Stubs - O. Henry’s Full House

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)  Starring (in alphabetical order): Fred Allen, Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger, Charles Laughton, Oscar Levant, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff, Dale Robertson, David Wayne, Richard Widmark. Directed by Henry Koster, Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulesco, Howard Hawks, Henry King. Screenplay by Richard L. Breen, Walter Bullock, Ivan Goff, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson, Charles Lederer, Ben Roberts, Lamar Trotti. Based on the short stories "The Cop and the Anthem" in New York World (Dec 4, 1904); "The Clarion Call" in New York World (Oct 29, 1905); "The Last Leaf" in New York World (Oct 15, 1905); "The Ransom of Red Chief" in The Saturday Evening Post (Jul 6, 1906); and "The Gift of the Magi" in New York World (Dec 10, 1905) by O. Henry. Produced by André Hakim. Run time: 117 minutes. Black and White. USA Comedy, Drama, Anthology, Christmas.

While it wasn’t common practice for studios to make a series of short stories into movies, 20^th Century-Fox thought that the writings of William Sydney Porter, also known as O. Henry, were worthy of such a treatment. That is not to say anthology films were not made; they have been made frequently in India, Italy, and Great Britain, to name a few. Anthology films had been made prior to this one in Hollywood, most notably If I Had a Million (1932), produced by Paramount and including a segment directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

That said, it is thought that three films produced in the UK were the inspiration for O. Henry’s Full House: Quartet (1948) was based on stories by Somerset Maugham, who also personally introduced each one. Quartet was such a success, two sequels were made Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), also based on Maugham short stories. Paramount picked up the sequels for distribution in the U.S and the films were both critical and commercial successes.

Seeing as each segment was written, directed and starred different people, we’ll take each segment of the film one at a time.

Stubs - Monkey Business (1952)

Monkey Business (1952) Starring: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe Directed by Howard Hawks. Produced by Sol C. Siegel.  Screenplay by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Diamond. Run Time: 97 minutes. U.S. Black and White. Screwball Comedy

Sometimes it seems that Hollywood becomes derivative, telling the same stories over and over again, rebooting, retelling and making sequels of the same story, whether it’s Spider-Man or Batman or the Fantastic Four or the Pirates of the Caribbean. The excuse is the cost of making big budget films. Studios are cautious, if unwilling, to spend large amounts of money on untried stories, rather hoping that the tried and true will bring audiences in for more of the same.

Of course, this retelling of stories is nothing really new. Hollywood has always been making films like other films that were popular. In the case of Hollywood during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, the assembly line approach sometimes did not allow for great innovation and originality. Sometimes filmmakers were forced to rely on their own works for inspiration. In the case of Monkey Business (1952), I would not be the first to recall Hawks' earlier film Bringing Up Baby (1938) to which this has more than a passing resemblance, including the male lead.

Howard Hawks is one of the true greats of the Hollywood studio era, so you can’t blame him for borrowing from himself. Originally called Darling, I’m Growing Younger, the film was not going to star Grant, with whom Hawks had already worked four times, but rather Danny Kaye and with Ava Gardner instead of Marilyn Monroe.

But casting weren’t the only changes. The original screenplay was rejected on February 6, 1952 by the Breen Office stating: "the reason for this unacceptability lies in the fact that the story of Dr. Fulton's youth formula amounts to a story of the invention of an aphrodisiac, which mainly exploits the lurid, or what might be called 'sexsational' aspects of such a drug."  Sex was a definite no-no under the Production Code, which was definitely being enforced at the time. Hawks and producer Sol C. Siegel met with the PCA and agreed to make changes, including changing formula name from “Cupidone" to a "pseudo-scientific type of vitamin," and toning down Oliver Oxly’s sexual interest in Lois Laurel.

The changes must have not been too severe, since the PCA approved the amended screenplay and production began on March 5 and continued until late April, 1952. The film would have its opening five months later on September 3, 1952.

The film begins with Cary Grant opening the front door of a house and being told by an off-screen Howard Hawks "Not yet, Cary” several times; an obvious breaking of the fourth wall, not common at that time.

After the sufficient credits have run and the film actually starts, Cary is now Barnaby Fulton, an absent-minded scientist who can’t help but think about his work. He is developing a formula he hopes will reverse the aging process. He is so lost in thought about it, that even after his wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers), gives him exact directions on locking up the house, so they can leave, he still gets it wrong, ending up inside rather than out.

Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) would rather stay home and think
than go to a party with his wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers).

After more than one false start, Edwina gives up and decides that instead of going out to a party, they’ll stay at home so Barnaby can keep thinking. Edwina slips off her dress (off camera, of course), puts on a house coat and starts to make them eggs for dinner.

Hank Entwhistle (Hugh Marlowe), a family friend and lawyer, comes over to encourage them to go the party. He tells Edwina that if she had married him she wouldn’t have to stay home and cook. It is about then that Barnaby realizes Edwina’s backside, clothed in only undergarments, is visible. In the first scene that is reminiscent of Bringing Up Baby, Barnaby covers her up, the same way David (Grant) covers up Susan (Katherine Hepburn) when her dress gets torn. In this case, he puts an apron on her backwards. Hank takes some convincing, but he does finally leave.

When Edwina serves Barnaby soup, his mouth gets burned, which gives him an idea that he takes with him to the office the next day, using heat to encourage the absorption of the formula. He arrives at Oxly Chemical Factory, where he works, and is immediately summoned to President Oliver Oxly’s (Charles Coburn) office for an update on the formula Oxly is anxious to exploit, already having worked up an ad campaign for what he calls B-4.

