This sweet little film is a great departure for two of its main characters. Barbara Stanwyck, fresh out of production from the cinematic masterpiece "Double Indemnity," was cast in the role of Elizabeth Lane based on the columnist Gladys Taber from Family Circle Magazine. Sydney Greenstreet or better known to contemporary viewers as Sam Spade's antagonist in "The Maltese Falcon" also plays against type as Lane's publisher who is out of the loop that what she writes isn't so much a reality as he believes.
Elizabeth Lane is the opposite of what her column entails. Her weekly editorial in "Smart Housekeeping" paints her as a married woman with a child living on a farm complete with livestock and the best cooking that comes from her two hands. In reality, Lane is a single and childless city-dweller who relies on her chef friend Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sakall) for all of the recipes she documents. When returning war hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) proclaims all he wants for Christmas is a home cooked meal made by the woman herself, Alexander Yardley (Greenstreet) jumps all over this ready to make a journalistic spectacle out of the event. Forced to put this charade into physical form, Lane agrees to marry friend John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner, "The Man Who Came to Dinner") who conveniently also owns a farm in Connecticut. But the one thing Lane has even less control over is her attraction once meeting the war veteran.
According to Robert Osborne on December 24, 2014, "When the film came out in 1945, it was considered [...] nice, certainly, charming, absolutely, and popular. But it wasn't a movie with much of a lifespan." The movie now has a life of its own on TCM alongside "Holiday Affair" and "It Happened on Fifth Avenue."
On September 1, 1948, Robert Mitchum with actress Lila Lee and dancer Vickie Evans were let out of jail after a narcotics raid in Laurel Canyon, C.A. Mitchum was slapped with possession of marijuana. The legend goes that Howard Hughes, the head of RKO, offered Mitchum the role of Steve Mason in "Holiday Affair" to help him repair his public image beating out the like of Cary Grant, James Stewart, and even Montgomery Clift. The sweetly sanguine romantic comedy was not the typical role Mitchum would have taken, by this point better known for action and film noir films.
Despite the way Robert Mitchum got the role, he was a professional all the way through, but not without a few purposeful yet practical jokes on his co-stars, namely Janet Leigh ("Psycho"). "During a tense dinner scene, he and co-star Wendell Corey each slipped a hand onto her knee under the table. She started fidgeting in response, which turned out to be the perfect reaction for the scene. Later, when she and Mitchum shared their first kiss, he really kissed her, again getting just the right reaction for the scene." (Holiday Affair (1949) - Articles - TCM.com)
"Holiday Affair" is based on a short story by John D. Weaver. When a comparison shopper and widower Connie Ennis gets caught, then let go by store clerk and war veteran Steve Mason, there is immediate chemistry. But real life in form of a lackluster relationship with a longtime boyfriend Carl Davis (Wendell Corey, "Rear Window") and scraping by on the wages she receives intervenes, Connie finds the man she accidentally got fired entering her personal life. Her son, Timmy (child star Gordon Gebert), is immediately enchanted by the drifter and the friendship, along with Connie's hidden attraction, seems to make her even more furious and determined to get engaged to the reliable attorney.
Unfortunately the film lost 300,000 at the box office and was tepidly reviewed. In his book Popular Pictures of the 1940s, John Reid admitted Mitchum "handled the lightweight part with a professional flair of delightful nonchalance (while he wasn't buried under sticky dialogue of the sentimental kind) ." Now alongside "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" and "In the Good Old Summertime," Turner Classic Movies has taken "Holiday Affair" under its wing offering it new life to modern audiences.
"The Bells of St. Mary's" isn't necessarily a Christmas film, but is often clumped into the holiday genre with a short Christmas pageant being rehearsed for the film's stars, Ingrid Bergman as Sister Mary Benedict and Bing Crosby in his returning character of Father "Chuck" O'Malley. Crosby reprises his role from the hit of 1944, "Going My Way" playing once more the good natured but street smart priest who knows how to change people's lives. When in "Going My Way" he assists in the reunion of a father and daughter, O'Malley serendiptiously brings together a struggling mother and the father of her child and by extension, the preteen (Joan Carroll) herself.
