High Comedy And Great Chemistry

Some links before I get started today. Yesterday having had been a Sunday, we had a Snippet Sunday at our joint blog. Lena writes about change. The Whisk had this much too cute lab result. Lorelei wrote about the fiftieth anniversary of  Bewitched. And Mark had some crossover fanfiction going on.

Today I have a movie review...

"The time to make your mind up about people is never." ~ Tracy Lord

"We all go haywire at times, and if we don't, we ought to." ~ Liz Imrie

"I'm sorry, but I thought I'd better hit you before he did. He's in better shape than I am." ~ C.K. Dexter Haven

"Well you'll do!" ~ MacCauley Connor

The Philadelphia Story is the 1940 film adaptation of the Broadway play by Philip Barry, telling the story of a socialite getting married and the complications presented by her ex-husband and two reporters turning up for the occasion. Starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Ruth Hussey, the film deals with family dynamics, class differences, and strong characterization, all while bringing a good sense of humour and splendid chemistry between its actors to the equation. Hepburn acquired rights to the play at a time when she was considered box office poison. The movie would be nominated for Oscars, winning two, and stands up well decades later as a true classic.

A prelude scene some years earlier sets up the end of the marriage of Tracy Lord (Hepburn) and C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) as he walks out on her. In the present, she's about to marry George Kittredge (John Howard, a fellow who's worked his way up and thinks of himself as a man of the people. Tabloid publisher Sidney Kidd (Henry Daniell) wants the wedding covered, assigning writer MacCauley "Mike" Connor (Stewart) and photographer Liz Imrie (Hussey) to crash the wedding. He sets them up with Dexter, one of his former employees, to get them access to the family, using scandalous material he has on Tracy's philandering father to be the leverage to get the Lords to play along. Tracy doesn't like the intrusions of her ex and these strangers, but placed into a dilemma because of potential scandal, she welcomes the reporters into her home, trying to present herself and her family as joyously looking forward to the society wedding. Along the way she finds herself drawn back to Dexter while intrigued by the cynical reporter who would rather be anywhere else.

Barry wrote the play in the first place with Hepburn in mind, and she played the role on Broadway. She deftly arranged rights to the director and cast, asking George Cukor, with whom she'd worked before, to helm the film as director. Grant and Stewart came on board after the original choices, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, were unavailable; Grant had starred with Hepburn before, particularly in Bringing Up Baby. Ruth Hussey (The Uninvited) was cast in the fourth major role as Liz. The writing is clever and doesn't mind reminding the audience that it's smart. At the same time, there's such a rich, dry sense of humour to the film as a whole. The film spoke to audiences at the time, becoming a box office success and winning the Oscars for James Stewart and for the adapted screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart.

The production was done on studio sets, with the right amount of attention to detail to suggest the high society that the Lords travel in, contrasting that with Mike and Liz, who actually have to work for a living. We see this in things like the clothing for the cast, the props on set, the lavish wedding arrangements. We can agree with Mike when he finds himself perplexed with the extensions of a house phone- even one out to the stables. He's out of his usual element, and that kind of detail is a nice touch underscoring the difference in classes that plays out through the film. There are aspects of the story that are very much of its time, but the story as a whole stands the test of time.

Even while that class difference is emphasized, it's also undermined in the way characters relate to each other as the story goes along. George, who's come up from the working class, nonetheless feels uncomfortable with his rising status, and comes across as a man with a chip on his shoulders towards the rich. Dexter, who's comfortably wealthy and doesn't need to work, can cross boundaries and respects and gets along with simple workers like the night watchman for the Lord family. Mike has something of a similar chip on his shoulder about the rich, but as things move along and he gets a look at how the rich live and the problems they must deal with, his point of view must change. Tracy, for her part, is preoccupied with the reputation of her well to do family, and finds herself surprised by the thoughtfulness of a reporter who isn't quite what she expected.