Barnaby's boss at the plant is Oliver Oxly (Charles Coburn). His
secretary is the curvaceous Lois Laurel (Marilyn Monroe).

While Barnaby waits to see Oxly, Lois Laurel (Marilyn Monroe), Oxly’s curvaceous secretary, shows him the hosiery his acetate formula had led to and her leg on which they cover. Oxly is not amused when he walks in on the tableaux.

But Oxly is more interested in money and brings Barnaby into his office. But they are quickly called away to the lab, where one of the older monkeys they are experimenting the formula on, the 84-year-old equivalent Rudolph, is bounding around like a youngster. Everyone is fooled until Barnaby discovers that the monkey’s numbers have been accidentally switched and the much younger Esther is wearing Rudolph’s number.

Once the mistake has been noticed and Esther is back in her unlocked cage, Barnaby begins to work on his idea, but when he leaves the laboratory, Esther frees herself and, copying Barnaby’s actions, mixes a batch of the ingredients that he uses in his formula. Hearing him return, Esther pours her chemicals into the water cooler, after which Barnaby mixes his own batch.

Esther the monkey mimics Barnaby's actions and mixes up her own batch of chemicals.

Against the wishes of his assistant, Dr. Jerome Lenton (Henri Letondal), Barnaby swallows his version. The bitter taste forces him to get some water from the cooler, soon after which Barnaby notices that the bursitis he suffers from no longer hurts and he no longer needs his thick glasses to see.

Barnaby feels so good and youthful that he leaves the laboratory. Wanting a more youthful look, he gets a then popular crew cut. Next he changes his appearance by buying a loud sports coat. His last stop is a car dealership where he trades in his sedan for a sports car, a 1950 MG TD.

Miss Laurel has been sent to find him and shows up just as he is concluding the purchase of the car. He asks her if she wants to go for a ride. Miss Laurel, who has a crush on the older man, gladly accepts. While they race through the city, it is obvious that Miss Laurel is getting aroused by the speed, the danger they’re in and by him. But Barnaby gets distracted and can’t stop before he runs into a truck that blocks the street.

Barnaby and Laurel go for a drive in his new MG.

They take the car to the shop and are told it’ll be good as new by five o’clock. To kill time, the two go roller-skating and, after Barnaby falls, they go swimming. At the pool, Barnaby attempts a swan dive, but ends up doing a belly flop. But no one is watching him, but rather Miss Laurel in a one-piece.

She only have eyes for Barnaby, but everyone else has eyes on Lois in her one-piece.

After the car is fixed, Barnaby drives them back to Oxly. While they’re driving, she kisses him on the cheek, but pouts when she discovers that he’s married. Before they get back to the office, the formula starts to wear off. Barnaby’s eyesight starts to fade and he ultimately crashes the car into a chain-link fence.

When he returns to the lab, Barnaby falls asleep. By the time he awakens, Edwina, who has been called by a night watchman, has arrived. She’s not happy to hear about his haircut or by his antics, especially the lipstick on his cheek from Miss Laurel. Barnaby insists it was the formula and tries to reassure her that the kiss meant nothing to him.

Barnaby wants to retest the formula on himself, but Edwina has other plans, drinking the latest double strength batch, so her husband can observe her. Again she takes a glass of water after drinking the sour concoction. The formula starts to take effect when Oxly comes in to inquire about Barnaby’s progress. Edwina is overly playful, putting a goldfish down the side of Oxly’s pants.

Barnaby and Edwina get away and Edwina demands that they drive to the hotel where they spent their honeymoon. When they get to the hotel, Edwina wants to go dancing, eventually exhausting Barnaby. When they finally get back to the room, Edwina gets emotional, acting like a new bride and crying for her mother.

Their honeymoon reenactment doesn't come off as planned.

Barnaby tries to find out what’s going on with Edwina, but it quickly turns into a quarrel, in the middle of which Barnaby’s glasses fall off. When he pushes her gently away from them on the floor, she throws him out of the room. While the nearly blind Barnaby feels his way through the halls in his pajamas, missing the tie string, which has been caught in the room’s door, Edwina calls Hank. She tells him that Barnaby has brutalized her and she wants to file for divorce.

Meanwhile, Barnaby, who is looking for help, ends up going head first down the laundry chute and ends up in one of the large wheeled carts. The force of his entry sends the cart rolling straight into a wall on which poor Barnaby hits his head and passes out.

The next morning, Edwina has fully recovered from the formula and is checking out of the hotel, when Barnaby has been brought up from the laundry room by a couple of confused maids. He refuses to change, but rather just wants to go home.

When they arrive, they are set upon by a horde of reporters and Hank is inside waiting. Edwina realizes that she still very much loves Hank and wants to call off the divorce. But Barnaby, realizing the harm the formula does, and a little disheartened to have found out Edwina once kissed Hank, decides the best course of action is to destroy the formula.

Edwina goes with Barnaby to the lab and there, using the water from the cooler, she makes them a pot of coffee. After a couple of cups, both are acting like ten-year-olds.

Meanwhile, Oxly has heard about the success of the formula and has called an emergency meeting of the board to come up with an offer to Barnaby for the rights. When it’s pointed out that he made the formula while working for them, Oxly points out that there seems to be an ingredient or step missing as they can’t recreate it with the same results.