Although both Sister Mary Benedict and Father O'Malley are not without their differences, they both know St. Mary's Parish and the attached inner-city school is close to being shut down and condemned. From her surroundings, Mary begins to unknowingly contract tuberculosis as the "enemy" (that adorable mushroom Henry Travers best known as Clarence in "It's a Wonderful Life") begins to make his move in turning the property into apartment buildings. The Nun and Priest continue their friendly rivalry through this adversity, O'Malley helping the Gallghers and Sister Mary helping a little boy conquer his bullies by teaching him how to box.
It would seem to be complete happenstance at the 1944 Academy Awards that would glue "The Bells of St. Mary's" to a greater destiny. Already in the early process of filming around award season in 1944, Crosby and McCarey won for their respective categories for "Going My Way" and Bergman winning for Best Actress for "Gaslight." In her acceptance speech, Bergman teased "I'm particularly glad to get it this time because tomorrow I go to work in a picture with Mr. Crosby and Mr. McCarey, and I'm afraid that if I went on the set without an award, neither of them would speak to me!" Bergman would also be nominated for her role in "...St. Mary's" which was inspired by McCarey's aunt, Sister Mary Benedict of the Immaculate Heart Convent in Hollywood, CA. Other nominations included accolades for Crosby and McCarey as well as Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Best Music, Song, and Best Picture. It would win the Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording.
"The Bells of St. Mary's" would end up becoming the 50th highest grossing film of all time, bringing in 8 million from North America alone. According to Box Office Mojo, it brought an adjusted gross of 523,294,199 dollars just barely preceding "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Finding Nemo." The New York Times, while a harsh critic, offered nothing but praise to Ingrid Bergman's role as "exquisitely serene, radiantly beautiful and soft spoken ... And there are moments [...] in which she glows with a tenderness and warmth."
In the blind hope to bring back the dynamic duo from 1942's "Holiday Inn," Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, "White Christmas" would end up becoming an unexpected entity and bumpy ride all on its own. Astaire terminated his contract with Paramount leaving in favor of making "Daddy Long Legs" with 20th Century Fox. Crosby's wife, singer Dixie Lee, passed away the year before of cancer, leaving Bing wanting to spend a little more time as a father around the same time Astaire left. But Crosby had returned to Paramount in late January 1953 to the news Astaire would be replaced by Donald O'Connor ("Singin' in the Rain"). That didn't last long as O'Connor fell ill and would be replaced by comedian Danny Kaye. Kaye would cost Paramount "200,000 plus ten percent of the gross." ("White Christmas (1954) - Articles - TCM.com")
Kaye turned out to be the best choice in creating the role of entertainer Private Phil Davis bringing many laughs to the set. Simply horsing around with the usually wooden Crosby singing and dancing to "Sisters" found its way into the plot as a distraction while the Haynes Sisters make their escape from the Florida club. The giggles during this little scene is completely sincere as both men can barely hold it together complete with Kaye hitting Crosby with the fan and their pants rolled up.
As previous soldiers, Captain Bob Wallace saved Davis from an explosion at their army camp over in Europe with the latter feeling as if he owes his superior from that point on. They end up a famous entertainment duo turned Broadway producers after the war and finding themselves having to check out what they believe an old soldier buddy's sisters who have a singing act together (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen). It is instant chemistry between Bob and Betty with Davis ecstatic he can get the overbearing stiff off of his hands for awhile. It is further serendipity when they find out the sisters are heading up to the Columbia Inn in Vermont which is owned by their former commander Major General Waverly (Dean Jagger). Intrigued and without their sleeping rooms on the train with Davis offering them to the sisters, the boys find themselves helping the man they used to serve with a "let's make a show" arc for the rest of the film as Bob and Betty's relationship grows then falters to only to grow all over again.
