Another archival surprise, and a big one! The Moon’s Our Home (1936), directed by William Seiter. Where to begin? It stars Henry Fonda (still in the comic scripting mode) and Margaret Sullavan. I’ve only seen Sullavan in a few films — most notably A Shop on Main Street and The Good Fairy. It’s uncanny to watch her now. In this film she’s a comic genius. There are glimmers of Ginger Rogers, Kate Hepburn, and Jean Arthur, but mainly of Lombard — but Sullavan is better at being Lombard than Lombard. Sullavan had a tragic life — really, truly sad. But in this film at least she’s radiant and flexible. I can’t believe I never heard about this film or her acting. Its influence on Sturges and Lady Eve is in-your-face undeniable. There’s Lubitsch and Hawks and McCarey – very diverse comic genius directors — apparent. I don’t know much about Seiter. He made dozens of films in Hollywood, which indicates that he must have had influence, like a football player who plays into his forties. The other films of his I’ve seen are pretty prosaic. Beyond all that, I think this could be one of the great unjustly neglected comedies of the period. It’s said that Sullavan — a beatnik, basically, well before her time — insisted that Dorothy Parker be hired to punch up the dialogue. The result is like a continuous emission of laughing gas. After watching this, I wonder whether folks shouldn’t revisit Preston Sturges’s films to see how much of what we thought was a native genius was sly parody of earlier great comedies. I would definitely endorse a battle of the bands between this film and The Lady Eve. But maybe the most intriguing thing about the film is how contemporary Sullavan’s whole presence is. It’s as if she was deep-faked into the film from the present — her looks, her manner, her bearing are all closer to Emma Stone than to Kate Hepburn. More esoteric and satisfying is the way the film constantly creates a z-axis comic effect. By that I mean that jokes suddenly become 3-dimensional, meta-jokes. It’s riotously, happily as pre-code sexy as a Lubitsch film. The clip I’ve uploaded is of a sublime scene straight out of Mozart opera: the Justice of the Peace is reading the ceremony of the vows while the couple argues violently. Their parallel, antagonistic lines dovetail again and again. There are a couple of other brilliantly choreographed exchanges. You can also feel The Philadelphia Story‘s sophistication, but it’s more swinging in this film.