Barnaby is called in and enters with Edwina and a monkey between them. When they ask him how much he wants, he says a "zillion" dollars. When he lets slip his idea about adding heat, the board thinks they have the answer they need and Barnaby and Edwina escape.

The couple walks home, too young to drive, and while they do, Edwina starts to annoy the 10-year-old acting Barnaby, who is turning into a girl-hater. After getting into a fight and throwing paint on each other, he runs off to join real ten-year-olds, who are playing “Indian”. Edwina, meanwhile, goes home and calls Hank to complain again about Barnaby. She then takes a nap, which seems to be a side-effect of the formula.

As she sleeps, Barnaby puts on war paint and convinces his playmates to help him scalp Hank, whom he is still jealous about.

When Edwina awakens from her nap, she is once again her old self. But the neighbor’s baby, Johnny, has walked into their house and crawled in next to her. She mistakenly assumes the baby to be Barnaby on an overdose of the formula and dashes back to Oxly with the baby in her arms.

Edwina mistakes the neighbor's baby for Barnaby and rushes him back to Oxly.

Meanwhile, Barnaby and his friends succeed in capturing Hank, but instead of scalping him, cut his hair into a Mohawk.

Barnaby convinces the boys in the neighborhood to help his scalp Hank (Hugh Marlowe).

Back at Oxly, everyone thinks Johnny is Barnaby. Edwina puts the baby down on Barnaby’s couch, hoping that if he falls to sleep, the formula will wear off. Out in the lab, the men, including the Board of Directors, Oxly and Lenton, pace and when they’re thirsty, drink water from the cooler. Oxly orders the bitter-tasting water thrown out, but it’s too late to stop the formula from taking effect.

Still wearing warpaint, Barnaby returns to Oxly.

Barnaby shows up and climbs through the window of his office. When Edwina finds him, she realizes her mistake about Johnny. But when they go out to the outer laboratory, they find everyone, Oxly, the board members and the scientists acting like children. It is Lenton who finally deduces that Esther has concocted the formula. While Oxly is chasing Miss Laurel around the lab with a seltzer bottle, the Fultons leave.

Craziness ensues in the lab when everyone drinks the formula.

Three days later, there is a new Oxly contract ensuring Barnaby’s future with the firm. Barnaby tells Edwina that a person is old only when he forgets that he is young.

Hawks was somewhat disappointed by the film, thinking the premise was too unbelievable and that the film was not as funny as it could have been. Hawks was right, but the premise was

only the beginning of the problems. Monkey Business suffers from many ailments, one of which is a surprisingly lackluster screenplay given the talents of Ben Hecht and I.A.L. Diamond. Gags and characters seem to have been recycled from previous films, but what makes it all right at all is that Hawks is mostly stealing from himself.

The best line in the film is delivered about Monroe’s sex appeal. While it is best seen in context, I’ll try to set it up:

Early in the film, Barnaby and Oxly are in the latter’s office with Lois. There is a call waiting for Mr. Oxly and Lois is about to be dismissed.

Oliver Oxly: Oh, yes. Just a moment, Miss Laurel. Find someone to type this.

Lois Laurel: Oh, Mr. Oxly, can't I try again?

Oliver Oxly: No, it's very important. Better find somebody to type it for you.

Lois Laurel: Yes, sir.

As she walks to the door and closes it, both Barnaby and Oxly admire her swaying hips and backside.

As if to answer the unasked question of why he has her as his secretary, but won’t let her type his letters, Oxly turns to Barnaby and deadpans:

Oliver Oxly: Anybody can type a letter.

It’s too bad there’s not more laugh out loud lines like this one. Too much of the humor is based on adults acting like kids and mistaken identity. It doesn’t take much of either to get old.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a bad Grant film, that is to say a bad performance by the actor. Even in this film, he is good, but his best scenes are with Marilyn Monroe and not Ginger Rogers. As stated before, his Barnaby Fulton feels like a redo of his Bringing Up Baby David character, so it’s sort of like seeing a photocopy of the original; close, but not as good. It’s too bad that Monkey Business would be his last film with Grant, with whom he’d made Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940) and I Was A Male War Bride (1949).

Ginger Rogers, whom I’ve already gone on record as loving, is not at her best here. In fact, I think she overacts the part. When she’s supposed to be twenty she comes off as being closer to ten. I sometimes think she’s trying too hard, which is bad when it shows. Like Grant, Rogers has played a similar character before, previously playing “young” in The Major and the Minor (1942) a decade earlier.

The film feels over long, especially with the back and forth between Barnaby and Edwina. While both Grant and Rogers are great movie stars, I don’t really get the sense that they have great chemistry together and the off again on again divorce seems a contrivance at best.

The best pairing in the film seems to be Grant with Monroe, but that looks more like a happy accident than the intent of the filmmakers. For all the star power of Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, Monkey Business is often sold as one of Marilyn Monroe’s early films. In some ways, she steals the film, though her part is rather small, she is in a lot of scenes and is often the object of the attention of both Barnaby and Oxly, as well as any other men that might be around. It is the scenes with Grant that give a glimpse into Monroe’s comedic sensibilities mixed with her abundant sexuality.

So much has been written about Monroe that there is no point in getting too deep here. Simply put she is the iconic sex symbol. There have been many contemporary imitators, including Jayne Mansfield and Cleo Moore, but accept no substitute. Monroe was the sex kitten by which all others should be judged as inferior.