While the plot may be a little thin compared to "Holiday Inn" and covering it up with hit Irving Berlin tunes ("Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me," "Choreography," "Mandy" among many others), this film is one to suspend one's dimension of reality to a fault. Even Berlin, the man himself, felt the film had the feel of a Broadway musical. "Usually there's little enthusiasm once you get over the first week of a picture. But the change in this setup has resulted in an excitement that I am sure will be reflected in the finished job. In any event, as of today I feel great and very much like an opening in Philadelphia with a show," Berlin explained in a letter to friend and columnist Irving Hoffman. (White Christmas (1954) - Articles - TCM.com)
Berlin got his wish posthumously in 2004 when "Irving Berlin's White Christmas" premiered in San Francisco and toured the country until its last performance 10 years later in London. While it wasn't the most successful Broadway musical, the film raked in 12 million in theaters and now has a life of its own during the holidays on the cable channel AMC. While it originally didn't serve up many fantastic reviews, despite an Academy Award nomination for Irving Berlin's "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep," The New York Times did praise "the colors on the big screen [as] rich and luminous, the images [as] clear and sharp, and rapid movements are got without blurring" as a compliment to the use of VistaVision and Technicolor. But much like "It's a Wonderful Life," "White Christmas" has become well-loved by the people and over time, by the critics.
Adapted from Philip Van Doren Stern's "The Greatest Gift," "It's A Wonderful Life" was very much a Deathmatch for RKO screenwriters in 1944. After purchasing the rights in April for 10,000 and three poorly written scripts later (written by Dalton Trumbo then revised by both Clifford Odets and Marc Connelly), RKO producer David Hempstead had no choice but to release the film they had hoped to be a Cary Grant vehicle a year later. Grant would go on to make another holiday classic, "The Bishop's Wife" and Frank Capra bought the current mess of "It's A Wonderful Life" for 10,000 [and the three scripts for free] for Liberty Films, a production company he owned with many directors including George Stevens ("Giant", "A Place in the Sun").
A year later, Herbert Clyde Stewart and Frederick Stephani's script "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" was optioned to Liberty Films in 1945. By this point, Capra was knee-deep in cleaning Trumbo's mess of a screenplay with help from the writing duo Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. The great Dorothy Parker and Michael Wilson were also brought in to refine the dialogue. "In Joseph McBride's book on Capra, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success, Jo Swerling is estimated to have redone a quarter of the script. In the end, only Capra, Swerling, and Hackett received actual writing credits." ("FRANK CAPRA | It's A Wonderful Life 1946")
Rejected, "...Fifth Avenue" went on to another new production company. the famed low budget Monogram Pictures. Now in need of a revival and convinced that B-movies were of the past, a new unit named Allied Artists Productions was made to create "costlier films." Better known for "The Ziegfeld Follies" and the "Broadway Melody" movies, veteran producer and director Roy Del Ruth took interest in this film that same year. By the end of summer 1946, Ann Harding ("Holiday" (1930), "The Lady Consents"), Victor Moore ("Make Way for Tomorrow," "The Seven Year Itch"), Cedar Rapids, IA native Don DeFore ("The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet"), and Gale Storm ("My Little Margie") were enlisted and filming began right away in August, finishing in October. The Del Ruth picture would unfortunately cost Allied Artists more than 1,200,000, but like the first child of a large family, the production company fixed their mistakes later on. But the expensive film would end up doing "solid business at the box office and generate[d] positive word of mouth." ("It Happened on Fifth Avenue - Articles - TCM.com")
Liberty Films ended up borrowing 1,540,000 from their bank to create the now legendary Bedford Falls (modeled after Seneca Falls, NY) and all of its inhabitants including acting giant Lionel Barrymore. After 3 months of shooting from April to July in 1946, "It's A Wonderful Life" premiered in December the same year at The Globe Theater in New York City. What would follow for this relatively lackluster reviewed film came in the form of five [1947] Academy Awards nominations. A special award was given to the RKO Effects Department for a new recipe for film snow that now included "a soapy, liquid-based artificial snowflake versus the old method of painted corn flakes being blown by a wind fan." ("FRANK CAPRA | It's A Wonderful Life 1946") "...Fifth Avenue" would also be nominated in the next year's Academy Awards for Best Original Story, losing to "Miracle on 34th Street."
Both films would end up in obscurity over time. Currently in the 20th spot on "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies," Liberty Films had no choice but to seek better finances and found their partner in Paramount Pictures. West Coast distributor M. & A. Alexander would purchase the film along with nine other "first-run feature films in a proposed 13-title package. In some cases, the Alexanders made an outright purchase [...] and on all of them they have world-wide rights. It is understood they intend doing some theatrical business on a few before releasing them for TV." (Billboard (May 28, 1955)) The film would be passed off to National Telefilm Associates (NTA) until the copyright was terminated in 1974. In the public domain and free to television and cable companies throughout the '80s, it was the syndication of the film that made it the hit that it is today. Now, "It's A Wonderful Life" is back with its mother, Paramount.
