I have a special affection for the Fox comedies of the early ’40s. At a time when the other major studios were going for toney production values to make “prestige” comedies or marrying lurid technicolor to tepid stories playing to Midwestern sensibilities, Fox somehow remained loyal to the gritty escapism of the early and midContinue reading “Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941)”
Author Archives: Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.
Smart Woman (1931)
Smart Woman was one of Gregory La Cava’s first soundie comedies, and one of Mary Astor’s very few leading comic roles. Astor was a competent comedienne, but by the time sound was introduced her aura and style were practically fixed in stone: serious, refined, intelligent, ethereally beautiful, and dignified — so dignified that pratfalls wereContinue reading “Smart Woman (1931)”
She Married Her Boss (1935)
Gregory La Cava was an ingenious, supremely gifted director of comedies. He was universally respected and admired, but like his peer Leo McCarey, he has never been accorded auteur status because he didn’t have the power (and probably the desire) to write his own screenplays like Preston Sturges, or to choose scripts that could beContinue reading “She Married Her Boss (1935)”
The Amazing Mr. Williams (1939)
Classic Hollywood made a lot of derivative, unimaginative, and badly made comedies, but some were so ham-handed and spiritless that they are insults to the genre and the medium. One of these is Columbia’s The Amazing Mr. Williams. I’d prefer to just let it rot in oblivion but it has enough fans that I can’tContinue reading “The Amazing Mr. Williams (1939)”
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Preston Sturges was the only true comic genius of classic Hollywood comedy. He was the most artistically ambitious comic director of his time. He wanted to do everything better than anyone else around him. He wanted to be the best screenwriter, the best director, the best synthesizer of comic styles — not just of filmContinue reading “The Palm Beach Story (1942)”
Lady for a Day (1933)
I haven’t written much about Capra’s comedies so far because so much has been written about them already that it’s hard to screen out the noise and to say something new. For the record, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was revelatory for me when I first saw it some fifty years ago. It was theContinue reading “Lady for a Day (1933)”
The Affairs of Cellini (1934)
In his prime in the late ’20s and early ’30s, Gregory La Cava was an amazingly versatile and restless director of comedies. When he was assigned to direct The Affairs of Cellini by RKO he had made some of W.C. Fields’s best silents (and according to Fields, invented his lasting screen persona), as well asContinue reading “The Affairs of Cellini (1934)”
Bed of Roses (1933)
Gregory La Cava’s Bed of Roses was one of the films that inspired me to blog about Hollywood comedies of the ’30s and ’40s. I stumbled on it on TCM. I’d never heard of it before then. I admired My Man Godfrey, so I was interested in La Cava’s other films. Bed of Roses surprisedContinue reading “Bed of Roses (1933)”
Stage Door (1937)
Stage Door is one of the most revered movies in the high canon of classic Hollywood comedies, deservedly. Probably the most utopian, non-heterosexist story produced by Hollywood by that time. Read as queer, it works. Read as women’s friendship and solidarity, it works, too. As critique of the whole infrastructure of romantic comedy, also works.Continue reading “Stage Door (1937)”
Arsenic and Old Lace (1943)
Arsenic and Old Lace was the first Capra comedy I ever saw, long before I cared about who Frank Capra was. As a young teenager watching a Halloween special, I thought it was howlingly funny. When I watched it again as an adult, I thought it was pretty bad. Nowadays, I still think it’s oneContinue reading “Arsenic and Old Lace (1943)”