Marilyn Monroe is the iconic sex symbol.

While Grant and Rogers seem to be replaying character types from their long film careers, Monroe is at the beginning of hers and there is a real sense that she is bringing something new to the screen. While sex symbols were nothing new in Hollywood, there had never been one like Monroe since perhaps Jean Harlow in the 1930s.

If Monroe had lived longer, we might be looking at Monkey Business as a changing of the guard in Hollywood. However, Monroe would be dead in ten years, her last film being The Misfits (1961). Ginger Rogers’ last film would be Harlow (1965) and Grant’s would be Walk, Don’t Run (1966).

Still, Monroe is the real reason to watch this film, not the proven stars with top-billing. Not a great film, Monkey Business has its moments, but given the director, the writers and the actors involved in the project, it fails to deliver on all of its potential.

Stubs – His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday (1940) Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy Directed by Howard Hawks. Produced by Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Charles Lederer. Based on the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur as produced by Jed Harris (14 Aug 1928, New York). Run Time: 92 minutes. U.S. Black and White. Screwball Comedy, Comedy.

As we’ve discussed many times on this blog, rarely does Hollywood make a story better the second or third time (or fourth or fifth for that matter). That doesn’t mean there are not exceptions to the rule. As oft cited, The Maltese Falcon (1941) was the third time the book had been adapted to the screen.

The play The Front Page (1928), written by former Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, was made into a movie in 1931, starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien and was quite successful on all fronts. Nominated at the 4^th Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Lewis Milestone) and Best Actor (Menjou), this first film adaptation must have been considered pretty good in its day. (I have not seen this version.)

And the film would be remade subsequently, again as The Front Page (1974), directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Again nothing to sneeze at, considering the talent involved. I remember seeing this and liking the film at the time.

But in between those two versions, The Front Page would get a twist and became a classic. Sometime in pre-production, director Howard Hawks was trying to prove that the Front Page contained the finest modern dialogue ever written, and he began to read the part of Walter and asked his secretary, a woman, to read Hildy's part. Liking what he was hearing, Hawks called Hecht and suggested changing Hildy's character to a woman; His Girl Friday was born.

Charles Lederer, who had written additional dialogue for the first adaptation, was given credit as the screenwriter for His Girl Friday. Most of the original dialogue and all of the characters' names were left the same, with the exception of Hildy's fiancé which was changed from Peggy Grant to Bruce Baldwin.

Casting the part of Hildy proved to be quite difficult as a number of actresses were considered. Hawks wanted Carole Lombard, whom he had directed in Twentieth Century (1934), but the cost of hiring Lombard as a freelancer proved to be far too expensive for Columbia to afford.

According to reports published in the Hollywood Reporter at the time, Irene Dunne was slated to play the role and production was postponed because she felt the role of Hildy was too small and insisted that the writers rewrite her part. Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Sullivan, and Ginger Rogers were all offered the role, but turned it down. Jean Arthur was offered the part, and was reportedly suspended by the studio when she refused to take it. Joan Crawford was reportedly also considered, before Hawks turned to Rosalind Russell.

Russell didn’t find out about the search until after she had accepted the part. Supposedly she found out about all the actresses who'd turned the part down while reading an article in the New York Times on the train ride to New York. Nothing like knowing you’re someone’s nth choice.

But Russell wasn’t happy with her part either. According to her autobiography, Life Is A Banquet, Russell thought her role did not have as many good lines as Grant's, so she hired her own writer to "punch up" her dialogue. With Hawks encouraging ad-libbing on the set, Russell was able to slip her writer's work into the movie.

The film opens with a written prologue: "It all happened in the "Dark Ages" of the newspaper game--when a reporter "getting the story" justified anything short of murder. Incidentally, you will see in this picture no resemblance to the men and women of the press today. Ready? Well, once upon a time…”

Former reporter Hildegard “Hildy” Johnson (Rosalind Russell) returns to the newsroom at The Morning Post following her divorce from Walter Burns (Cary Grant), who happens to also be the paper’s editor. They haven’t seen each other for several months and Walter has been trying to win her back as his wife and as a reporter on the paper.

Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) makes what she thinks will be her last visit to The Morning Post newsroom.

Walter is engrossed by the impending execution of Earl Williams, a timid bookkeeper, sentenced to death for killing an African-American policeman. He wants to lure Hildy back and lies to her that his star reporter is preoccupied with his wife being pregnant. He tells Hildy that the paper needs her to cover the story.

But Hildy insists she’s through being a reporter; she’s engaged to an insurance man from Albany, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), and will be leaving Chicago for good to be a wife and mother. Walter insists on meeting Bruce and invites them to lunch. At the restaurant, Walter learns that the couple are leaving, with Bruce’s mother, on the four o’clock train, so he has to act fast.

Walter Burns (Cary Grant) starts right in driving a wedge between Bruce
Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) and Hildy.

The always scheming Walter convinces Bruce that only Hildy can write the story that will save an innocent man’s life. Hildy agrees to write the story on the condition that Walter buys a $100,000 life insurance policy from Bruce. Walter, of course, agrees and he goes back to the newspaper with Bruce for the medical exam. Meanwhile, Hildy goes to the press room at the county criminal building, where she meets with her cynical brethren of the press. They warn her that she’ll never be able to walk away from being a reporter.

Hildy makes herself at home in the Press room at the county criminal building.

