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)”
Category Archives: Melvyn Douglas
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)”
Ninotchka (1939) – 1.
As a film comedy, Ninotchka is as close to perfect as the Hollywood studio system could ever produce. As an event — the conjunction of Garbo, Lubitsch, Brackett and Wilder, and MGM — it’s almost supernatural. As a Hollywood product, it’s that exceedingly rare thing: it’s a unique comedy. It’s both a loving parody ofContinue reading “Ninotchka (1939) – 1.”