"It Happened on Fifth Avenue" would have a later destiny. Along with 49 other films from both Monogram and Allied Artists, the Del Ruth picture would be a part of the first films licensed for TV syndication. Copyright would always remain intact, but in the 1990s, a total disappearance of both syndication and retail availability had fallen upon the quiet hit of the '40s. Despite many great efforts to place the film back into the public consciousness, "...Fifth Avenue" disappeared completely for twenty years until November 2008 when Warner Home Video released it on DVD. Turner Classic Movies now has it amongst its usual holiday fare making this woman a believer in Victor Moore's most charming role.
From Bedford Falls to New York City
Aloysius T. McKeever
(Victor Moore) is a professional squatter in
"the second richest man in the world" Michael J. O'Connor's New York
City mansion. Practically making a career out of this, McKeever wears
O'Connor's clothes, dusts, and keeps the house in order as long as it's
somewhere warm. But when chance brings more people into the home (ex-G.I. Jim
Bullock (DeFore) and all his G.I. friends along
with O'Connor's runaway daughter), the divorced and hard-nosed Michael O'Connor himself finds he must impersonate a hobo just to observe how much Trudy (Gale
Storm) has fallen in love with Jim.
From this point on,
O'Connor goes on an emotional journey that is not without some stubborn
roadblocks. All the while he is treated as a servant by McKeever, O'Connor
attempts to employ Jim at an international
construction company far away from his daughter. Completely subservient to his
surroundings and eventually his ex-wife [impersonating an impoverished
cook], "Mike" begins to warm up to his family, but not to the
strangers living in his home. When Jim and his friends come up with the idea to
convert an old army camp into workforce housing [which incidentally is also
land O'Connor has his eyes on for a business venture], a bidding war ensues
which would drive a wedge between the lovebirds as well as father and
daughter.
George Bailey's emotional
journey might be of a different ilk, but the motivation is much the same as
O'Connor's. It comes in the form of 8,000 dollars lost by his uncle
and business partner. Desperate and discovering his life insurance policy would
cover the missing money, Bailey, a beloved local, legitimately considers
suicide but something spiritual intervenes. With the assistance of a 2nd class
angel Clarence (Henry Travers), Bailey finds out what Bedford Falls would be
like if he was never born.
O'Connor has much more on
his plate than Bailey: the individual relationships between his wife and
daughter, having to pretend to be of a "lower class," the growing
respect of the man he refuses to have as his son-in-law, and the subservience
he has to the "patriarch" that is McKeever. His humility isn't the
easiest to achieve, but by the end of the movie "Mike" considers the
hobo "far richer than I am." "It's A Wonderful Life" is
much more simplified in the birth and the offered largesse of George Bailey. In
his loved status as banker and "man of the people," despite initially
a free spirit ready to leave the small town, money becomes an anchor that
weighs him back onto Bedford Falls's soil. It takes the whole town to pay the
money back in a sweeping emotional conclusion, showing Bailey that he could not
possibly not want to exist now. O'Connor seems to have an inverted sense of
"It's A Wonderful Life," always maintaining his wealth, but with barely a soul attached to the finances. Bailey with eventually no wealth, but
with certainly a soul.
Death Match Round
It's not to say I'm not completely against "It's A Wonderful Life," it's a sweet movie with Jimmy Stewart in top form. Perhaps it is the history of the script, some ideas from its previous incarnations stitched together with what Capra does so well in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington" or "Arsenic and Old Lace." If Capra was able to start completely from scratch and with the original source material, "It's A Wonderful Life" would probably be better for me personally. My biggest problem is with the last fourth of the material, sans that adorable mushroom that was Henry Travers, is Bailey's overall motivation. Van Doren Stern's original story describes Bailey's suicidal wish as "never [doing] anything really useful or interesting and it looks as if I never will, I might as well be dead" ("The Greatest Gift") from simply being stuck in the unnamed town. This is clearly embellished on in the film, the reduction of Stewart's character in a weak moment.