After interviewing the befuddled Williams (John Qualen), Hildy meets Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack), the only person who has shown any compassion towards Williams. Her act of kindness has won her the contempt of the reporters in the room. Hildy takes pity on Mollie.

Hildy interviews Earl Williams (John Qualen).

But soon, Bruce telephones and tells Hildy he’s been arrested for stealing a watch. Hildy knows Walter has master-minded Bruce's arrest and leaves to bail Bruce out of jail. When she returns to the press room, she is more determined than ever to leave, but sounds of gunshots and the news that Williams has escaped force her reporter instincts to supplant her common sense. She calls Walter and tells him about Williams' escape and talks to Warden Cooley (Pat West) to get the rest of the story.

While Bruce waits in the cab for Hildy to write her story, Walter sends Evangeline (Marion Martin), a prostitute, to frame Bruce. Walter describes Bruce to Evangeline as "looking like that fellow in the movies, Ralph Bellamy."

Walter sends Evangeline (Marion Martin) to frame Bruce.

After bribing Cooley for his story with $450 of Bruce's money, Hildy calls Walter and demands repayment. In response, Walter sends his stooge Louis (Abner Biberman) to Hildy with $450 in counterfeit money. Soon after, Hildy receives another call from Bruce, who has been jailed for "mashing."

Meanwhile, Sheriff Peter B. Hartwell (Gene Lockhart) and the Mayor (Clarence Kolb) confer about their political fortunes. The Mayor heads a graft-ridden administration and needs the execution of Williams to deliver the black vote on election day. At that point, Joe Pettibone (Billy Gilbert) arrives from the Governor’s office with a reprieve for Williams. The two men try to bribe Pettibone into forgetting the reprieve.

Back at the press room, while Hildy is waiting for Louis to arrive with her money, Earl Williams climbs in through the window. Bruce calls at that moment; he is still waiting for Hildy to bail him out of jail. Hildy tells him to wait and then calls Walter to tell him that she has found Earl Williams.

As soon as Hildy gets off the phone, Mollie Malloy pounds on the press room door. When she sees Williams, she bursts into the room and when the reporters begin to file in, Hildy and Mollie hide Earl in a roll top desk belonging to one of the reporters, Roy V. Bensinger (Ernest Truex), who happens to fancy himself a poet.

Bruce’s mother, Mrs. Baldwin (Alma Kruger) enters the press room and begins to chide Hildy about foresaking Bruce for a murderer. The other reporters think something is up and start to ask questions. In order to divert them, Mollie jumps out the window. The reporters run out of the room to examine the extent of Mollie's injuries just as Walter and Louis arrive.

Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack) throws herself out the window to divert the reporters' attention.

Walter works out his scheme, but Mrs. Baldwin sees everything. In order to keep her quiet, Walter tells Louis to kidnap Mrs. Baldwin, which he does. Walter calls the newspaper and makes plans with his assistant editor, Duffy (Frank Orth), to transport the roll top desk back to the Post. While Hildy is typing up her account of capturing Williams, Bruce walks in demanding his money. He tells Hildy that he is leaving on the nine o'clock train. Hildy then hands Bruce the counterfeit bills Louis had delivered, of course, not knowing they’re fake. Bruce leaves before Hildy realizes he’s gone.

Bruce tries and fails to get Hildy to leave with him on the nine o'clock train.

She is still writing her story when a disheveled Louis enters and tells her and Walter that the cab he was in with Mrs. Baldwin was in an accident with a police car. He admits that he left Mrs. Baldwin at the scene of the wreck and ran for it.

Next, the sheriff and the other reporters return, and the sheriff begins to question Hildy about what she knows about Williams. Mrs. Baldwin returns and accuses Walter of having her kidnapped. The sheriff is anxious to find an excuse to arrest Walter, but he emphatically pleads his innocence, going so far as to pound on the desk, the sign they’d worked out with Williams that the coast is clear.

The arrest of Earl Williams.

Williams responds in code and with guns drawn, the sheriff opens the desk and finds the fugitive. The sheriff then handcuffs Walter and Hildy and threatens Walter, who responds that the "last man who did that to me was Archie Leech." (A reference, of course, to himself.)

The Sheriff (Gene Lockhart), on the phone, and The Mayor (Clarence Kolb)
 think they finally have the goods on Hildy and Walter,
who's paper has been at odds with their administration.

Just then, Pettibone, intent on doing his job, returns with Williams' reprieve much to the delight of Walter. The mayor knows he’s been caught and tries to whitewash over things and demands the sheriff release his good friends Walter and Hildy. As Walter advises Hildy to go after Bruce, Bruce calls and tells Hildy that he has been arrested for spending counterfeit money. Realizing that Walter has tricked her once again, Hildy breaks down and cries. She doesn’t want to go away with Bruce and would rather be with Walter. They plan to marry again and have a real honeymoon this time.

Joe Pettibone (Billy Gilbert) returns a second time with a reprieve for
Earl Williams, saving Walter and Hildy, as the Mayor looks on.

Walter calls his city editor, Duffy, to announce that he and Hildy are getting married and will spend their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. Duffy informs him that there is a strike in Albany, which is on the way, and Walter plans on covering the story. He wonders out loud if Bruce might be able to put them up as he and Hildy leave the court house. She is, of course, carrying her own luggage.

Cary Grant is a very versatile actor, there is so little that he can’t do on screen. He plays the scheming and manipulative editor, Walter Burns with his usual finesse. While this is not the greatest role he would ever play, it is certainly one of the funniest. Grant and Rosalind Russell make a good team, but he makes a good team with just about every woman he shares the screen with.

