The Awful Truth. (U.)
Directed by Leo McCarey. 1937.
Starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy, Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale and Joyce Compton. Black and white. 88 mins. Out on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection.
Screwball comedy is the term used to describe The Awful Truth, which seems somehow misleading. There are moments of farce, moments of slapstick, it moves at a phenomenal lick and it is wildly funny, funnier perhaps than any other talkie Hollywood has made over the last century, but it is never frantic. It's a busy little film and not a moment of the hour and a half is wasted, but what you take away from it is a marvellous sense of calm. It's the happy serenity of watching people doing something they are so naturally assured at, that they are totally relaxed, even as they are doing it at a hundred miles per hour. I don't know if this is Hollywood's funniest ever comedy but it breezes past in a happy blur of sheer joy.
It starts with Grant getting a fake tan to persuade his wife (Dunne) that he's been in Florida for a week when he hasn't. Tan acquired he goes home to meet up with his loving wife who piles in mid-morning with a suave foreign type (D'Arcy), her singing coach, with whom she has had to spend the night with in a country hotel, after his car broke down. Almost instantly they decide to divorce but when Dunne pairs off with an oil millionaire from Oklahoma, (Bellamy) Grant just can't seem to keep away from them or resist sticking his oar into their fledgeling relationship.
Divorce is a serious matter and shouldn't be embarked on frivolously, but the foundations for it in this picture are entirely groundless and seemingly irrelevant. (Spoiler – intriguingly the matter of why Grant needed to lie to Dunne about being in Florida, or if Dunne had anything to hide about her relationship with D'Arcy is never resolved. The truth, either awful or innocent, is not important.)
The Awful Truth is a sparkling comedy with a sparklingly witty script, most of which was apparently made up on set. McCarey was the man who introduced Mr Hardy to Mr Laurel which would have been enough right there, but he also directed the greatest Marx Brothers movie (Duck Soup) as well as films with Harold Lloyd and W.C. Fields. For the talkies, he was one of the great improvisers. The Awful Truth is based on a hit play but he and scriptwriter Viña Delmar ditched the play and often told the performers to make up their own lines.
Improvised comedy is the rule now, and it always shows. Most times you don't need the blooper reel over the end credits to see that the performers have been given, or have taken, a free reign with the words in the script. In The Awful Truth, it is a real shock to find out that these wonderful lines and joyous comic setups aren't the product of a wonderful script that has been stuck to vigourously. It is all so beautifully organised.
The Awful Truth is generally seen as the movie when Cary Grant really became Cary Grant. (Check out David Cairns' insightful video essay Telling Lies About Cary Grant in the extras, where he shows the man in the roles before this, where he is looking around trying to find his way.) McCarey's loose directing style (which Grant hated) brought out the magic in him, and Grant helped himself to some of McCarey's mannerism to complete the creation.
And what a creation. His performance sets the tone for the film. He is full of frantic bits of action. You can see his acrobatic training in the splendid slapstick sequence of him falling off of a chair during a hushed music recital. You also get the extraordinary joy of his shocked double take where he cricks and extends his neck like a Turkey hearing jingle bells. He's so preposterously perfect the world seems to be conspiring to pull him down a peg or two in revenge, to turn that perfection against him and make him uncomfortable. (For example, the scene where he is forced to ride of the handlebars of a police motorbike.) But he just takes everything in his stride, is always in on the joke, even when it is on him. Some of the best moments are him reacting to the actors around him, the pleasure he projects at their performances. And the performers around him are great pleasure givers. Dunne was the bigger star at the time and she was a perfect foil for Grant, (she sounds a little like Katherine Hepburn.) Ralph Bellamy is a charming clod.
The Awful Truth is definitely a They Don't Make 'Em Like That Any More kind of picture. But unlike other They Don't Make 'Em Like That Any More genres, they don't even try anymore. Today they don't regularly make biblical epics or westerns or musicals or weepies, but just occasionally they'll have a go because there's just enough space in the market for the occasional rehash. Nobody has tried this kind of romantic sophisticated screwball comedy in decades, probably because it is no longer possible to present the idol rich sympathetically. (I'm guessing Arthur, or pedantically Arther 2, was the last time.) In the Depression, audiences lapped up the sozzled antics of the boozed up aristocracy, because their wealth seemed so innocent. You can't pull that trick these days.
The Extras
Directed by Leo McCarey. 1937.
Starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy, Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale and Joyce Compton. Black and white. 88 mins. Out on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection.