He goes to Lionel Barrymore's Mr. Potter, the antagonist to Bailey's protagonist, hoping to find a way to maintain his bank while simultaneously keeping Potter from taking over Bedford Falls. Instead, Potter puts ideas in the frantic man's head that the cops are looking for him and the D.A. is waiting at his house ready to take him into jail. The mind games bring Bailey to consider the idea of suicide from both suggestion and as a personal last resort considering the amount of his life insurance. It comes down to money and not George Pratt [Van Doren Stern's character] 's original extension of his despairing character. It would seem Capra and Swerling forgot one thing, God or his first class angels would have been omniscient, especially in offering Clarence Bailey's life story, and amplifying a suicidal thought via manipulation gives the situation more power than needed. Unfortunately, this is "It's A Wonderful Life"'s weakest hour, half hour to be precise, the imbalance between facts and manipulation among the higher power (God, not Lionel Barrymore). "I wish I have never been born" Bailey blurts out in front of Clarence, now not so much in the fear of going to jail [and with the possible presumption of getting out if or when people testify facts against Potter's character] but outright depression that the suicide did not go as planned. Notice that the dialogue is inverted from the original text, perhaps for the benefit of the ever present Motion Picture Production Code. From the script, the suicide is to be a catalyst to receiving life insurance money, it has no bearing on his developed soul that just ended up in this mess. Unlike the original story, his death wish comes not from himself, but from the extension of his situation, how Bailey was always held back from going out into the world in tending to the town and the family business. This part of "It's A Wonderful Life" does not have the most stable of legs, for me personally, but that does not ruin the whole film for me either. Capra's signature ease of language comes through beautifully as we learn of the life of George Bailey, the Americana aspects of living in Bedford Falls, and encapsulating a small town on the RKO ranch. I can appreciate that, but the bones of this adaptation are just not stable enough for me in the suspension of reality.
I do take more away from "It Happened on Fifth Avenue." One scene in particular covers all of what I love about this film and that is the first dinner with Mary O'Connor as the cook. With all 11 characters in the home around the dining room table that usually house the greatest of New York society, the 8 foreigners begin to assume the kind of person Michael J. O'Connor actually is. Despite the fact the man himself is sitting at the table with them and progressively feeling more and more uncomfortable, it is the idea of a "Michael J. O'Connor." that continues to be the dinner conversation. McKeever hits the nail on the head, taking a psychiatric approach that he is overall an unhappy person as with money comes problems comes discontentment. But once they are done with the idea of the O'Connor of their minds, they start in on the idea of his ex-wife and daughter who in turn become the ones uncomfortable.
This scene proves its Academy Award nomination killing so many birds with one stone and not only the human behavior of immediately hating a great power they can't see, but also so many relationships between all of these characters. The friendly joking joviality between Jim and his friends, the cool troublesome relationship "Mike" has with his daughter, "Mike"'s forgotten attraction to his ex-wife, but remaining standoffish, McKeever's towering but relateable influence to his fellow homeless, but his disappointment in an intuition he has about O'Connor. That is all the more poetic considering Victor Moore's character will never know the impact he had on the mansion's real owner and his family, but by the end of the film as he walks down to Virginia to squat at McKeever's winter home, there will be a key waiting for him under the front doormat next year.
In 1945, a freshly written screenplay titled "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" was passed over by Frank Capra and his production company, Liberty Films. But in favor of "It's a Wonderful Life," Capra sold the script to Roy Del Ruth (Topper Returns, Ziegfeld Follies) and a new division to Monogram Pictures, Allied Artists. While "It's a Wonderful Life" and "...Fifth Avenue" have many similarities and differences, "...Fifth Avenue" is a wonderful and complex film about class, poverty, war veterans, and young love.
