Goofy but Great: The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Bad times do not prompt most people to reach for a soul-scalding drama. If, for example, you are the Siren, and you hear that the judge who cast a swing vote in the Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey has decided now is the perfect freaking time to retire to Arizona, you do not glance at the calendar and say, "That reminds me, I have been meaning to rent Vera Drake." No, the Siren reached instead for her copy of The Palm Beach Story, 88 minutes of a woman making it in a man's world with nothing but her wits and a pair of fabulously long legs to carry her through.

The first time I saw this Preston Sturges comedy was the night I rented it and brought it over to the apartment of a longtime pal who was in the dumps, I forget why. Probably a woman. He was as low as I had ever seen him. Usually he's making wisecracks all over the place; that night it was like dinner with Boris Karloff in The Mummy. We popped in the tape. Here's a tip: Do not try to understand what is going on during the credit sequence. Think of it as the screwball equivalent of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or The Sound and the Fury. You don't understand the openings of those novels until you have read to the end, and you won't understand the opening of Palm Beach Story until the final five minutes.

So we're watching the movie, and after the credits the plot is clear enough. Tom and Gerry Jeffers (Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert) have been married for five years, and their finances are a catastrophe. They owe an ungodly amount of back rent and Tom needs money to finance his airplane-landing device that will revolutionize aviation. They are still in love, but Gerry has decided to parlay her slinky allure into some cash that will bail them both out. She charms an elderly wiener magnate ("Lay off 'em. You'll live longer") into giving her rent money and decamps to Florida for a quickie divorce. On the train to Palm Beach she hooks up with the millionaire members of the Ale and Quail Club, but after the club decides a railcar is the perfect place for target practice (a funny sequence marred by a sadly stereotypical porter), Gerry meets a saner millionaire prospect, John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee). They arrive at Palm Beach, take the yacht out for a spin and Hackensacker falls for Gerry. Tom arrives, itching to get Gerry back, and finds himself being pursued by Hackensacker's sister (Mary Astor). All these loose ends are tied up in a neat knot that finally explains just what was up during that credit sequence.

So, anyway, sometime around when the Wienie King arrived and gave Claudette Colbert $700 to pay her rent, my friend sat up a little straighter and said, "Hey. She's cute." About two minutes more passed, and he added, "Really cute."

When the movie ended, Boris Karloff hit rewind, slapped me on the back and declared he was buying us both a drink.

According to the book Hollywood Goes to War, the Office of War Information was irked by the nonessential travel in Palm Beach Story. That, plus the pleasure cruise on a 300-foot yacht, the "destruction of a war essential" (that railcar), and concern that the relaxed attitude toward marriage vows might strike viewers abroad as typical American morals. After this movie's release, OWI started pressing for a tighter, more patriotic wartime censorship code.

They should have given Preston Sturges a medal instead. Can we agree that 1942 was a terrible year to be alive? I know it's fashionable to romanticize the war years, but we Americans had just entered a global bloodbath and it wasn't going all that well. If the Siren had opened the paper and there's Guadalcanal, Midway, Stalingrad, Rommel taking Tobruk, she'd have been happy to watch a movie with lines like:

Tom: Just like that, seven hundred dollars. Sex didn't even enter into it, I suppose?
Gerry: Oh, but of course it did, darling. I don't think he would have given it to me if I had hair like Excelsior and little short legs like an alligator. Sex always has something to do with it, dear.

Gerry: Anyway, men don't get smarter as they get older. They just lose their hair.

John D. Hackensacker III: That's one of the tragedies of this life, that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.

The Wienie King: Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destroying slowly but without pity that which yesterday was young. Alone our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years. Heh. That's hard to say with false teeth.

In Sturges' autobiography (cobbled together by his widow, who went through his journals), he says he conceived Palm Beach Story "as an illustration of my theory of the aristocracy of beauty." Just a few lines later he observes, "Millionaires are funny." I know which analysis of this goofy movie I prefer.

Goofy but Great: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

The Siren may be going out on a limb calling this movie great.

"Some of the sets and machines were amusing, but ... the movie was 145 minutes of badly acted, sugar-coated whimsy, punctuated by dreadful songs and shoddy special effects," says Ronald Bergan in 1986's The United Artists Story. Apparently the critics in 1968 hated this, too. And I guess if I saw it right after a screening for Rosemary's Baby or Bullitt I might have hated it, too, or at least have come out of the theater muttering, "What the hell?"

But I saw it as a child and loved it, and when I see it as an adult I love it still. Yes, the rear projection is awful, but if you notice the rear projection is awful in Vertigo, too, and nobody questions your taste when you love that one. Chitty probably doesn't need me to defend it, since it was critic-proof in 1968 and is adored to this day. As an intellectual exercise, however, I decided to go over what I think fans see in this movie that Mr. Bergan and others don't. Plus I needed an excuse to sing along with "The Travelling Life" again.

It's based on stories by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, and has some things in common with the Bond movies. You have improbable gadgets including the flying car of the title, a ruthless dictator, a gorgeous woman and an endlessly inventive hero out to save everybody. You even have Gert Frobe (and Cubby Broccoli as producer).