Russell more than holds her own with Grant, no doubt somewhat aided by lines from her ghostwriter. Despite the exhaustive search for a Hildy, it’s hard to imagine any other actress playing the part but Russell. While not manly by any means, Russell was never considered to be a sex symbol either. She is pretty enough to understand why men would be attracted to her, but she seems to have more going for her than looks alone.

Rosalind Russell started as a fashion model and a Broadway actress, before coming west as a contract player at Universal Pictures. But she didn’t feel like she got any respect and was able to get out of her contract. She found better success at MGM. Her breakthrough role was in the drama West Point of the Air (1935) opposite Robert Young. She began to be cast in roles originally intended for Myrna Loy. Her career would get a big boost in The Women (1939), which also established her reputation as a comedienne.

Throughout the rest of the forties and fifties, Russell would act in both comedies and dramas, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for My Sister Eileen (1942), Sister Kenny (1946), Mourning Becomes Elektra (1947) and for the role she is most associated with, Auntie Mame (1958).

Her suitor in His Girl Friday, Ralph Bellamy, was used to playing second fiddle to Grant, having previously played opposite him in The Awful Truth (1937). In that film he lost Irene Dunne to Grant, just as he loses Russell to him here. His portrayal of Bruce is spot on. Bruce gets turned inside out and every which way by the faster thinking Walter Burns. Bellamy plays an affable man being taken advantage of as well as anyone could. You end up feeling sorry for him by the end, as he really does nothing wrong.

Bellamy made his film debut in The Secret Six (1931) and worked in film and television until 1990, when he appeared in Pretty Woman. Bellamy acted in a variety of genres, from comedies to dramas, horror and musicals. Other films he appeared in include: Boy Meets Girl (1938), Carefree (1938), Dance, Girl Dance (1940), The Wolf Man (1941), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Oh, God (1977) and Trading Places (1983). He also is known for playing President Franklin Roosevelt, first on stage in Sunrise at Campobello and then in the film version in 1960. He would later appear as FDR in two television mini-series, The Winds of War (1984) and War and Remembrance (1988).

Another actor who had shared screen time with Grant prior to His Girl Friday was Abner Biberman. While Abner seems to have been born to play Louis, he had been Grant’s nemesis Chota in Gunga Din (1939). A character actor, Biberman would appear in such films as Each Dawn I Die (1939), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Another Thin Man (1939), Captain Kidd (1945), Winchester ’73 (1950) and Viva Zapata! (1952). But there was more to Biberman as well. He wrote, directed and acted in The Golden Mistress (1954), an adventure film set in Haiti starring John Agar. He would later work in television directing on such series as Maverick (1957), 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and Gunsmoke (1965).

Abner Biberman, at far right, as Louis, Walter's enforcer, in His Girl Friday.

Biberman plays Louis with a comedic toughness. He doesn’t attempt to get into the frenzied wordplay, but he still gives a solid performance.

The cast is full of character actors like Billy Gilbert as Pettibone, Clarence Kolb as the Mayor and Gene Lockhart as Sheriff Peter B. Hartwell, who play their parts with a great sense of comedic timing. Gilbert and Kolb both got their separate starts in Vaudeville, while Lockhart got his break on Broadway.

His Girl Friday is considered to be a Screwball Comedy. As discussed in our review of 

Bringing Up Baby (1938), the genre is characterized by a female that dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged. His Girl Friday does one better, by taking what had originally been a male role and casting it with a woman. While Russell’s Hildy is not masculine, per se, she is working in what had been, at the time, a male dominated profession, news reporter. The hilarious word play ends with marriage, but not necessarily the promise of happiness as by the end Walter is already falling back into his old patterns.

One of the things I like best about the film is that despite the fast talking, the story is still quite easy to follow. The film takes you along for a fast trip, but it doesn’t throw you from the train on the curves. While the film was released in 1940, it is an honorable 1939 film, having been shot between September 27^th and November 21^st of that fabled year. Definitely some of the creative magic from that year rubbed off on this production. If you have never seen this movie, you should and if you’re like me you’ll find yourself watching it anytime it’s on.

Stubs – Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby  (1938) Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charlie Ruggles. Directed by Howard Hawks. Produced by Cliff Reed, Howard Hawks. Screenplay by Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wildey. Based on the short story "Bringing Up Baby" by Hagar Wilde in Collier's (10 Apr 1937). Run Time: 102 minutes. U.S.  Black and White. Screwball Comedy

I’ve noticed that Howard Hawks keeps showing up in my reviews. This is not a conscious choice, by that I mean I’m not looking for Howard Hawks films to review, but since he directed so well in so many different genres, any survey of films, even this circuitous one we’re taking at Trophy Unlocked, is bound to come across his films. So far we’ve reviewed the following films he’s produced; The Thing From Another World (1951) and films he directed: The Big Sleep (1945 and 1946), Ball of Fire (1941) and The Crowd Roars (1932); science fiction, mystery, screwball comedy and sports drama. The one thing these films have in common is that while not always great, they are usually pretty good.

One genre that Hawks worked in was screwball comedy, directing examples of the genre Twentieth Century (1934), His Girl Friday (1940), Ball of Fire, I Was a Male War Bride (1949) and our film, Bringing Up Baby. The screwball comedy is principally an American genre of film that became popular during the Great Depression and thriving until the late 1940s.

