That's Amore

Film: Moonstruck
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I have trouble buying Cher as a vocalist and I have issues with her fashion sense (or lack thereof), but I’ve never had an issue with her has an actor. Say what you will about her or give me as much grief as you like, but she’s got the chops. With Nicolas Cage, the response is a little different. Cage is certainly capable of throwing together a good performance and seems to do so every now and then. Sadly, he spends most of his time acting in garbage, though. Both Cher and Nicolas Cage have their share of camp value. So what do you get when you throw them together? Well, you get Moonstruck.

Now that I’ve seen Moonstruck, I wonder exactly why I had to see it before shuffling off this mortal coil. It’s certainly a well-made movie; I’m predisposed to like Norman Jewison. It’s beautifully cast throughout—I’m also predisposed to like Olympia Dukakis, John Mahoney, and Danny Aiello. While I can’t say that there’s anything really wrong or bad, I also can’t find anything that makes this film particularly special in any way.

The First Big-Four-Winner

Film: It Happened One Night
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

A day after the Hugo/The Artist hoopla party also known as the 84th Academy Awards, I thought it might be appropriate to return to a simpler time and take a look at the first film to win the Big 4: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The film is It Happened One Night, a thrown-together screwball comedy that influenced popular culture in a number of ways. Like a number of other great movies, this one was considered a dog by everyone involved. In fact, legend has it that Claudette Colbert was only coaxed into her role by being paid double her normal rate and being promised that the shoot would only take four weeks.

Regardless, the set up is a classic for the genre, one that has been around forever. All we need to make the true screwball romance work is to have two people meet cute, hate each other, and then fall for each other by being forced together. It doesn’t hurt if one of them is staggeringly wealthy while the other is not—in the 1930s, that was how you made sure that you got an “opposites attract” vibe from your characters.

In this case, the rich one is Ellie Andrews (Colbert), a society girl who has married a playboy aviator named King Westley (Jameson Thomas). Rather than get an annulment, she takes a swan dive off her father’s yacht and swims to shore, determined to get to New York and meet up with her new husband. At the same time, Peter Warne (Clark Gable) is, depending on which side you ask, either quitting his job or being fired as a newspaper man. He’s also headed back to New York. Naturally, our two stars wind up on the same bus fighting over the same seat.

So now things get interesting. There’s a reward for the whereabouts of Ellie Andrews, a sizable $10,000 put up by her father (Walter Connolly) for her safe return. Peter knows this immediately—he’s aware of exactly who she is, but he’s not interested in the reward. Like any good newspaper man, employed or otherwise, his idea is to travel with her and get a story out of her that he can sell to the highest bidder. And so, they travel together, sharing motel rooms (scandalous for the time!) and posing as a married couple (equally scandalous!). Naturally, she complains endlessly and can’t seem to get the hang of not having any cash. He complains endlessly about the fact that she’s spoiled rotten. And naturally, the two fall for each other, but can’t admit it, requiring the intervention of her father and the paid compliance of King Westley for our couple to ride off happily together.

What? No spoiler alert? C’mon, it’s a romantic comedy. There’s no other way it could end.

As a screwball comedy, though, it’s not very screwball. Our two main characters dislike each other only slightly, and not for very long. It’s pretty quickly that they’re at least chummy with each other, and not too long after that when she professes undying love for him. It’s also interesting to note that in spite of the title, the film takes place over at least three nights—there are three different occasions in which our star-crossed couple beds down for the evening.

Essentially, screwball comedies changed quite a bit after this film, as did romantic comedies. There isn’t a great deal of tension between the two characters. After their first day, for instance, it’s pretty evident that they’re starting to like one another. Oh, they still give each other a difficult time about things and tease each other, but it loses the edge of malice after the first day. Really, the only tension that happens after that first night is the fact that she’s still a spoiled little rich girl and that she thinks at one point that he’s abandoned her.

But let’s talk about cultural impact. It’s a well-established fact that Bugs Bunny was based in no small part on Clark Gable’s character in this film. In fact, it’s Gable gnawing on a carrot and speaking at the same time that served as one of the cartoon standby’s greatest trademarks. Additionally, on their first night together, Gable partially disrobes and reveals that he’s not wearing an undershirt. Reportedly, sales of undershirts plummeted across the country. As Gable does, so do the masses, evidently.