Victor Moore (Swing Time, The Seven Year Itch) plays homeless tramp Aloysius T. McKeever, who has made a tidy business in squatting in abandoned rich people's homes in the winter when the families flock to warmer climates. Happy in his isolation, while wearing the leftover clothes and out of the wind and snow, McKeever finds himself taking in G.I. veteran Jim (Don DeFore). But in a matter of weeks, Jim's friends are also taken in as well as the home's real owner (Charles Ruggles) along with his troubled daughter (Gale Storm) and ex-wife (Ann Harding). All three pretend to be of a different status than they are, realizing that impoverished people live far better and richer lives than those with money. It only becomes further poetic when Trudy (Storm) falls in love with Jim, but Michael O'Connor (Ruggles) just won't have it despite what the whole house says about the idea of a "Michael O'Connor" which slowly wears him down to a human being.
The finished product not only earned writers Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Original Story, but the Washington Post praised the "...Fifth Avenue" as a "mild, pleasant little film, which probably will find many admirers." But the celebrity endorsements, according to the Post was found to be "high flown" and "Hollywoodesque." But in the genesis of Allied Artists, being an attempt to rise above the free domain B-movies of the '30s and early '40s, their first child wasn't the economically fiscal film they had hoped. Costing more than 1,200,00, "...Fifth Avenue" did not completely break even in the box office, but had a steady incline from word of mouth and the many reviews that describe Victor Moore's character as "charming." The man who lets Monty Woolley stay for dinner for far too long (Grant Mitchell) also stars in a supporting role.
1946 was a prime year for angelic themed movies ranging from Powell and Pressburger's "A Matter of Life and Death" to the then-box office failure "It's a Wonderful Life." While "The Bishop's Wife," initially orchestrated by William A. Seiter, is neither highly stylistic with that Powell and Pressburger touch or incredibly realistic with that Capra ease, it teeters the perfect medium in that trademark whimsy that only a 40s era Cary Grant film can achieve.
Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) is looking to collect funds to build a new cathedral. But when he technically prays for guidance than the fiscal help he needs, the bishop finds himself being followed by a man who calls himself an angel (Cary Grant) who has come down from heaven to help Brougham with his problems. The problems are still not of the fiscal sort as they come in the form of the Bishop's own wife, Julia (Loretta Young) who feels quite neglected in her marriage. As Dudley (Grant) continues to cheer Julia into the woman she was once was, he begins to feel an attraction angels are not allowed to feel for mortals. Dudley also enchants a crochety old friend of the Broughams, Professor Wutheridge (a mildly acidic Monty Woolley) a proud atheist and scholar who has made his mind up when it comes to religion.
Not unlike the original 1928 book, "The Bishop's Wife" finds itself in between the lines and blatantly discussing faith whether Episcopalian or among the characters. Yet the original Seiter screenplay seems to have fallen into obscurity once Goldwyn replaced him with Robert E. Sherwood. Sherwood had made Goldwyn lots of money in the Academy Award-winning "The Best Years of Our Lives," a post-war symphony on what would become PTSD. According to David Niven, "The day before shooting was to start, Goldwyn decided that the interiors of the Bishop's house were not ecclesiastical enough and ordered several sets to be torn down, redesigned and rebuilt. For three weeks, while this was going on, production was halted, then, two days after the cameras finally had a chance to turn, Goldwyn decided that Seiter's hand was a little too heavy on the tiller: he was removed, paid his full salary and after a week, Goldwyn hired Henry Koster to start again from scratch - with another two weeks of rehearsal." (Bring on the Empty Horses. 1975.)
From Koster's decisions, Niven and Grant would switch roles, Grant now Dudley and Niven the Bishop, Loretta Young would play the wife since the desired but pregnant Teresa Wright had to withdraw from the role, and writers Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were brought in to help with some sequences. Although many of the supporting cast bowed out during the delay (including the great character actress Dame May Whitty), Elsa Lanchester ("The Bride of Frankenstein," "Mary Poppins") as the loyal maid still remained.