Screwball comedy is the term used to describe The Awful Truth, which seems somehow misleading. There are moments of farce, moments of slapstick, it moves at a phenomenal lick and it is wildly funny, funnier perhaps than any other talkie Hollywood has made over the last century, but it is never frantic. It's a busy little film and not a moment of the hour and a half is wasted, but what you take away from it is a marvellous sense of calm. It's the happy serenity of watching people doing something they are so naturally assured at, that they are totally relaxed, even as they are doing it at a hundred miles per hour. I don't know if this is Hollywood's funniest ever comedy but it breezes past in a happy blur of sheer joy.
It starts with Grant getting a fake tan to persuade his wife (Dunne) that he's been in Florida for a week when he hasn't. Tan acquired he goes home to meet up with his loving wife who piles in mid-morning with a suave foreign type (D'Arcy), her singing coach, with whom she has had to spend the night with in a country hotel, after his car broke down. Almost instantly they decide to divorce but when Dunne pairs off with an oil millionaire from Oklahoma, (Bellamy) Grant just can't seem to keep away from them or resist sticking his oar into their fledgeling relationship.
Divorce is a serious matter and shouldn't be embarked on frivolously, but the foundations for it in this picture are entirely groundless and seemingly irrelevant. (Spoiler – intriguingly the matter of why Grant needed to lie to Dunne about being in Florida, or if Dunne had anything to hide about her relationship with D'Arcy is never resolved. The truth, either awful or innocent, is not important.)
The Awful Truth is a sparkling comedy with a sparklingly witty script, most of which was apparently made up on set. McCarey was the man who introduced Mr Hardy to Mr Laurel which would have been enough right there, but he also directed the greatest Marx Brothers movie (Duck Soup) as well as films with Harold Lloyd and W.C. Fields. For the talkies, he was one of the great improvisers. The Awful Truth is based on a hit play but he and scriptwriter Viña Delmar ditched the play and often told the performers to make up their own lines.
Improvised comedy is the rule now, and it always shows. Most times you don't need the blooper reel over the end credits to see that the performers have been given, or have taken, a free reign with the words in the script. In The Awful Truth, it is a real shock to find out that these wonderful lines and joyous comic setups aren't the product of a wonderful script that has been stuck to vigourously. It is all so beautifully organised.
The Awful Truth is generally seen as the movie when Cary Grant really became Cary Grant. (Check out David Cairns' insightful video essay Telling Lies About Cary Grant in the extras, where he shows the man in the roles before this, where he is looking around trying to find his way.) McCarey's loose directing style (which Grant hated) brought out the magic in him, and Grant helped himself to some of McCarey's mannerism to complete the creation.
And what a creation. His performance sets the tone for the film. He is full of frantic bits of action. You can see his acrobatic training in the splendid slapstick sequence of him falling off of a chair during a hushed music recital. You also get the extraordinary joy of his shocked double take where he cricks and extends his neck like a Turkey hearing jingle bells. He's so preposterously perfect the world seems to be conspiring to pull him down a peg or two in revenge, to turn that perfection against him and make him uncomfortable. (For example, the scene where he is forced to ride of the handlebars of a police motorbike.) But he just takes everything in his stride, is always in on the joke, even when it is on him. Some of the best moments are him reacting to the actors around him, the pleasure he projects at their performances. And the performers around him are great pleasure givers. Dunne was the bigger star at the time and she was a perfect foil for Grant, (she sounds a little like Katherine Hepburn.) Ralph Bellamy is a charming clod.
The Awful Truth is definitely a They Don't Make 'Em Like That Any More kind of picture. But unlike other They Don't Make 'Em Like That Any More genres, they don't even try anymore. Today they don't regularly make biblical epics or westerns or musicals or weepies, but just occasionally they'll have a go because there's just enough space in the market for the occasional rehash. Nobody has tried this kind of romantic sophisticated screwball comedy in decades, probably because it is no longer possible to present the idol rich sympathetically. (I'm guessing Arthur, or pedantically Arther 2, was the last time.) In the Depression, audiences lapped up the sozzled antics of the boozed up aristocracy, because their wealth seemed so innocent. You can't pull that trick these days.
The Extras
- New interview with critic Gary Giddins about director Leo McCarey
- New video essay by film critic David Cairns on Cary Grant’s performance
- Illustrated 1978 audio interview with actor Irene Dunne
- Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1939, starring Grant and Claudette Colbert
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Molly Haskell