Tots Jeremy and Jemima persuade their father, itinerant inventor Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) to refurbish an old car they have fallen in love with. Once Potts has it up and running, it turns out the thing can fly, and float, and navigate. Word of the car's miraculous powers reaches the sinister Baron Bomburst (Frobe), who has the Potts' grandpa (Lionel Jeffries) kidnapped in the mistaken belief that Grandpa is the car's inventor. Off go the Potts to rescue Grandpa, accompanied by Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), daughter of the local candy magnate. When they arrive they find that the Baron has outlawed children in his little Ruritanian dictatorship. As Bugs Bunny would say, of course you know this means war.

Dick Van Dyke was in great singing and dancing form, especially in "Toot Sweets" and "Me Old Bamboo." I suppose someone watched Mary Poppins and said, "Dick, let's just forget about the British accent this time, 'kay?" So it wasn't until I watched the movie as an adult that I bothered to wonder why Dick sounds American, but everybody else is English as crumpets. Anyway, I love the British, but they need to get over the "Dick Van Dyke accent." I will make a deal with them: y'all don't bring up his ersatz Cockney, and I won't mention Laurence Olivier's weird pronunciations in The Betsy and Kenneth Branagh's braying in Dead Again.

But Dick isn't the primary reason the Siren adores this goofy movie. Rather, I love it for:

1. Sally Ann Howes. She radiates intelligence, she takes crap from no one in this movie, she decides she wants the hero before the hero wants her and she goes after him. Plus, she gets to wear wonderful hats. Howes was 38 when she made this movie and she looks about 25. See, wearing wide-brimmed hats protects your face from the aging effects of the sun, just like Mama told you. If you like Howes as much as I do, check out the wonderful old portmanteau thriller Dead of Night (1945).

2. The children. One aspect of movies that has improved over the years is children's performances. So many times you watch an old movie like The Women and want to strangle the mugging little brat you're supposed to feel sorry for. And remember Bonnie in Gone with the Wind? When she broke her neck jumping that fence I swear I felt sorrier for the pony.

The children in Chitty are peppy and enjoyable without causing tooth decay. As a little girl, I thought Jemima had the edge, and I still do. She has fire and initiative, and a mouth on her too, as when she calls Baroness Bomburst "VERY UGLY." The ever-helpful IMDB tells me that Heather Ripley, who played Jemima, never made another movie, but is now an "eco-warrior" protesting things like nuclear plants. Somehow it seems very fitting that Jemima would grow up to be a fighter.

3. That castle. 'Nuff said.

4. Last but not least, a superb villain in Robert Helpmann's Childcatcher. Compared to this terrifying individual, the Baron is as pathetic as Wile E. Coyote. I saw a documentary on Robert Helpmann a while back. He was, of course, primarily a ballet dancer, which explains how he could convey menace with his entire body. On this show, they interviewed a man who had been Helpmann's friend. This man's children adored Helpmann, and sometimes when the kiddie-winkies were going to bed they would ask him to "do the Childcatcher." When Helpmann obliged the children would scream in utter terror. The friend thought this was hilarious. I think I would asked have asked Sir Robert to switch to a bit from Tales of Hoffman, but I guess I am a PC American wimp.

In fact, so scary is the Childcatcher that I don't think I will let my kids see this movie until I am sure they can handle him. But when that happens, I will be ready with my sing-along DVD.

So take that, Mr. Bergan.

Goofy but Great: My Man Godfrey (1936)

...The film in the earlier sequences well conveys the atmosphere of an American Cherry Orchard, of a class with little of the grace and all the futility and some of the innocence of its Russian counterpart. Unfortunately to these Americans prosperity returns, there is no dignified exit while the axes thud in the orchard, only the great glossy club rising over the wilderness of empty tins, and, last muddle and bewilderment, the marriage of the reformer and the brainless 'lovely.'

That's Graham Greene's contemporary review, in The Spectator (quoted in The Films of Carole Lombard by Frederick Ott). The Siren would never have made it as a cinema studies major, because she finds this quote damn near as funny as My Man Godfrey itself. That same year, in the London Times (also from Ott's book), we have another critic citing "characters which strongly resemble those of Chekhov." You can tell London was a barrel of laughs in 1936.

Of course, old Anton always did insist his plays were funny, and I think he might have enjoyed My Man Godfrey. And you do find some themes worth pondering, such as:

1. In this great country of ours, rich people have a right to be crazy, too.

2. The cure for melancholy is to live with hobos.

3. The way to a woman's heart is through the shower stall.

4. What the Depression-era economy needed was more nightclubs.

5. What the English language needed was the verb "to butle."

Serious stuff. Where I really part company with Greene is when he calls Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) "brainless." Them's fightin' words. She has a fine brain, it just runs on a different track ... and occasionally off the rails or under a viaduct. But Irene has had a lot to deal with, what with bitchy sister Cornelia (the beautiful Gail Patrick) trying to take everything away from her. And she has kindness and charm, which William Powell sees right away, even it eluded Greene.