But the break had costed Goldwyn dearly, rendering more disasters throughout the filming. Grant had been more meticulous than usual and frustrated with the script changes as his emotions had been amplified almost losing close friend and filmmaker Howard Hughes in a plane crash. David Niven was suffering silently over the death of his wife due to a head injury prior to shooting the revamped script. Despite all the problems, "The Bishop's Wife" came out December 9, 1947 to positive reviews. Even Goldwyn was shocked, immediately predicting a Best Actress nomination for Young. The New York Times described the film as "a sentimental whimsey of the most delicate and dangerous sort" and that "it comes very close to being the most enchanting picture of the year [...] because its incursion is on a comparatively simple and humble plane and [...] is sensitively syphoned from the more human and humorous frailties of the flesh." (Movie Review: The Bishop's Wife', Starring Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, Opens at Astor)
"I have known just such a little shop in Budapest ... The feeling between the boss and those who work for him is pretty much the same the world over [and] when things have gone well with him, the whole staff reflects his good humor," said director Ernst Lubitsch at the premiere of "The Shop Around the Corner" in January 1940. Adapted from Miklos Laszlo's stageplay "Parfumerie," the movie quite incidentally became a holiday classic, although the Christmas season only appears in the last half of the film. Since the original play's conception, the story has spurned 3 movies and multiple stage and musical adaptations.
Already in a two picture deal with MGM, "Shop..." came in a packaged deal with the Greta Garbo-helmed "Ninotchka" which Ernst Lubitsch ended up shooting while waiting for his dream leads, James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as they finished their respective projects. Where "Ninotchka" is a beautiful and glamorous romantic comedy, "Shop..." is a romantic comedy of the blue collar sort. Matuschek and Company is a leather goods store with a stern but friendly owner (Frank Morgan, "The Wizard of Oz." [literally]) leading a staff of shop women Ilona and Flora (Inez Courtney, Sara Haden), his wife's gofer and delivery boy (William Tracy), the bumbling but loveable Pirovitch (Felix Bressart, "Ninotchka"), the suave Ferencz (Joseph Schildkraut) and his number one salesman Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) who immediately takes a dislike to the newest employee Klara (Margaret Sullavan). But Alfred and Klara actually do know each other as they are corresponding through letters after having "met" through a newspaper ad unbeknownst to their work lives.
Much of the story is autobiographical in Lubitsch and Samson Raphaelson's work lives. Before getting into film, a young Lubitsch had worked in his father's tailor shop in pre-Weimar Germany and Raphaelson bringing in the experience of working in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition. What had made "Shop..." so successful is its use of competition in the workplace in Kralik's disdain that Klara was able to sell a musical cigarette box which was an impulse purchase on the part of Matuschek. Early morning sequences in front of the store waiting for the owner to unlock gives the film a sense of consistency, of the average work day. What makes the work seem so regular works for the romantic comedy aspect in a rather fantastical situation between Stewart and Sullavan's characters, although who they are at the store is much more subtle than their future counterparts in "In The Good Old Summertime"'s Van Johnson and Judy Garland.
Now in the turn-of-the-century Chicago, Andrew Larkin and Veronica Fisher are in the same boat. The shop owner now S.Z. Sakall as Otto Oberkugen of Oberkugen's Music Shop does not have Morgan's tragic regality in the B-storyline, but instead an adorable attachment to the violin, which he cannot play any better than Larkin's neighbor and supposed love interest (Marcia van Dyke). The rest of the staff (Clinton Sundberg as the gofer and delivery boy, Rudy, Spring Byington as the saleswoman and Otto's romantic interest Nelly Burke) do not seem as close as Lubitsch's characters, but like all MGM romance musicals, the glamorous attractions in this film are turned up to a thousand than the subtle yet burgeoning blue collar romance between Stewart and Sullavan.
Buster Keaton also stars in this ensemble-trying-not-to-be-a-ensemble film in his first and last role since "What! No Beer?" in 1933 as Otto's subservient and nervous nephew Hickey, every bit of a Keaton-esque character full of pratfalls and fantastic physical comedy. Working as an MGM gag writer, it was Keaton's concoction on how breaking a violin could be both funny and yet credible which led him to be cast in the film. Keaton also orchestrated and coached Johnson in the scene where Andrew meets Veronica and accidentally destroys her hat.
Judy Garland is every bit of radiant in "Summertime" despite her blossoming reputation in the studio. When asked how the film went as smoothly as it did, Van Johnson explained to Louis B. Mayer that "We made her feel wanted and needed. We joked with her and kept her happy." Singing such standards as the title track, "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland," and a show stopping "I Don't Care" featuring a beautiful red dress by Irene, Garland is completely in her element so much so, the conclusion of the movie rounds out with her own daughter Liza Minnelli playing the future child of the married Larkins.
