Classic Films in Focus: THEODORA GOES WILD (1936)

The truly delightful Theodora Goes Wild (1936) is an underappreciated gem of the screwball genre, one that ought to be much better known today among fans of classic romantic comedy. Its stars, Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas, are A-listers performing at their comedic best in this outing, although director Richard Boleslawski lacks the name recognition of Capra, Hawks, and Sturges, all widely celebrated for their screwball films. The movie was a hit in 1936, and Dunne, in her first starring comedic role, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance as the titular Theodora, a young woman living a double life in a conservative New England town. Knowing that some readers won't have seen it before, I'm hesitant to spoil too much of the plot of Theodora Goes Wild, which makes great use of its second act twist, but it's such a charmer that I can't help shouting its praise now that I've finally seen it myself.

Dunne plays Theodora Lynn, a church organist raised by her strict spinster aunts (Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade) in a narrow-minded little town named for the Lynn family. Under the pseudonym Caroline Adams, Theodora is also the best-selling author of a racy romance novel, with heaps of money piling up in her bank account and her publisher (Thurston Hall) eager for a new book. Theodora's effort to keep her two lives completely separate becomes complicated once nosy, carefree illustrator Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas) learns her secret and blackmails his way into her aunts' house. When Theodora finally "goes wild," Michael finds that his intervention has worked far better than expected, and with alarming consequences for everyone connected to her, including Michael himself.

The situation of a young person chafing under the constraints of life in a small, uptight town full of busybodies has enduring appeal, especially to those who experience it in real life, but the movie softens its criticism with scenes of berry picking, fishing, and other rural pleasures. Still, it won't make you want to relocate to Lynnfield, where self-righteous old women decry the liberal values of "civilization" and threaten to boycott the local newspaper run by Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell) when he publishes the Caroline Adams novel as a serial. Theodora's aunts have great sway with this crowd as representatives of the Lynn family, but the worst of the lot is the gossipy, hypocritical Rebecca Perry, played with particular comedic malice by Spring Byington. Melvyn Douglas' Michael drops into the town like a bomb, and he quickly throws Theodora, her aunts, and the gossips into a tizzy. The rakish troublemaker is determined to dig Theodora up like a rosebush in her aunts' garden and see her transplanted into more suitable soil, preferably New York, where her literary talents and her youthful energy have room to breathe. As it turns out, Michael also needs some digging up, which Theodora proves only too happy to undertake.

Screwball comedies so often turn on the idea of the woman as a chaotic, disruptive force, and it's great fun to see that switched here, with Douglas gamely balancing the obnoxious and attractive elements of the role. His constant whistling is especially destructive of the Lynn family's peace, but his instant attachment to a stray dog speaks to his generous heart, so we know that he's really a good guy in spite of his antics. When their situations are reversed, Theodora takes on the role of the relentless saboteur with equal enthusiasm and a striking disregard for her own reputation. Dunne is absolutely hilarious throughout, whether she's in retreat from Douglas or on the attack, and it's easy to see how this performance launched her into comedy classics like The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940). In spite of the disapproving Lynnfield ladies, the entire movie cheers for modernity, women's liberation, and gender parity with palpable enthusiasm. Ironically, their two chief supporters are both old men: Waterbury, the newspaper publisher, is an unrepentant radical, and Theodora's Uncle John (Robert Greig) is an unreformed rake who encourages her to live as she pleases. The second half of the story establishes the perfect equality between the two protagonists and gives Theodora Goes Wild an especially satisfying conclusion, with a finale that scandalizes Lynnfield in uproarious fashion and flirts with the limits of the recently enforced Hays Code.

Richard Boleslawski's directorial credits include The Painted Veil (1934), Les Miserables (1935), and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937); his sudden death in 1937 put a premature end to his career. A five-time nominee for Best Actress, Irene Dunne never won an Oscar but gained lasting fame in dramatic films like Show Boat (1936), Love Affair (1939), and I Remember Mama (1948), as well as her comedy roles. Melvyn Douglas won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars late in his career, for Hud (1963) and Being There (1979), and earned a Best Actor nomination for I Never Sang for My Father (1970), but be sure to see him in earlier pictures like Ninotchka (1939) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). Nana Bryant has a small but very funny role as the book publisher's wife, Ethel Stevenson, which might tempt you to look for more of her in Brewster's Millions (1945) and Harvey (1950).