I’m not as well-versed in 1934 as I probably should be, but I’ve seen several of the nominated films from that year. For my money, a good number of the awards, particularly the one for screenplay and possibly actor should have gone to The Thin Man instead. The dialogue is better for one thing. This isn’t to take away from It Happened One Night, but it’s simply the truth as I see it. I’ll take the saucy and sauced detective over the Reporter McDrinksalot and Snooty McWhitegirl every single time. Okay, yeah, that’s being unfair.

Why to watch It Happened One Night: It’s the progenitor of the ‘30s screwball rom-com.
Why not to watch: It’s still a rom-com, regardless of its impact.

Starting Point

Films: Roman Holiday
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

All actors start somewhere. Those who end up having a career get lucky at some point and are in something that hits. Those who become legendary have the same luck, but prove that some of that luck was created by them in the first place. Audrey Hepburn is one of those legendary performers, and she started in Roman Holiday. I consider myself a fan of Audrey Hepburn, so I was very interested in seeing this, her first major role, and the film that earned her an Oscar.

The story is a pretty simple one. Princess Ann (Hepburn), who is from an unspecified European country, is currently on a tour around Europe to boost trade and good will. However, she is bored by the tasks put in front of her and intensely frustrated. Upset, she’s given a sedative, but when she is left on her own, she runs off into the streets of Rome where she is picked up by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), a reporter working for a news service in Rome. Joe doesn’t recognize her at first, and believes her to be drunk because of the sedative. He takes her back to his place and puts her up for the night.

He discovers who she is in the morning and calls in his photographer friend Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) to help him. He gets his editor to agree to a huge price for an exclusive story on the princess on what is essentially her first day off in her life. While she goes off on her own at first and gets a severe haircut (that looks better on her than her long hair, incidentally), Joe makes plans, then meets up with her again and takes her around the city while Irving hangs out incognito and snaps photos of their day. And as will surprise no one, the pair falls hard for each other by the end of the day, a scene made poignant when both realize that they live in very different worlds. All of this leads to the inevitable concluding scene.

Roman Holiday is in many ways the template for the typical romantic comedy. It has all of the earmarks of romantic comedies that are still being made today—an extremely privileged woman has everything she wants except for the one thing she really wants, and that comes from an unexpected place. The pair meets cute and has wacky adventures together—in this case involving a scooter ride through Rome and Ann trying her first cigarette—before they decide at the end that they really want to be together. While the career of princess is perhaps a bit less common these days, women in romantic comedies still tend to have these sorts of dream careers (book editor, museum curator, high-profile author, etc.). And the guy tends to be ultimately decent despite being a little dangerous or potentially deceitful at the start.

Most of the time, this formula doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work because it’s so obviously lifestyle porn and romance porn for women that I can’t bring myself to do much but be repelled by it. Modern romantic comedies generally involve the guy acting in ways that would get a restraining order slapped on him in a heartbeat. But that doesn’t happen here. In fact, Joe and eventually Irving are downright noble in their actions throughout. Part of that may be the year in which this film was made, but part of that is the characters themselves.

There are some very cute scenes. At the Mouth of Truth, for instance. Tradition states that if a liar puts his or her hand in the mouth, it will bite the hand off. Joe places his hand in the mouth, gives a scream, and then pulls out his sleeve with his hand missing, only to reveal it tucked up his sleeve. According to legend, Audrey Hepburn didn’t know Peck was going to pull that stunt, and her scream reaction is a genuine one. Just as cute are the pratfalls taken by Irving when Joe is trying to clue him in on the identity of Princess Ann. These are sweet moments of real joy, because they come across as actual instead of overly “film-y” or forced.

What romantic comedies seem to have forgotten is that what’s important is not that the characters fall for each other eventually, or even that opposites attract, at least on film. What’s important is that we as the audience care for these people and want the same things they do. I dislike most characters in modern rom-coms because they are shallow, stupid, snotty, selfish, and other words that probably start with “s.” In a well-made romantic comedy like this one, I want the characters to end up happily because I like them and have grown to care for them. That’s the success of this film more than anything else.

And it doesn’t hurt that Audrey Hepburn is Audrey Hepburn. That covers a lot of faults. When the film has very few and only minor faults to begin with, the end result is something truly special. And it also doesn’t hurt that the ending is the right one. It may not be the one that everyone likes, but it’s still the right one.

Why to watch Roman Holiday: Because it’s the start of Audrey Hepburn’s career.
Why not to watch: The ending is the right one, but you might not like it.

