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Jean Renoir once famously said that Leo McCarey understood people better
than anyone in Hollywood. And he was right. McCarey’s understanding of
the way people behave around one another, the little shows they put on
for themselves and for those they love, the stories they tell
themselves, is so precise and complete that it can take your breath
away.
He was the "problem child" of a gregarious West Coast fight promoter. He
tried his hand at songwriting, boxing and the law before he landed a job
as Tod Browning’s assistant in the early 20s. But his career really
began at Hal Roach studios, where he started working as a writer and
director of two-reelers for Charley Chase, Mabel Normand and then a very
long and mutually beneficial partnership with a comedy team known as
Laurel and
Hardy. McCarey jumped to features in the early 30s, and then
he really hit his stride. He worked with the greatest comic actors in
Hollywood, including W.C. Fields, Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor, Mae West
and the Marx Brothers on their finest movie, Duck Soup. But it was in
1935, with the lovely Ruggles of Red Gap, that he really found his tone:
gentle, exploratory, limpid, preternaturally sensitive. And, always,
hilarious. 1937 was his banner year, with the bookend masterpieces The
Awful Truth and Make Way for Tomorrow. And in 1939, he made the Empire
State Building into an icon of romance with Love Affair, which he
himself remade in Cinemascope and glorious Technicolor, 20 years later,
as An Affair to Remember. The mid-40s saw his wildly popular
collaboration with Bing Crosby in Going My Way and The Bells of St.
Mary’s. And even when his career took an ideologically ominous turn with
My Son John, his attention to people and their foibles never wavered.
Leo McCarey was a
great entertainer and a great artist. Come see for yourself.
THE AWFUL TRUTH
USA, 1937; 91m
When Leo McCarey was shooting THE AWFUL TRUTH, he spent his mornings
walking up and down the beach, thinking up what he was going to shoot
that afternoon. Such improvisatory looseness drove Cary Grant nuts,
although he apparently admired the final result, since he worked with
McCarey on two more occasions. To put it simply, this "comedy of
remarriage," a term coined by the great film theorist Stanley Cavell, is
one of the finest things Hollywood ever produced, as funny as it is
moving, as raucous as it is 100% accurate about the intricacies of love
and marriage. As a matter of fact, Cavell reckoned that it was the very
best of this especially rich vein of American film comedy. Grant and the
peerless Irene Dunne are the on again/off again couple, Ralph Bellamy is
the boorish suitor who threatens to whisk Dunne off to Oklahoma City
("And just think," says Grant with a twinkle in his eye, "if you ever
get bored you can always go to Tulsa!"), and the unsung Cecil Cunningham
as Dunne’s beloved Aunt Patsy.
Fri Dec 27: 1, 5 & 9
Sat Dec 28: 3 & 7
MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW
USA, 1937; 91m
When Leo McCarey won an Oscar for THE AWFUL TRUTH, he stood up, thanked
the academy, but reckoned that he’d won for the wrong movie.
THE AWFUL TRUTH is a masterpiece of one kind, MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW a masterpiece
of a wholly different kind — and the fact that they were both made in
the same year by the same director remains a source of astonishment. The
story of an aging couple (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) shunted back
and forth by their genteel but uncaring children, MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW
ranks with Tokyo Story as a portrait of aging and last things, of the
impossible gulfs between parents and children. In a way, it may be even
more moving and carefully observed than Ozu’s film. Bondi’s lonely
telephone conversation with Moore, which shames
a roomful of
pinochle-playing Manhattan sophisticates, will stay with you forever.
Fri Dec 27: 3 & 7;
Sat Dec 28: 1, 5 & 9
MY SON JOHN
USA, 1952; 122m
The most notorious of all red-baiting movies, MY SON JOHN has been very
difficult to see over the years, and just as difficult to put into
perspective. The story of a beloved son (Robert Walker) who returns home
to taunt his parents (Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger) and in the process
betrays his identity as a communist agent, MY SON JOHN is surprisingly
light on political rhetoric: McCarey is far too talented and probing an
artist to make a one-dimensional anti-communist tract. For roughly two
thirds of its length, it is a surprisingly potent movie about the awful
dilemma of children who become more sophisticated than their parents.