Screwball comedies are characterized by a female that dominates the relationship with the male central character, whose masculinity is challenged. The two engage in a humorous battle of the sexes, which was a new theme for Hollywood and audiences at the time. And the movies include plot lines involving farcical situations and courtship and marriage. Based on this, Bringing Up Baby would appear to be the quintessential example of the genre and is oftentimes cited when discussing screwball comedies, though the genre had been around for several years before its release.

On the eve of his wedding, Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant), a dedicated paleontologist at the Stuyvesant Museum of Natural History, is sent by his fiancée and assistant, Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), to play golf with Alexander Peabody (George Irving), the lawyer for Mrs. Carleton Random (May Robson), a potential million-dollar donor to the museum. At the golf course, flighty heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) plays David's ball instead as her own and then, mistaking his car for hers, drives off with him clinging to his runningboard.

David (Cary Grant) can't convince Susan (Katharine Hepburn) that's she's got the wrong car.

That night, while hunting for Peabody at an exclusive restaurant, David again encounters Susan, who causes him to slip on an olive and fall on his top hat; embarrass himself in front of psychologist Dr. Fritz Lehman (Fritz Feld) when Susan asks him to hold a purse he thinks is hers, but really belongs to Lehman’s wife (Tala Birell); tear his tuxedo jacket when she grabs the tail to stop him from walking away; and he splits the back of her gown when he stands on the hem.

But Susan isn’t done helping David. She knows Peabody personally and when he’s not at the restaurant, drives David out to the attorney’s home. Even though David is convinced everyone is asleep, Susan insists on throwing pebbles at the window to wake Peabody up. When small ones don’t work, she throws a larger rock, just as Peabody opens his window and he gets knocked back by the blow. Susan and David scramble away, but David knows he’s been seen.

Susan isn’t through with David, either. The next morning, She telephones him as he is preparing to meet Alice with his new possession, an intercostal clavicle, a rare brontosaurus fossil, and begs him to help her with her new possession, "Baby" (Nissa), a tamed leopard that her brother has shipped to her from Brazil.

David, however, refuses to get involved with Baby until he hears Susan's phony cries of distress over the telephone. After rushing to her apartment, David finds Susan unmaimed, and Baby yearning to hear his favorite record, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Disgusted by Susan's antics, David marches out of the apartment, but is followed down the street by both Susan and an unleashed Baby. Thus cornered, David finally agrees to help Susan take Baby to her aunt Elizabeth's home in Connecticut, but admonishes her that he has to return to the city to marry Alice by nightfall.

David brings his prized fossil with him wherever he goes.

While driving on the road to Aunt Elizabeth's, a distracted Susan rams into a truck carrying a load of fowl, and its cargo spills out and is devoured by Baby. Susan parks in front of a fire hydrant while David goes into a butcher’s to get 30 pounds of sirloin for Baby. But while he’s in the store Baby jumps into another car, belonging to Dr. Lehman and Susan is forced to take his car.

On the way to Connecticut with Baby (Nissa) in the backseat of the car.

Finally arriving in Connecticut and securing Baby, David insists on taking a shower before returning to New York. While he’s washing up, Susan, who doesn’t want David to leave, gathers up his clothes and sends them into town to the cleaners. The only clothes David can find is a woman's marabou-trimmed negligee, which he is wearing when he opens the door for the befuddled and suspicious Aunt Elizabeth, whose married name is Mrs. Carleton Random, David’s hopeful benefactor. When she asks David why he’s wearing women’s clothing, he replies rather exasperatedly, "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!", leaping into the air at the word "gay". [It is debatable whether or not the word is used in its older sense (meaning "happy") or is an intentional, joking reference to homosexuality. If it was meant as the latter, then it would be the first work of fiction, outside of pornography, to use the term in that way.]

"Because I just went gay all of a sudden."

Because David has asked Susan not to reveal his full name to her Aunt, Susan tells her aunt that David's last name is "Bone" and that he is a big game hunter who has suffered a nervous breakdown. At the same time, Elizabeth's dog, George (Skippy), steals David's bone and buries it somewhere on the vast estate. [The dog may look familiar, having already been on the big screen as Asta, the dog in the Thin Man movies.] While David frantically follows George around the wooded estate in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of his fossil, Susan confesses to Elizabeth that she is in love with David and plans to marry him.

Trying to get George to lead them to the fossil he buried.

Unwilling to leave Elizabeth's without his fossil, David joins Susan, Elizabeth and Major Horace Applegate (Charlie Ruggles), a true big game hunter, for dinner. While David carefully watches George from the table, Mr. Gogarty (Barry Fitzgerald), a heavy-drinking family servant, accidentally releases Baby from his makeshift cage in the garage.

Major Horace Applegate (Charlie Ruggles) joins in on the fun.

Alerted by Gogarty's screams, Susan orders David to telephone the local zoo, but then tells him to cancel his request for help after she learns that her brother intended Baby as a gift for Aunt Elizabeth. On the estate grounds, Susan and David search for Baby, harmonizing "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" as a lure, but mistake a caged, vicious circus leopard (Nissa), which is being trucked to Bridgeport to be put to sleep, as Baby.

While David keeps the circus handlers busy, Susan surreptitiously releases the wrong leopard from the back of the truck, but it escapes into the woods before she can wrangle it. They follow after and find the leopard up on the roof of Dr. Lehman's house, where she and David attempt to coax it down. Lehman comes to his front door and, seeing only Susan, drags her into his house, convinced that she is deranged. Constable Slocum (Walter Catlett ) and deputy (John Kelly) arrive on the scene and see David peering in through the windows and arrest him as a peeping Tom.