Cagney and Lace Ups

Film: Footlight Parade
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

After yesterday’s films, I thought it would be a good idea to watch something wholesome and normal. Since I’ve fairly obviously decided that this month is going to be all about foreign films and musicals, it was time for another musical. Unless I chose really, really badly, there was no way possible that I could find a musical as weird as yesterday’s films. I suppose Oh! Calcutta! or Cannibal: The Musical probably would qualify, but neither is on the list. Fortunately.

Instead, I went with Footlight Parade, a musical from 1933 with enough stars to choke a donkey. This is something I do find interesting about films from the early days of movies, especially of the Hollywood variety. These days, a typical film might have a couple of major stars in it. Back then, it was pack ‘em in sideways like sardines.

The film centers around the life of Chester Kent (James Cagney), a theatrical producer who finds himself out of work. Why? Talkies. Everyone’s gone to the movies (pardon the Steely Dan reference there), leaving the traditional theaters empty. His wife immediately divorces him, leaving him alone and without work until he hits on a fantastic idea. His backers, the theater owners (Guy Kibbee and Arthur Hohl), run small production numbers before their films, but are getting ready to cut them. Kent offers to create these numbers for them, and so they can send their troupes out to other theaters in other cities. These “prologues” as they are called become an immediate hit.

And now we get to all of the personalities. First is Kent’s assistant Harry Thompson (Gordon Westcott), who is secretly selling Kent’s ideas to a competitor. Also in the mix is Kent’s secretary, Nan Prescott (Joan Blondell), who is not-so-secretly in love with Kent. An acquaintance of hers, Vivian Rich (Claire Dodd), is a not-so-subtle gold digger trying to get her hooks into Kent as well. Kent’s bosses are skimming all of the profit off the top. The dance director (Frank McHugh) is a whiney crybaby who complains constantly. The new juvenile (Dick Powell) and the dancer cum secretary cum dancer (Ruby Keeler) both hate and love each other, a situation exacerbated by the juvenile’s sugar momma (Ruth Donnelly), who also happens to be one of the producer’s wife. Oh, and there’s a censor (Hugh Herbert) who hates everything Kent creates.

Whew!

The climax of the film comes long before the end. All of the various plots come to a head at the exact same moment, or at least within a few minutes of each other and everything gets resolved. The last half hour or so are three individual musical numbers, each one a show stopper.

Essentially, what happens is that Kent finds out his wife never really divorced him, and now that he’s rolling in cash and fame, she wants a cut. Our gold digger has exacted a promised marriage, and she refuses to back down, threatening to sue. And even though they’re stealing from him, the producers need Kent to come up with three fantastic prologues to wow a potential new client and prevent him from going to the competition. All of this and more winds up at the same time so we can get to the big finish, the second big finish, and then the grand finale on top of the big finish.

These numbers are interesting, and very much movie numbers. Allegedly, these are being performed on a stage, but not a one of them would work on an actual stage, since they involve switching scenery and locations at lightning speed. Additionally, the second number in particular only works in many places if viewed from above, since it’s a massive water ballet. An audience would first be shocked by seeing a gigantic swimming pool on a theater stage. Second, all they’d see is bobbing heads instead of the intricate patterns we are blessed thanks to a fortuitous camera angle.

It’s these numbers that are the selling point of the film, of course, but also for me the place where the film breaks too much with reality. The numbers flat out don’t work for a theater audience. When the third number ends with Cagney essentially showing a flip-book cartoon…no one in the audience would see it, and the whole damn number would fall flat because of it.

Regardless of this, it’s impossible not to love Cagney in this film. He plays his role with a manic energy, shows off his odd dancing style, and really hoofs the hell out of it in the Shanghai Nights number at the end. Joan Blondell is exactly the sort of girl every guy would want—competent, funny, and a smartass. Introducing her “friend” Vivian Rich, she calls her “Miss Bi…Rich” in one of the funniest moments of the film. Another is when she tells Vivian that as long as sidewalks exist, girls like her will have a job, and she kicks Vivian out the door with a boot to the posterior.

I realize times have changed. Everyone makes a big deal of how beautiful Ruby Keeler is when she takes off the glasses and puts on dancer’s togs. For my money, she looked better with the glasses.

As much as this film moves away from reality, it’s impossible not to enjoy it. It’s just too much fun.

Why to watch Footlight Parade: A cast of thousands, but especially Cagney, Keeler, and Blondell.
Why not to watch: Hollywood reality never comes close to reality reality.

A Different Kind of Love

Films: The Philadelphia Story, Belle de Jour
Format: DVD from Davenport Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop (Philadelphia); DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television (Belle).