Theodora Goes Wild is currently available for streaming on The Criterion Channel.

 

  

Classic Films in Focus: THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)

Of course it's a dark and stormy night when Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, and Melvyn Douglas stumble into a strange old house whose occupants are even more menacing than the raging floods outside, and director James Whale milks the atmosphere for all it's worth in this delightfully dire horror comedy. The Old Dark House (1932) delivers on all points, with thrills and giggles in equal measure thanks to the performers who make up the cast, including Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger, Charles Laughton, and Eva Moore.

Massey and Stuart play married couple Philip and Margaret Waverton, who, along with their traveling companion, Penderel (Douglas), literally wash up at the old dark house during a massive storm. They're not exactly welcomed in by the occupants, a strange brother and sister whose other family members haunt the upper floors of the gloomy mansion, but they settle in to stay the night and are soon joined by fellow refugees Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and Gladys (Lilian Bond). Things take a turn for the worse when the looming, mute butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff), gets drunk and releases the house's most dangerous resident, a pyromaniac murderer called Saul (Brember Wills).

If you're already familiar with Whale's sense of humor from Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), you'll appreciate more of the same in The Old Dark House (1932), especially with the crusty, deaf Rebecca Femm (Eva Moore) and her brother, the fey, nervous Horace (Ernest Thesiger). The brief appearance of their father, Sir Roderick, turns out to be a treat, too; the whole family is mad as hatters, which keeps the reluctant house guests in a constant state of confusion. Karloff's shambling Morgan is a scarier version of Lurch from The Addams Family; he spends a lot of time trying to molest Margaret, who has inexplicably changed out of her wet traveling clothes into the least practical evening dress one could possibly wear in a cold, damp lunatic asylum pretending to be a family home. The sense of impending doom is also lightened by the whirlwind romance of Penderel and Gladys, with Penderel seeming to nurse something of a foot fetish where his new love interest is concerned.

The atmosphere and cinematography also make this film a lot of fun, with fabulous camera shots lingering on Morgan's scarred face in closeup or building terrible suspense with just Saul's hand at the top of the stairs appearing in the frame. There's plenty of striking storm scenery, too, especially as the Wavertons wend their hazardous way through the deluge. Flickering candles and uncertain electrical lights add to the sense of dread; nobody wants the lights to go out in this house. The Gothic ambience and focus on crumbling heaps recall Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" but also Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and Whale shares Walpole's characteristic mingling of the ludicrous and the sublime. The joke of the title reveals the film's keen awareness of its place in relationship to earlier Gothic horror; the "old dark house" motif was a cliche of the genre long before 1932, but Whale's direction is always winking at us about the familiarity of it all.

Whale, Karloff, and Thesiger reunited for Bride of Frankenstein, while Gloria Stuart also stars in Whale's adaptation of The Invisible Man. Melvyn Douglas is not generally remembered for his horror films, but you'll also find him in The Vampire Bat (1933), and, much later, The Changeling (1980) and Ghost Story (1981). While Charles Laughton plays a solid fellow in this film, he really gets to work the horror vein in Island of Lost Souls (1932) and The Strange Door (1951). Don't miss Raymond Massey doing his own Karloff inspired turn in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). William Castle made his own version of The Old Dark House in 1963, so you could make a double feature of it by watching both adaptations of the novel by J.B. Priestley.