At the jail, Susan's and David's stories strike Slocum as outrageous, searching for a leopard indeed, and when he tries to verify it with a phone call, he’s told Susan is in bed. But Aunt Elizabeth and Applegate realize the mistake and go to the jail to get her out. But Slocum arrests them, sure they are only impersonating his wealthy constituents. Unable to persuade Slocum of her story, Susan changes her tactics and pretends to be "Swinging Door Susie," a gangster's moll and that David is “Jerry the Nipper”.  The circus handlers arrive asking Slocum for help, who can’t believe they are really looking for a leopard.

When he won't believe the truth, Susan tries to convince Constable
 Slocum that she's a gangster's moll and that David is a wanted felon.

Attorney Peabody arrives, with Miss Swallow in tow, and verifies everyone's identity. Baby and George stroll into the station, but the handlers know that the tame Baby is not theirs. Susan, thinking she has Baby, brings the circus leopard into the station. David manages to save Susan (and everyone else) by using a chair to corral the circus leopard into a cell.

A few days later, Susan finds David, after Alice has walked out on him, working on his brontasaurus reconstruction at the museum. After presenting him with his bone, which George finally had unearthed, Susan informs David that Aunt Elizabeth gave her the million dollars and she’s going to give it to David’s museum. Then while perched on a tall ladder that scales the dinosaur, she extracts a confession of love from David. Susan gets excited, causing the long ladder to sway out of control. She climbs on top of the one-of-a-kind reconstruction, causing it to collapse in a heap, David laughs at his misfortune and embraces his bride-to-be.

In one last comical moment, Susan manages to destroy David's life's work, but he doesn't mind.

Howard Hawks came to RKO in 1937 with a two-film deal, primarily to adapt Rudyard Kipling’s Gunga Din, but production was delayed when RKO was unable to borrow the actors it wanted for the production. When Hawks read Hagar Wilde’s short story in Colliers, he immediately wanted to make it into a movie. After buying the film rights for a little over $1,000, Hawks worked on a treatment with Wilde, before hiring Dudley Nichols, best known for his work with director John Ford, to write the screenplay.

When casting for the film, Hawks considered Carole Lombard, his cousin, for the role of Susan, but decided on Hepburn because her own background had similarities with the character’s. RKO agreed to her casting, but had reservations because of Hepburn’s lack of box office success the couple of years prior.

For the role of David, Hawks considered silent comedy star Harold Lloyd, but the head of production at RKO, Pandro S. Berman, rejected him. Actors like Robert Montgomery, Fredric March and Ray Milland were offered the role, but turned it down. Howard Hughes, a friend of Hawks’, suggested Cary Grant, who had just finished filming The Awful Truth (1937).

Filming was supposed to start on September 1, 1937, but was delayed due to rewrites, including some gags and clearance to use the song "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby", which plays an integral part of the story.

Hepburn apparently had problems with her character, finding it hard to act funny and instead overacting. Hawks had vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett to coach her, acting out scenes with Grant for her. Hepburn got the message and her acting improved for the rest of the shoot. Hepburn was so impressed by Catlett that she insisted he be cast as Constable Slocum.

Even though the completed film received positive reviews at preview screenings it turned out to be financial disappointment. Despite how famous this film is now, at the time it was released it was a box-office flop. Some of that blame might be laid at the feet of Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn would shortly be let out of her contract with RKO. She would turn around her career with The Philadelphia Story (1940), which would also co-star Grant and directed by George Cukor.

Hawks received some blame from RKO, too. They terminated his contract and gave Gunga Din to George Stevens to direct. Hawks’ career would continue as well. He would make his next two movies with Grant: Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and His Girl Friday (1940) and then follow those with two films starring Gary Cooper: Sergeant York (1941) and Ball of Fire. Hawks would continue to work steadily throughout the 1940s and into the mid '50s working at various studios in various genres and with the leading stars of their day: Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, Danny Kaye, Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Grant, who appeared unscathed by the failure, was chosen to star in the Gunga Din adaptation, released in 1939. Grant and Hepburn, who had already appeared together in Sylvia Scarlett (1935) before Bringing Up Baby, would appear in two more films, Holiday (1938) and the aforementioned The Philadelphia Story.

Bringing Up Baby is a good film with some laugh out loud moments. While the movie bogs down a bit at the end with a lot of time spent in Slocum’s jail setting, the film is, for the most part, fast paced fun. Grant, who could do no wrong, is a very talented comedian and adept at physical humor. Hepburn is also very good, showing that while her comedy muscles were not as developed as her co-stars’, a good actress can play any role when given the opportunity and coaching.

One of the things I like about older films is seeing all the bit players that would sometimes go on to stardom. In this film, the supporting cast includes the likes of Ward Bond and Jack Carson in bit parts. While neither would receive what I would call stardom, they do appear in many films in important and significant supporting roles throughout their careers. Fritz Feld, who plays Dr. Lehman, is perhaps better known for his signature move: slapping his mouth with the palm of his hand to create a pop sound, which he first used in If You Knew Susie (1947).

If you have never seen Bringing Up Baby before, you owe it to yourself to watch at least once. You won’t be disappointed and afterwards you’ll know what exactly makes a great Screwball Comedy.

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