For years I have used this movie as my Prozac prescription, just the thing when the world is too much with me. I always thought this was because it was goofy. It occured to me when watching it again, however, that there's another reason. The year 1936 offered an unprecendented number of real-life villains, but there aren't any in this film. It's just as good-hearted as Irene. You can't truly dislike the gigolo Carlo (Mischa Auer), because after all he does a mean monkey impression.

Even Cornelia isn't all bad. Take the scene where she gets royally told off by Godfrey.

You belong to that unfortunate category that I would call the Park Avenue brat. A spoiled child who has grown up in ease and luxury and who has always had her own way and whose misdirected energies are so childish that they hardly deserve the comment even of a butler on the off-Thursday.

Okay, are you thinking of the same person the Siren is thinking of? There is hope for that young woman yet. Look at Gail Patrick's reaction. She's hurt. And in the end you know she's going to be a better human being. Not necessarily someone you want babysitting the kids, but much less of a brat herself.

Maybe the British were on to something. Old Anton gives all his characters an essential humanity, too. So scratch the title of today's post, and read it: "Goofy but Chekhovian: My Man Godfrey."

(corrected 2/16/07, with thanks to VP19.)

Goofy but Great: The Court Jester (1954)

The Siren inaugurates "Goofy but Great" week with The Court Jester, a film loved madly by a small but choice group. There aren't enough of us, but we're out there, fuming that the AFI 100 Best Quotes list found room for "Hasta la vista, baby" (perhaps there were a lot of disgruntled California voters on that panel) but not "The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."

Things start slowly, with a couple of mildly funny songs and an awful lot of exposition. Danny Kaye is an acrobat who has signed up with a group of fearless guerrillas in the forest who are trying to put the real King (an infant) back on the throne of England during some vaguely medieval time period involving multicolored men's tights, off-the-shoulder women's fashions, troops of midgets and a full orchestra ready to chime in if you happen to feel like singing. Finally Kaye and Glynis Johns (looking sexily feline, and nothing at all like Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins) set out with the baby king hidden in a wine cask. After that it's pure joy, as Kaye winds up impersonating a court jester to get into the palace.

Lance Mannion had a recent post where he asked where all the true stars have gone. The Siren has a different question. Where, I ask you, are the Mildred Natwicks? Nowadays the studios pay $20 million or whatever for Jim Carrey, and once they pay that you are by God going to get Jim Carrey in every frame, I don't care if it's a childbirth scene in a women's prison, we'll get Carrey in there somewhere. Star vehicles have no room for a superb character actress like Natwick, mud-fence homely but perfect in every role. Here she plays a witch working for Angela Lansbury's bratty princess. Natwick tells Kaye that the princess "finds you passing fair, passing graceful." "Tell her thanks very much," says Kaye, "but I'm just passing through."

Undeterred, Natwick puts Kaye under a spell. With a snap of her fingers, she can change him from a milquetoast into Errol Flynn and back again. And the Siren means really Errol Flynn. The spell Natwick casts on Kaye, via screenwriter-directors Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, sums up a lot of men you only meet on a movie screen:

You are a figure of romance, spirited in action, but at the same time, humble and tender. You are a man of iron, with the soul of a poet. Adventurous, gay, but with a lover's brooding melancholy. And above all, you must show passion ... [Kaye does a classic dip-and-buss on Natwick] Not ME, you fool!

Kaye executes a Tarzan swing over to the princess's quarters, proclaims himself "a lover of beauty, and a beauty of a lover," and by this time the Siren usually pauses her DVD to catch her breath after laughing herself silly.

Which brings up another point. Theater actors do a lot of "holding for laughs"--pausing to let the audience chuckle, then proceeding with the next line. You see supremely bad examples of this each year at the Oscars, as presenters hold for the tepid laughs from the dumb teleprompter jokes about Best Sound Effects Editing. Live audiences also mean you see it a lot on sitcoms, and the technique has spilled over into film comedies. I see so many movies where the laughs are practically stenciled in with intertitles, followed by nice long pauses so the audience can finish chortling and grab their next handful of Junior Mints.

In the Golden Age, there were a lot of scriptwriters and directors who didn't give a hoot if you missed the next laugh. Billy Wilder didn't, Howard Hawks sure as hell didn't, and Frank and Panama and Kaye and the rest of The Court Jester didn't either. I suppose at 1954 ticket prices they figured you could buy another ticket and sit through it again if you missed something.

So the laughs come faster and faster, with people snapping the hypnotized Danny Kaye in like Flynn and out again. Basil Rathbone (the Siren's choice of sex symbol from The Adventures of Robin Hood, and looking awesome for age 64) plays the villain. Rathbone hired the jester that Kaye is impersonating because the real jester is actually a paid assassin, get it? Got it? Good. And if you don't, that's okay, the plot makes little sense anyway. You want plot, rent The Usual Suspects. You want goofy but great, buy The Court Jester. It's only $14.99 most places, and this movie couldn't possibly better be.

Signing off for today, it's the Siren ... I live for a sigh, I die for a laugh, I lust for a laugh, ha ha!