Domestic Madness in MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948)

As I watched Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) again the other day, several things struck me that I hadn't given much thought to on previous screenings. One was that director H.C. Potter might have sped things up a bit, especially in the first quarter, where the scenes run more like documentary than comedy. Another was that the degree of marital intimacy in the picture is unusual; the protagonists, played by Myrna Loy and Cary Grant, sleep in chaste twin beds but share a bathroom even when one of them is showering. It's obvious from the context that Jim Blandings is getting an eyeful of naked Muriel when he hands her a towel, even if the movie doesn't make a big deal of it. Finally, and most importantly, I was struck by the extent of the Blandings' privilege and extravagance as they build their monstrous dream house in Connecticut. I realized that some of the absurdity that is lost on modern viewers would have been painfully obvious to audiences in 1948, while other aspects that jump out at us would have been more or less invisible to viewers who were accustomed to the race and gender norms of their era. Take both kinds of excess and privilege together, and you begin to see a very different picture overall.

Early in the film, the Blandings live in Manhattan in a very small apartment, with two bedrooms and just one bath. We learn that Jim makes $15,000 a year as an advertising executive, a very good income in those days. The Blandings have two daughters, both enrolled in a progressive private school, and a live-in maid/cook, Gussie (Louise Beavers), whose quarters we never see in either the apartment or the house. Muriel Blandings doesn't work, cook, clean, deal with children all day, or run a large house; mostly she seems to make plans with decorators and move Jim's clothes around so that he can't find them. The Blandings struggle to get themselves out of bed at 7:30 AM, but Gussie is there, dressed and busy and ready with their cups of coffee and their breakfasts. Jim says his office doesn't open until 9, and he never gets there before 10, but he seems very put upon about getting up and getting ready to go.

That setup already gives a modern viewer a lot to unpack. Why can't the Blandings simply move to a better apartment? It would be cheaper and more convenient than moving to Connecticut, but the "dream" of the title involves the American obsession with the ownership of property and houses. The Blandings want to live that dream, even if it bankrupts them and forces Jim to rise before dawn for his commute. They already have some of the most telling parts of that dream, as far as it was expressed in earlier times. Muriel lives a completely domestic life unencumbered by any of the actual work of running a family home; Gussie does all of that for her. The Blandings can afford tuition for two children at an undoubtedly pricey private school. Still, we're meant to see their situation in the apartment as an unbearable plight. We're meant to sympathize with their desire to move out to the country and live in a big house with its own land.

Of course, the Blandings get in over their heads almost immediately. The "historic" house they buy is a wreck that has to be torn down, and then they're really off to the races as they plan an even bigger and more elaborate new home that has to be built. Muriel insists that all of the four bedrooms in the new house have two closets and a private bath; it's never clear if the maid's room has a bath at all, however, since it's only briefly mentioned and then never discussed again. 21st century American homeowners, with their obsession for McMansions of ever-increasing size, might not see the folly of Muriel's demands, but in 1948 it would have sounded crazy. My own house, a modest rancher built in the late 1960s, originally had three bedrooms, each with one closet, and two baths. My grandmother's house, built in the 1950s, also had three bedrooms and two baths for a family of four. That was considered plenty for a comfortable middle class family. The Blandings, however, are not building a middle class home; they are building the 1948 version of a McMansion, and they're getting deep into debt doing it.

All of this is presented as comic mayhem throughout the picture, but the end of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House actually attempts to validate the Blandings' privilege and extravagance as admirable. Jim's career is saved, not by his own efforts, but by the clever ham slogan invented by Gussie, whose reward for saving the family's bacon is a $10 raise (still no word on that maid's room bath, or whether it has any closets). Jim and Muriel's friend, Bill (Melvyn Douglas), who has criticized their rash decisions throughout the story, ends up approving their madness and casting a warm glow over the conclusion, where we see the family, still served by Gussie, relaxing on the grounds of their lavish new home. Thus a picture that seems at times like a critique of suburban excess and consumerism ends up an advertisement for them, beckoning city dwellers to cast caution to the winds and invest every dollar in pursuing this particular American dream. Savings be damned! We're off to the suburbs!