What do you get when you take three of the finest actors of their generation and put them in the same movie? If you answered “a crap shoot,” you’d be right. Put that many powerful egos in one place and you’re apt to get a mess. Of course, if you can get them all to work together, you can end up with something significant. Of course that takes a significant director; fortunately George Cukor is up to the task.

The Philadelphia Story is the sort of film that made Hollywood great back in the day. It opens with perhaps the greatest break-up scene in movie history. C.K. Dexter Haven (the great Cary Grant) is being kicked out of his house by his wife, Tracy Lord Haven (Katharine Hepburn). His arms are full of bags, and she follows with his collection of pipes and his golf clubs. With nowhere for him to hold the pipes, she drops them unceremoniously on the ground, then does the same with all but one of his golf clubs. That, she breaks over her knee, then walks back to the house. Dexter follows her, and when she turns for a last retort, he mimes punching her, thinks better of it, palms her face in his hand, and shoves her to the ground. From there, we get the title card, “Two Years Later.”

Here’s where our other players enter. First, we have Tracy’s younger sister, Dinah (Virginia Weidler), who is at that strange age of innocence and not-so-innocence. She clearly misses Dexter and dislikes Tracy’s current fiancé, George Kittredge (John Howard). Kittredge is an up-and-comer with possible political aspirations. We also need to encounter Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) and Elizabeth Imbrie (Ruth Hussey), a writer and photographer for the society magazine Spy.

Spy also happens to be the employer of one C.K. Dexter Haven. The job of Connor and Imbrie is to get into the big society wedding and get a story for the magazine, with any help that Haven can muster. Of course, Haven isn’t too pleased about the wedding, and might be causing the story himself.

While all of these characters are real characters, the one I enjoy the most without any reservation at all is Dinah. The kid cracks me up. When she and Tracy discover the real reason that Connor and Imbrie are at their house, they do everything they possibly can to give the reporters the impression that the entire family is out of its collective mind. Dinah prances like a ballerina, talks in French, and wallops out a nice version of “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” on the piano before running off because she might have smallpox. Great stuff.

I’m not entirely sure where to place this film in terms of genre. Is it a screwball comedy? Kind of, but not the sort I’m used to seeing. It is loads of fun though—rather than simply wacky hijinks, the constant situation is one of an elephant in the room. Connor and Imbrie eventually get wise to the fact that they’re being played. The Lord family, particularly the family matriarch Margaret Lord (Mary Nash) knows exactly what’s going on but refuses to admit that there’s anything fishy with her daughters both claiming that her brother is her husband or Imbrie’s constant photographing of everything around her.

This is beautifully played comedy. As Margaret attempts to keep things looking normal, Tracy and Dinah act in a manner to give the reporters a real sensational story, Uncle Willie (Roland Young) is completely confused, Haven stands in the middle attempting the ruin the impending nuptials, and through all of it is the not-so-subtle click of the camera that constantly stops conversation for just a half second each time a new picture is snapped.

This of course says nothing of the fact that there is an evident attraction between Tracy and Connor. She is touched by his evident skill as a writer. And, of course, Kittredge is something of a sweet, little nobody. This is further complicated by the fact that Connor and Imbrie are, without really saying it, something of an item. It’s less a love triangle than sort of a love pile-up.

The way a film like this works, the place to really start paying attention is right around the middle. Dexter Haven absolutely dresses down his ex-wife in a way that can only happen in the movies. And he’s right—Tracy Lord is a scold, a nag, and has the sort of standards that are impossible for anyone but her to live up to. Any deviation from what Tracy wants, since Tracy has always gotten what she wants, cannot be handled. Her father, who has run off with a dancer, tells her essentially the same thing. She doesn’t like it, but she can’t deny it. She is a snooty prig.

Of course, it’s a 1940 romantic comedy, so everything works out in the end. The ending is perhaps a little too pat and cutesy, but it’s still damn fun. And really, Cary Grant in this movie simply reaffirms that he was the most suave man to ever put on pants.

As for Belle de Jour, I’m not really sure where I should start. I’ve had the movie in my possession from the library for close to three weeks and simply haven’t had the courage to watch it until tonight. When a film is called Luis Bunuel’s “erotic masterpiece,” I start to worry a bit. Flatly, erotica makes me a little uncomfortable.

I shouldn’t have been worried. Certainly, Belle de Jour is a sexy film, and that’s most definitely one of the selling points of this movie, but it isn’t the entire point. Rather, it’s about desire and the blurred line between reality and fantasy.

Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) is the young housewife of a doctor named Pierre (Jean Sorel). In her mind, she lives in a fantasy world of kinky and somewhat degrading sex, but in the real world, she’s pretty frigid—to the point where she and her husband sleep in separate beds per The Dick van Dyke Show. A friend of her husband’s, Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli), gives her the creeps because of his rather open sexuality and evident desire to see more than might be appropriate of Severine.

A friend tells her of a mutual acquaintance of theirs who has garnered a new job for herself—working in a local Parisian house of ill repute. Evidently the money is pretty good and it’s exciting, so she keeps doing it. Husson tells her the same thing, and also of a similar place he used to go to that is still in business. Looking for a way to free herself from the boredom of her life, Severine goes and becomes the newest member of the staff.

This isn’t easy for her at first. Madame Anais (Genevieve Page) christens her “Belle de Jour” (beauty of the day) because she can only work during the day. It takes her a few clients to get it right, but Severine quickly takes to this new double life of hers, finding the “work” to be both exhilarating and something much more than she had with her marriage.

The trouble starts with a young client named Marcel (Pierre Clementi). The two are almost immediately attracted to each other—him by her obvious beauty and her by the fact that many of his teeth are metal from an accident and just as much by the fact that she is terrified of him. The problem becomes obvious—Marcel can’t have her, and he wants her. And he’s a violent criminal and will not stop at anything to have her.

The lines blur in this film between the fantasy sex world Severine lives in and the reality of her new life with Madame Anais. This is inherently interesting, of course. What I find more interesting is Bunuel’s incisive look into the human mind and spirit. One of Severine’s early clients is a gynecologist who wishes to be degraded, beaten, and otherwise humiliated. Severine is told to observe so that she can learn something, but she is disgusted by what she sees. This is a brilliant counterpoint to many of Severine’s fantasies, which involve her being degraded, beaten, covered in muck, and then forced into sex. Degradation is fine for her, evidently, but her embarrassment of this leads her to severely judge others who want the same thing.

This is an interesting film, and while there’s plenty of sex, legs, and a naked back or two, it’s not particularly racy in anything more than subject matter. I’m not sure I’d watch it again, but I was certainly wrong to dread it.

Why to watch The Philadelphia Story: A remarkable romance that goes in a lot of directions.
Why not to watch: If you’re at all like me, you’d rather slap Katherine Hepburn than kiss her.

Why to watch Belle de Jour: An interesting look into human psychology with a side of sexy.
Why not to watch: It’s not as sexy as you may be looking for.

Character Vs. Plot

Films I Know Where I’m Going!, His Girl Friday
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television (Going), DVD from DeKalb Public Library on itty bitty bedroom television (His Girl).

Depending on who you ask, there are only a few real stories in the world. Some will tell you that there are only seven basic plots. Joseph Campbell made a big deal of the fact that there’s really only one story. Whichever of these ideas you subscribe to, there’s a good reason why the same characters, the same plots, and the same ideas show up in movie after movie.


I Know Where I’m Going!, a Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger collaboration, is an early example of a woman torn between what she wants and what she thinks she wants. This movie gets released about once a month, frequently starring Kate Hudson. Here’s the basic set up: a woman goes off in pursuit of marriage to a successful guy she probably doesn’t love, but who can set her up with a life of ease and privilege. One the way to her impending wedding, acts of God and man prevent her from meeting up with her husband-to-be, but she does encounter an attractive, romantic bachelor who she is both repelled by and attracted to. She spends the entire movie trying to decide between the two men—the one she obviously loves and the one who can give her the life she’s always dreamed of.

In short, I Know Where I’m Going! is a film you’ve almost certainly seen at least a dozen times, and there are no surprises here except for some of the set pieces like the massive whirlpool that threatens our heroine at the end of the film. In this case, the woman in question is the headstrong and difficult Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller), and the young, poor suitor is Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey). He is a poor Scottish laird, unable to enter his own castle due to a terrible curse. She is promised in marriage to a wealthy industrialist about the age of her father.

They meet because she is headed to an island on the Hebrides to be married to the old man, but the classic Scottish weather prevents her from getting there. Instead, she’s stuck on a different island with Torquil, a guy with a name that only Powell and Pressburger could even attempt to foist on an audience.

The plot is cute, but there are no surprises here unless you’ve never seen a romantic comedy in your life. From the moment Torquil walks on screen, the end is a foregone conclusion. And that would be fine if I gave much of a rat’s hindquarters about the characters, particularly Joan.