Before 1940's "The Philadelphia Story" screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart and George Cukor had another film in common that involved an adapted portrayal of a woman of high society. Where "Philadelphia Story" had Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, 1938's "Holiday" (also originally a play written by Philip Barry) took liberties with the life and family of Gertrude Sanford Legendre. The oldest of three children of South Carolina society with a younger brother and sister, Legendre was known for her New Year's Eve parties before becoming a second lieutenant in the American O.S.S.
But Linda Seton (Katharine Hepburn, who played the role once as the original understudy on stage) was not allowed to hold a simple party for her newly engaged sister (Doris Nolan) and fiancee (Cary Grant) in the suffocating confines of the Seton New York mansion. Julia and Johnny have fallen in love, having met just a few days before on vacation at Lake Placid. Come Christmas Day and Johnny finds out that his future wife is a Seton as well as experiencing a house with an elevator! But the last thing he ever expected was that his future wife would not be fine with his life plans. "I want to save part of my life for myself. There's a catch to it though, it's gotta be part of the young part. You know, retire young, work old, come back and work when I know what I'm working for." This rocks the Setons' world in more ways than one as Linda has fallen in love with Johnny's carefree spirit as well as his similarly minded friends, Professor Nick Potter (Edward Everett Horton reprising the same role he played in the original 1930 film) and Susan Potter, a lecturer who once spoke at Linda's school (Jean Dixon).
As a remake to the 1930's vehicle starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Robert Ames, Hepburn (much like when she presented "Philadelphia Story" to MGM) convinced Harry Cohn of Columbia to produce a remake. In addition to requesting Cukor, who was a close friend, for her director, she also wanted Cary Grant in the role of Johnny Case, Hepburn had begun her "box office poison" reputation that would be remedied by the future movie, which parallels "Holiday," but unlike "Philadelphia Story," this movie never quite got off the ground although being well received by critics and even now considered "one of the best-acted comedies in cinema annals." (Anne Edwards. Katharine Hepburn: A Remarkable Woman.)
Adapted from Kaufman and Hart's hit play "The Man Who Came to Dinner," the movie is a parody of many classic actors (Harpo Marx, Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence) and the outlandish demands of the rich and famous. When famed yet acidic radio personality and critic Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) is invited to dinner by a prominent Ohio family, gravity becomes his enemy in slipping on their icy front steps resulting in a broken leg. Held up in this cooky small town, Whiteside ravages both hell and hilarity on the family and all associated ranging from celebrity friends, a gaggle of penguins, an octopus, and a sarcophagus, to name a few. All the while he attempts to hold onto his Girl Friday (Bette Davis) who has fallen in love and will leave him for a local paper man.
Bette Davis, of all people, brought the hit stage play to Warner Bros. believing it to be a good vehicle to lighten her career as long as John Barrymore would play Whiteside. "[She] urged me to use John Barrymore, but I couldn't risk it," explained Hal Wallis, executive producer, "The dialogue [...] was tremendously complicated, and Barrymore was drinking so heavily that he had to read his lines from cue cards." It led to many more candidates ranging from Orson Welles, Cary Grant, Frederic March, Charles Laughton. But no one even considered the man who created the role on Broadway, Monty Woolley!
A classmate to Cole Porter (who also wrote a song for the original play) and ex-professor, Woolley was an unknown actor on both stage and screen, but his portrayal of Whiteside would make him both widely known yet unfortunately typecasted in the years to come. "He was excellent. His acid, piercingly sharp delivery of the lines, spoiled-child mannerisms, and outbursts of petulant rage were perfection itself." (Wallis. Starmaker.) Even Whiteside's surprising tender moments with the Stanley's children is just as poignant as some of his acidic sharp delivery in amazing lines such as "You have the touch of a love-starved cobra" and "I lost my watch!"
Known as an ensemble piece with many actors synonymous to 30s and 40s film, the cast rounds itself out with the ditzy Billie Burke ("The Wizard of Oz"), the spastic Jimmy Durante (playing a version of Harpo Marx), Ann Sheridan ("I Was a Male War Bride," "Angels with Dirty Faces"), Grant Mitchell ("Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Arsenic and Old Lace"), and Mary Wickes in her first film role, reprising the tortured nurse she originated on Broadway.
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