It's the dog days of August and not much happening at the multiplex and even less going on TV right now (other than a few series on premium cable channels), but I was able to catch up with a couple of my all-time fav films on TCM recently. Within 3 days, both MY MAN GODFREY (1936) and 7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS (1954) were broadcast and I watched them (even though I own the 50th anniversary DVD of BRIDES).
MY MAN GODFREY is one of the great screwball comedies from the l930s. It stars William Powell and Carole Lombard, both Oscar nominated, as were 2 of its supporting actors (Alice Brady and Mischa Auer), its screenplay and director. None won, but more on that a little later.
Lombard plays a ditzy, spoiled socialite who meets Godfrey, a derelict living in the city dump, while playing a silly parlor game. She offers him a job as butler to her family who epitomizes the idle rich.
Her father is played by the great character actor Eugene Palette and her sister by the strikingly beautiful Gail Patrick (actually much prettier than Lombard). You sort of know where the story is going quite early on but it is the getting there that is so much fun.
The screenplay is a gem, the dialogue witty and delivered at a frenetic pace and loud. That is, except for Powell's whose character is really the only sane one in the family he serves. Always suave and smooth, his performance here is letter perfect with some great lines - "The only difference between a rich man and a homeless person is a job." I appreciate his performance more each time I watch it. He is that good.
Two years yearlier (1934) a film similar in style - IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT - won all the major
Oscars including best film, best actor (GABLE) and best actress (COLBERT). MY MAN GODFREY should have picked up the same awards because it is superior to the earlier comedy.
But it got caught in studio politics and behind the scene 'trades'.
Membership in the Academy was composed mainly of studio employees who included actors, writers, directors and executives under contract to the various studios with MGM having the greatest number. To push his studio's (MGM) THE GREAT ZIEGFIELD over the top for best film and to get Louise Rainer the Oscar for best actress for ZIEGFIELD, studio chief Leo B. Mayer instructed his people to vote for Paul Muni for best actor (in Warner Bros's THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR) over his own studio's Spencer Tracy who was nominated for SAN FRANCISCO. Mayer was only too happy to have Muni win since he was starring in his studio's THE GOOD EARTH about to be released at the time that year's Oscars were being announced.
Jack Warner at WARNER BROS. didn't mind that ZIEGFIELD won because he had THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (starring Paul Muni) set to take top honors the following year when Spencer Tracy finally won for MGM'S CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS.
Damn confusing, n'est pa?
The big loser in all of this studio manipulation of votes was MY MAN GODFREY (which wasn't even nominated for best film) and William Powell who should have won the Oscar for best actor over Paul Muni. Easy. No contest. It is a performance, unlike Muni's, that is every bit as brilliant today as it was in 1936. Of course, also working against Powell was the fact that his performance was in a comedy and the Academy was now leaning towards more dramatic peformances and films for its awards. Also nominated in 1936 was A TALE OF TWO CITIES and
ANTHONY ADVERSE. On the other hand, a musical with Deana Durbin from the same studio (Universal) that released GODFREY got nominated for best film that year so maybe I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Whatever. MY MAN GODFREY is a gem and I can't recommend it highly enough.
My second favorite film here is 7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS which came out of nowhere when it was released in the same month and year that I was bar mitvahed in (July, 1954). I remember taking the streetcar downtown to the Lowe's Capitol Theatre on F Street to see it 7 days in a row.
Starring Howard Keel and Jane Powell, it is one of the great original movie musicals (along with SINGING IN THE RAIN) and features some terrific songs and dancing.
MGM had put all its money and publicity efforts behind its production of BRIGADOON. 7 BRIDES got a green light only after its producers agreed to do it on a very tight budget and on sound stages in Culver City rather than on location. Some 2nd unit exterior shooting took place in Utah but all the production numbers were done on sets and you can actually see the drapes (supposedly mountains and clouds) moving behind Jane Powell when she is singing early in the film.
But no mind. The ensemble cast of contract players, including a very young Russ Tamblyn, and dancers, including Jacques d'Amboise from the NY City Ballet, is high energy and a treat to behold.
Directed by Stanley Donen with choreography by Michael Kidd, the film became MGM's biggest box office hit of that year (BRIGADOON tanked) and garnered 5 major Oscar nominations, including best picture, which it deserved (unlike the also nominated 3 COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN).
It won none, but who cares (ON THE WATERFRONT won for best film that year). I have probably seen it more than any other motion picture ever made and whenever I'm feeling blue,
bored or both, I slip it into the ole DVD player and for the next 100 minutes I'm a happy person.
No comments:
Post a Comment