I don't mean to ruin our enjoyment of the film by imposing modern standards on it; anybody who watches classic movies knows that they have to be judged with consideration for the era in which they were made. In this picture, however, audiences of 1948 would have seen issues we don't see, while we see other issues that they didn't really want to consider. We catch the subtexts about race and gender and are glad things are different now, but we fell hook, line, and sinker for the big house madness that would have made a lot of original viewers laugh out loud. These elements make Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House a really interesting film to show in an academic setting, perhaps in an American history course or a seminar on race, gender, and class. New Yorkers, too, especially those in Manhattan, might have their own unique perspective on the film. Is Mr. Blandings building a dream or embracing a nightmare? The movie wants to have it both ways. Luckily for Mr. Blandings, the housing bubble was still half a century from bursting.

Classic Films in Focus: MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948)

Anyone foolish enough to think of building a home should be required to watch Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), in which Cary Grant and Myrna Loy endure all the horrors attendant on such an unpredictable endeavor. Eric Hodgins, who wrote the original novel version of the story, had real-life experience to inspire his tale of construction gone awry, and the film adaptation spares its protagonists no headache, setback, or expense, much to their dismay and the audience's delight. Director H.C. Potter guides Grant and Loy through all the everyday problems of a couple in close quarters as well as the extraordinary difficulties of their quixotic quest to build their dream home in the Connecticut countryside. A great supporting performance from Melvyn Douglas adds to the appeal, with Reginald Denny and Louise Beavers also making memorable appearances.

Cary Grant stars as Jim Blandings, a New York ad man who finds apartment living with his wife and two daughters much too cramped for comfort. Hoping for a better life, he and his wife, Muriel (Myrna Loy), buy a dilapidated and overpriced farmhouse in rural Connecticut, but they soon discover that the unstable relic must be torn down and a new home built in its place. The Blandings start construction on their dream home, despite the disapproval of their friend and lawyer, Bill (Melvyn Douglas), who sees that their additions and changes constantly delay the work and increase the final price. Everything that can go wrong does, and the strain of the experience threatens to drive Jim to distraction, even though his job is on the line for an important ad campaign.

Grant and Loy brilliantly capture the complicated emotions of a couple well beyond the honeymoon phase, still in love but pressed by the forces of daily life. Their early scene in a tiny bathroom is flatly unromantic but completely realistic; the heady thrill of intimacy has been replaced by competition for a little space at the mirror and the chance to take a hot shower. The two Blandings girls, played by Sharyn Moffett and Connie Marshall, also complicate their parents' relationship, and they are just at the age to ruffle their confused father's composure almost constantly. "Bicker, bicker, bicker," says one daughter, assessing her parents' vexed conversation but completely unaware of her own part in creating the conflict. It's easy to see why this family needs more space, but our sympathy for their situation begins to dwindle as we realize just how naive and impractical the Blandings are when it comes to home construction.

The building of the new house almost ruins the couple, both romantically and financially. Neither Jim nor Muriel has much sense about the cost or the problems associated with the project, and they have to find out the hard way. First the original home has to be torn down, then the new home transforms from a modest family dwelling into a rambling palace of additions and alterations. Muriel wants more closets and bathrooms, plus a garden sink and a sewing room, while Jim dreams up a game room and a study. They fail to realize that basic necessities, like a well, might end up being a lot more complicated and expensive to acquire. "You start to build a home and you wind up in the poor house," Jim laments. The stress of the process also brings out Jim's long simmering jealousy of his friend Bill, who was once one of Muriel's college sweethearts. At the climax of the picture, a storm provides a natural complement to the state of Jim's mind, tempest tossed as it is with the construction woes, Muriel's friendship with Bill, and the impending deadline for the Wham Ham campaign. Fortunately for the Blandings, this is a comedy, in which storms are inevitably followed by sunshine and even the worst home construction project will turn out all right.

Be sure to appreciate Louise Beavers in a small but pivotal role as the Blandings' maid, Gussie. H.C. Potter also directed The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). See more of Grant and Loy together in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), which also stars a teenage Shirley Temple. Catch Melvyn Douglas at his peak in Ninotchka (1939); he won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars later in his career, for Hud (1963) and Being There (1979). Reginald Denny's career began in the silent era, but he had a recurring role as Algy Longworth in the Bulldog Drummond films, and you'll also find him in Rebecca (1940) and Cat Ballou (1965).