Quite frankly, I don’t like Joan. She’s bitchy, superior, and unpleasant. Most of the press material and many of the comments I’ve seen on this movie call her headstrong—as far as I’m concerned, that’s nothing but a euphemism for spoiled rotten. She’s sassy and brassy, and if she were a man, everyone would call her an asshole, but since she’s a woman, we’re supposed to be charmed by her. Wendy Hiller has virtually no chemistry with Roger Livesey, and frankly, I blame her, but that’s only because I really enjoy Roger Livesey. His voice is exactly what I think of when I think of upper crust British, and I could listen to him read a menu and be entertained by it. Frankly, in this film, Torquil is a much better match for Catriona (Pamela Brown), a local girl who is far more interesting than Joan could ever hope to be.

With better chemistry between the characters, or frankly with a character better than Joan Webster, I can be compelled to care about a story I’ve seen a dozen times. I enjoy both versions of Sabrina, for instance, even though I know exactly how it’s going to end every time. There’s a joy in seeing things come out the way we want them to. I’m as much a sucker for that as the next person. But not when I think there are better endings to be had out there. It doesn’t help that the theme song is horrifying, and made my dog twitch until it finally ended.

So what’s going for it? A few things. The Scottish countryside is beautiful, and beautifully filmed here. It’s also fun to see Petula Clark (as Cheril, the young girl with the giant glasses) as a young child, long before she sang “Downtown” or “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.”


But not every retreaded plot means for a dull movie. His Girl Friday features version 2.0 of the love triangle in I Know Where I’m Going! We again have one woman and two men, but things are a little more complicated. The basics are the same. Hildy (Rosalind Russell) is a newspaper reporter who is recently back from an extended vacation. The reason for the vacation was a quickie Nevada divorce from her husband and editor, Walter Burns (Cary Grant). This divorce was entirely one-sided—Burns didn’t want it, doesn’t want to accept that Hildy has really divorced him, and wants her back, both in a marriage and on the paper.

However, Hildy has shown up to break some news to Walter. First, she doesn’t want back on the paper; she’s retiring. Second, the reason she’s retiring is that she’s getting married again, to a stable, but excessively dull insurance salesman named Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Now that you know the players, you should be able to figure out what happens. Walter does whatever he can to throw a wrench in the works between Hildy and Bruce, and also does everything he can to get her back on the paper. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a whale of a story going on at the moment.

A man stands accused of killing a police officer and is about to be executed. Walter Burns wants to save the man, and he needs Hildy to write the story. She finally agrees because Walter says he’ll take out a massive insurance policy on himself to give Bruce a fat commission. And, naturally, everything conspires to work out a happy ending for, well, at least Walter and Hildy.

The difference here, even though the story is pretty straightforward, is the characters themselves. Unlike Joan, Hildy really is a firebrand. She’s quick, she’s funny, and she’s just a little bit nasty. Walter is a conniving jerk, but he’s doing it because he can’t imagine his life without Hildy by his side. What’s great is how much of a match she is for him. She knows that Walter will pull particular stunts to prevent her and Bruce from boarding their train to Albany, so she takes all of their collective money and has him hide the commission check. Sure enough, Bruce is falsely arrested based on a tip to the police from Walter, and everything he owns is confiscated—but she’s outfoxed her ex, because the money and the check are safe.

We want these characters to be happy. They match each other and do so well. Even more, they can keep up with each other. As the story spins out of control and things continue to get crazy around them, they are the only ones who seem to know what is going on. They’re both frenetic, and both completely alive when something exciting is going on around them. They deserve eac other, and more than anything, we want them to end up were they should be.

The retread plot doesn’t matter here, because anyone who’s ever seen a romantic comedy before has a pretty good idea of where things are going to end up when the short running time finally winds down. We’re not watching this for the plot, but for the people going through the familiar story. If we like the people, we like the story, and Walter and Hildy are too clever and too fun to really dislike.

In short, good characters make even the most tired plot entertaining, and it never hurts to have Cary Grant.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever seen the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s role as Amy Archer, the hard-bitten, tough reporter looking for a scoop is very much a sop to Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Leigh is a good actress, but in a side-by-side comparison, she’s no Rosalind Russell.

Why to watch I Know Where I’m Going!: There’s comfort in a familiar story.
Why not to watch: Why would anyone want the unpleasant Joan to end up with everything she desires?

Why to watch His Girl Friday: Snappy banter and fun, smart characters.
Why not to watch: Everyone talks at once.