The emotional and physical intensity between Walker and Hayes, in her
first screen performance in 20 years, is at times astonishing. MY SON JOHN also deserves a place in film history for an
other, far sadder
reason. Walker committed suicide before shooting was finished, which
prompted some fancy directorial footwork and a little help from Alfred
Hitchcock, who provided McCarey with outtakes from Strangers on a Train.
Sun Dec 29: 1 & 6
GOOD SAM
USA, 1948; 114m
GOOD SAM has been called McCarey’s answer to It’s A Wonderful Life, and
while I’m sure McCarey would never have spoken of it that way (he often
said that Capra was his hero) the parallels between the two post-WWII
films are too many and obvious to ignore: both films are independent
productions; both have heroes with families, played by aging pre-war
all-American icons who go broke doing good works for others, who lose
large sums of money on Christmas Eve and try to drink their sorrows
away, and who are finally redeemed when their value to their respective
smalltown, middle-American communities is recognized. But this is a
movie about a very unusual subject: good samaritanism as addiction. In
fact, there are more parallels between Gary Cooper’s Sam and Ingrid
Bergman’s devastated heroine in Rossellini’s Europa ’51 than there are
with Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey. GOOD SAM is one of McCarey’s most
underrated films, a funny, astringent, brilliantly observed comedy with
a unique perspective on post-war America. With Ann Sheridan as Sam’s
long-suffering wife.
Sun Dec 29: 3:30 & 8:30;
Mon Dec 30: 1 & 6
ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON
USA, 1942; 117m
This is undoubtedly McCarey’s strangest movie. Ginger Rogers is a
burlesque performer who marries a German baron (Walter Slezak) and
secret Nazi sympathizer. Cary Grant is a reporter who follows her around
Europe in search of a story and falls in love with her in the process.
There’s a strange mixture of tones here — McCarey’s customary comic mode
alternates with more melodramatic moments, and the film attempts to go
even deeper in its outrage at the Nazis, most
troubling during the scene
where Grant and Rogers land in a concentration camp when they are
mistaken for Jews. But odd as it is, ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON still has
grace notes that only McCarey was capable of hitting. With a formidable
supporting cast that includes Albert Dekker and Albert Basserman.
Mon Dec 30: 3:30 & 8:30
LOVE AFFAIR
USA, 1942; 117m
McCarey was so fond of this story, written by Delmer Daves and Donald
Ogden Stewart, that he filmed it twice. In this version, Irene Dunne and
Charles Boyer are Terry and Michel, who meet on a transatlantic cruise,
fall in love, and elect to ditch their respective fiancés. They give
themselves six months to make good, and choose the observation tower of
the Empire State Building as their rendezvous point. When one of them
fails to appear, it takes a leap of faith to overcome the tragedies and
misunderstandings that have kept them apart. This is probably the more
soulful and intimate of the two versions — Boyer and Dunne are magical
together, and Maria Ouspenskaya gives a performance of uncharacteristic
warmth as Michel’s grandmother Janou. LOVE AFFAIR is the very essence of
Hollywood romance.
Tue Dec 31: 1 & 5:30;
Wed Jan 1: 3:30 & 8
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER
USA, 1957; 119m
It would be a tragedy if the world remembered An Affair to Remember as
nothing more than the movie Meg Ryan cries over in Sleepless in Seattle.
McCarey’s sumptuous remake of his classic LOVE AFFAIR, working from a
virtually identical script, is one of the great Hollywood romances, as
elegant as it is bursting with emotion, and as deft as one can imagine
in its mixture of laughter and tears. This time, Cary Grant and Deborah
Kerr are the couple, and they bring the story to a completely different
pitch from the one set by Boyer and Dunne: graceful restraint followed
by emotional outpouring. With Cathleen Nesbitt as grandmother Janou.
