Gosse717pu
Dołączył: 05 Sty 2011
Posty: 120
Przeczytał: 0 tematów
Ostrzeżeń: 0/5
Skąd: England
|
 Wysłany: Wto 5:34, 12 Kwi 2011 Temat postu: air jordan 11 DVD Review Screwball Comedies Releas |
 |
|
The absurdities pile one atop the other [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as the men bunk together in a spare bedroom, create ruses and other dirty tricks and generally behave like hormone-driven teens.
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.)
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.
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).
So guess who shows up having spent the interval washed ashore on a remote island?
My Sister Eileen is Vintage Roz Russell
In the case of these films, both actresses are much better than the material.
Arthur is alternately coquettish, tough and playful as she leaves the two mugs hanging and hankering for her.
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.
Too Many Husbands Reminiscent of Landmark Cary Grant Picture
Not exactly what a screwball comedy's leading lady should be doing.
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.
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.
<
If You Could Only Cook Lacking Spice
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 [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], although the sexes are reversed; in Wife, it's Dunne who'd been on a deserted island.
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.
Read on
DVD Review: Rarely Seen Screwball Comedies
Jean Arthur - A Squeaky Voice For the Ages
Joan Crawford [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell
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.
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.
Melvyn Douglas, Fred MacMurray Behave Like Teenagers
Post został pochwalony 0 razy
|
|
