lacking Spice
In this brief, slight 1935 comedy, Arthur is paired with the always stiff, ever proper Herbert Marshall. And therein lies the problem: there's zero chemistry between the spunky American blonde and the stuffy, too-old-for-her Briton.
Marshall plays a powerful but disenchanted automobile designer/executive about to marry his apparently faithless fiancee. He meets the down-on-her-luck Arthur on a park bench, and allows her to think he's broke, too. They concoct a plan to pose as a married butler and cook, then bluff their way into working for a demanding yet lovable mobster (Leo Carrillo) and his gravel-voiced henchman (Lionel Stander).
You can see the basics of Arthur's film persona -- that of a quirky, determined beauty -- developing here. But like everyone in the picture, she's undercut by uninspired dialogue and a sexless co-star lacking any comic touch. And while the usual Arthur charm is present, here it seems forced, as if she's trying too hard.
Not exactly what a screwball comedy's leading lady should be doing.
Too Many Husbands Reminiscent of Landmark Cary Grant Picture
In this one, Arthur is the bride of the ever-dapper Melvyn Douglas. The twist is that they married after her first husband mysteriously vanished a year earlier on a sailing trip.
So guess who shows up having spent the interval washed ashore on a remote island?
This 1940 comedy came out just two months before the far superior My Favorite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. The two films share a nearly identical premise, although the sexes are reversed; in Wife, it's Dunne who'd been on a deserted island.
Naturally, Arthur spends most of the film trying to choose between Douglas and former castaway Fred MacMurray. (In case you wondered, Fred's character had been declared legally dead through an expedited legal procedure. At least, that's how the movie conveniently explains it.)
Oh, did I mention Douglas and MacMurray are best friends and business partners? They were, anyway, before the little issue of their common wife came up.
Melvyn Douglas, Fred MacMurray Behave Like Teenagers
Arthur is alternately coquettish, tough and playful as she leaves the two mugs hanging and hankering for her.
The absurdities pile one atop the other, as the men bunk together in a spare bedroom, create ruses and other dirty tricks and generally behave like hormone-driven teens.
The one real problem is that the film's resolution is so weak that it's practically no resolution at all. But there is some fun in getting to it anyway.
My Sister Eileen is Vintage Roz Russell
By the time Rosalind Russell made this film in 1942, she'd already firmly established her tough-but-feminine screen persona in films including The Women and His Girl Friday. Here, she's a bit softer, but still commanding and in charge -- and winning enough to earn the first of her four Oscar nominations as best actress.
But while she's very good in it, the film itself is surprisingly uninvolving.
Russell plays Ruth Sherwood, a wannabe writer in Columbus, Ohio who ups and moves with her wannabe actress sister Eileen (the energetic Janet Blair) to New York.
Film Has Pre-Feminist Sensibility
You get a taste of Russell's take-charge attitude when they step off the bus in the Big Apple and a porter asks to take Eileen's bag. Ruth stops him.
"Eileen," Ruth instructs her, "we carry out own bags and we carry our own bodies."
With pre-feminist lines like that, Russell anticipates an entire generation of actresses like Susan Sarandon.
The episodic story details the "hilarity" of their life in a nightmarish basement apartment in Greenwich Village. The problem is that we're told repeatedly that their experiences are funny. This is like someone telling you a joke, then diligently explaining why you should be laughing.
Brian Aherne Co-Stars With Russell
Urbane Brian Aherne is miscast as a magazine editor/love interest for Ruth. Character actor George Tobias is along as the sisters' bewigged, lovably dishonest Russian (or is he Greek? Who can tell?) landlord. (Tobias may be best known as the next door neighbor Mr. Kravitz on the old Bewitched TV series.)
She Wouldn't Say Yes -- But We Can
In this 1945 Russell vehicle, Roz is a psychiatrist whose "cute meet" involves repeatedly crashing into dashing serviceman/cartoonist Lee Bowman.
As Dr. Susan Lane, Russell is cocksure as usual. But this ultra self-controlled heroine meets her match in the persistent Bowman. They spend much of the movie engaged in an amusing mating dance punctuated by Russell's pungent sarcasm.
For example, there's this exchange on a westbound train sleeper car:
Bowman: This is my bed.
Russell: Is that so? Well, I'm in it.
Bowman: Well, where do you want me to go?
Russell: Can't you guess?
Elmer Fudd's Voice Makes Appearance
The fine supporting cast includes the very funny Adele Jergins as a Zsa Zsa-type man eater, Charles Winninger as Russell's scheming but benevolent father and Harry Davenport is Russell's free-spirited valet.
In a small role is Arthur Q. Bryan, the longtime voice of Elmer Fudd. Here, speaking in Fudd's voice, he's a hapless train passenger. Look also for a very young Darren McGavin in a small, unbilled role as a war veteran.
Of the four films in the package, She Wouldn't Say Yes is the most consistently entertaining and a nice snapshot of how 1940s movies portrayed psychiatry. Which is to say, rather contemptuously.
The set includes vintage trailers, plus the witless 1941 Columbia comedy short Ain't Love Cuckoo, from the Three Stooges' longtime director, Jules White.
Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 1 carries a suggested retail price of $24.96, and is available starting Aug. 4, 2009
Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 2 is reviewed here.
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