Tue Dec 31: 3 & 7:30; Wed Jan 1: 1 & 5:30
SIX OF A KIND
USA, 1934; 65m
The 30s were filled with cross-country and transatlantic races,
providing a backdrop for star-packed comic ensembles. In this one,
Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland are the Whinney’s, who are bringing
$50,000 across the country with their friends George and Gracie (Burns
and Allen — who else?). With the great W.C. Fields as "Honest John"
Hoxley, the sherriff of Nuggetville, who does a routine with a crooked
pool cue that is guaranteed to bring down the house.
Thurs Jan 2: 3:30, 6:30 & 9:30
LET'S GO NATIVE!
USA, 1930; 63m
An early example of the shipboard comedy/ farce/romances that end up
"south of the border" that were so popular in the 30s. Jeanette
MacDonald is the dress designer named Joan Wood who is forced to go to
Buenos Aires with a touring Broadway show to get paid. As always,
everyone is on the run: Joan’s beloved Wally (James Hall), Wally’s
friend Basil, who is being chased by Voltaire McGuinnis (Jack Oakie),
and Constance Cook (Kay Francis), the woman Wally’s grandfather wants
him to marry. This wasn’t really McCarey’s terrain — he would find his
home with a more behaviorally delicate from of comedy. But it’s peppy,
and it’s historically interesting.
Thurs Jan 2: 5 & 8
RUGGLES OF RED GAP
USA, 1935; 90m
One of McCarey’s finest films and one of Charles Laughton’s greatest
performances. Laughton is a British valet whose owner, the Earl of
Burnstead (Roland Young), loses him in a poker game to Mr. And Mrs.
Floud (Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland) of Red Gap in the USA. When
Ruggles arrives out west and far, far out of his element, he finds a
sense of freedom he has never known before, and he opens a restaurant
with a local widow named Prunella Judson (Zasu Pitts). An absolutely
beautiful, ineffably delicate comedy, whose most famous and profoundly
moving moments comes when Ruggles sits in a bar and flawlessly recites
the Gettysburg Address, which no one else can remember, to a hushed,
rapt audience.
Fri Jan 3: 3:15 & 7; Sat Jan 4: 6:30
Mon Jan 6: 3 & 7
DUCK SOUP
USA, 1933; 70m
"And remember while you're out there risking life and limb through shot
and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are," says
Groucho’s Rufus T. Firefly, proud ruler of Fredonia, who declares war on
hostile Sylvania. DUCK SOUP actually offended Mussolini — what greater
compliment could be paid to the film? In fact, it wasn’t too popular
here, either, at least in 1933. On college campuses in the 1960s and 70s
is another matter, and it is now recognized as the Marx Brothers’ most
brilliant and daring film. The pantomime scene is a classic, as is every
encounter between Groucho and the inimitable Margaret Dumont, but I’ll
take the stand offs between Harpo and Chico and the slow-burn king
himself, Edgar Kennedy, as an increasingly exasperated lemonade vendor.
Fri Jan 3: 5:15 & 9; Sun Jan 5: 1:30
Wed Jan 8: 3:15
SHORTS PROGRAM
USA, approx. 120m
Compilation of six shorts with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin
McCarey got the cinematic equivalent of basic training at Hal Roach
studios, where he directed and/or supervised countless shorts throughout
the 20s, and where he mastered the art of the gag, of which his special
variant was the slow burn. This selection of six 2-reelers, made between
1925 and 1929, represents some of the best work of his career. Mighty
Like a Moose and His Wooden Wedding star the inimitable Charley Chase —
in Moose, he and his wife are two homely specimens who get themselves
prettied up and then don’t recognize each other; in Wedding, Charley
gets a phony tip that his intended has a wooden leg. Pass the Gravy and
Don’t Tell Everything star the great unsung (at least at this juncture
in history) comic Max Davidson, in both cases as an exasperated father
(in Don’t Tell, his son Asher gets dressed up as the new maid and busts
in on Max’s love nest with his new, rich wife). And Big Business and
Liberty star everyone’s favorite thin Englishman and roly-poly
southerner, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Big Business, one of their
greatest films, is the one where they play Christmas tree salesmen at
war with a potential customer, while in Liberty they’re escaped convicts
who wind up putting on each other’s pants in the getaway car. It doesn’t
get too much better than this six examples of silent comedy at its greatest.
Sat Jan 4: 4; Sun Jan 5: 3:10;
Thurs Jan 9: 1:30 (no piano accompaniment)
RALLY 'ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS!
USA, 1958; 106m
McCarey’s last great film was this hilariously manic adaptation of Max
Shulman’s farcical novel about the Bannermans (Paul Newman and Joanne
Woodward), a married couple in tony, high-WASP Fairfield County,
Connecticut, whose marriage is led off course when Mr. Bannerman starts
paying more attention to Angela Hoffa (a very young, and funny, Joan
Collins) than he should. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bannerman is devoting all her
time and energy to keeping a missile base out of her town. With Jack
Carson, Gale Gordon and, as Grady Metcalf and Comfort Goodpasture (!),
Dwayne Hickman and the effervescent Tuesday Weld, who would soon go on
to fame together in another movie based on a Shulman novel (and its TV
offshoot), The Affairs of Dobie Gillis.
Sat Jan 4: 8:30; Wed Jan 8: 1 & 8:30
THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S
USA, 1945; 126m
GOING MY WAY was such an enormous hit that McCarey followed it up with
this equally charming film just a year later. This time O’Malley is sent
to act as guardian angel for St.
Mary’s, which is in serious danger of falling to the wrecking ball. When
he gets there he’s "up to his neck in nuns," led by sweet, lovely,
clever Sister Benedict, played by, of all unlikely people, Ingrid
Bergman. It’s a fascinating piece of casting, far odder and more daring
than it seems, and while the rapport between the two stars is
interesting, it’s really Bergman’s movie all the way. Her Benedict is a
complex character — wise but proud, scornful of fighting but smart
enough to recognize that one of her charges needs some boxing lessons:
the scene where she teaches him how to land an upper cut is one of the
most glorious moments of the 40s. If it’s possible, this is even more
behaviorally relaxed than GOING MY WAY. With Henry Travers as the
initially cold-hearted businessman.
Sun Jan 5: 5:30; Tue Jan 7: 3
GOING MY WAY
USA, 1944; 130m
McCarey’s most famous film is also his gentlest. Bing Crosby is wise,
charming, debonair Father O’Malley, who is placed at a faltering
Manhattan parish, run by the doddering but wise Father Fitzgibbon (Barry
Fitzgerald). O’Malley brings Fitzgibbon and his parish back to life in
no time. Basically a series of extended behavioral setpieces, the movie
is lovely, hilarious and, when Fitzgibbon sees his mother for the first
time since he was a boy, very moving. McCarey had quite a fondness for
packs of adorably mugging children, especially in this one (Crosby
teaches a pack of "street toughs" to sing "Swinging on a Star"). But
this is now, and that was then. With the always wonderful
Frank McHugh as the golf-playing Father O’Dowd, and the Metropolitan
Opera’s own Rise Stevens.
Sun Jan 5: 8; Thurs Jan 9: 4
THE MILKY WAY
USA, 1936; 89m
Based on the play by Lynn Root and Harry Clork,
THE MILKY WAY is probably Harold Lloyd’s best talkie, or at least stiff
competition for Movie Crazy and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock). Lloyd is
Burleigh Sullivan, a meek milkman who arrives just as his sister is
being accosted by two toughs, and without even touching them lays them
out cold. The two guys are the middleweight champ and his sparring
partner (William Gargan and the wonderful, gravel-voiced Lionel
Stander), and the press has a field day. The champ’s manager (Adolphe
Menjou) "milks" it for all it’s worth, setting up a series of fixed
bouts betweeen his fighter and the milkman. A wonderful little comedy,
and infinitely superior to the Danny Kaye remake The Kid from Brooklyn.
Mon Jan 6: 1, 5 & 9
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