The cast is spot on in their performances. Mary Nash plays Tracy's mother Margaret as the social matron who's trying to manage her daughters and deal with the open secret that her husband is a rake. She's sympathetic, though she doesn't care for the intrusion of reporters in her home. John Halliday plays her wandering husband Seth Lord, finally turning up midway. He has a more difficult role to play; it's hard to be sympathetic to a guy who's fundamentally selfish. It's much easier to like his brother William, aka Uncle Willie, played by Roland Young (even if Uncle Willie is a complete scoundrel). William is a flirt and a rascal, perhaps with too much of a fondness for drink, but we like him anyway. Virginia Weidler plays the other daughter in the Lord marriage, the teenaged Dinah. She's a smart aleck as a character, curious about the goings-on of her sister and not happy at all at how her mother and sister try to shield her from potential scandals in the family. John Howard also gets to play a less than sympathetic role as George, resentful and insecure as a person, but Howard takes that aspect of the role and runs with it.

Ruth Hussey has a wry sense about her role as Liz. Her character has worked with Mike for years, and she's fond of him, but doesn't want to tie him down. You get the sense with the way Hussey plays her that Liz is the one character who sees things very clearly. She has great chemistry with Stewart, and the same applies to the way she relates to Grant. And we even see a friendship form between her character and Tracy.

James Stewart gets to have fun playing Mike. He's a writer who doesn't like working for the tabloids, but he needs to make a living, so he gets on with it. There's a personal pride in the character- he wants to make his own way in the world instead of rely on a benefactor. Mike is a cynic when we first meet him, and a funny one- his phone exchange with Margaret before they even meet is a great laugh, and it's such a contrast from the usual inherently decent nice guy we tend to think of when we think of James Stewart. He has fine chemistry with both Hepburn and Hussey, and his character comes to get along well with Dexter.

Grant is another marvel in his role. There's a laid back sensibility to his role, an amused outlook. And yet he's acting to try to protect his former wife and her family from scandal. He sees his ex for the person she is, and can be blunt about her impossibly high standards, but he still loves her regardless. Grant brings his considerable charm to the role, and it certainly does come across throughout the film.

Hepburn initially starts out as a bit of an ice queen- she holds herself up as above it all, concerns herself with her family's reputation, and seems unforgiving at first. But she loosens up as things go along, finding herself rethinking her engagement, her ex-husband, and the reporter. It's a natural, organic process for the character as she changes, and for the audience as we go along, we like her more. By the time she's had too much to drink and greets Dexter and Mike in friendly ways and her fiance with a frown, we've completely warmed up to her.

The Philadelphia Story remains a classic today, an elegant comedy with a romantic sensibility that gives us likable, human characters with depth. The characters come to like each other, relate well to each other, and we get to like them too. It has a splendid cast inhabiting their roles, and has earned its reputation as one of the great films of the era. Have you seen it?

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Some business to see to first off. Go on over to Norma's blog, where yesterday she wrote a film review for Gravity, now out in cinemas near you. And some other blogs to check out: at M.R. Pritchard's blog a few days ago, she poked fun at internet trolls. Meanwhile, Joanna over at Up On Haliburton Hill has been travelling in Europe for a little while (and her recent blogs are all photoblogs reflecting that); this particular post really caught my attention. And check out Annette's blog, where Chicago has had a weekend open house.

Now then, we're getting on towards Hallowe'en, and so I thought I'd turn my attention to a classic ghost story of the film world. If you haven't seen this one yet, you really need to. With the lights off and your nerves on edge. That would do splendidly....

"They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories...that's not because there are more ghosts here than other places, mind you. It's just that people who live here about are strangely aware of them. You see, day and night, year in, year out, they listen to the pound and stir of the waves. There's life and death in that restless sound. And eternity too. If you listen to it long enough, all your senses are sharpened. You come by strange instincts. You get to recognize a peculiar cold that is the first warning. A cold which is no matter of degrees Fahrenheit, but a draining of warmth from the vital centers of the living. Loads of people tell me they would've felt it. Even outside that locked door. We didn't. They can't understand why we didn't know what it meant when our dog wouldn't go up those stairs. Animals see the blasted things..."

So begins The Uninvited, with a narrative introduction by Ray Milland, playing Roderick "Rick" Fitzgerald. He and his sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey) are up from London on vacation in this hauntingly told tale of the supernatural. They're wandering the shores with their dog when they come across an old house, one that's not lived in, but which catches their interest, particularly Pam's. The pair are both single, get along well, and at Pam's urging, decide to look into buying the place, a rambling seaside house known as Windward House. They track down the present owner, Commodore Beech (the character actor Donald Crisp), a gruff retired military officer who gives them a bargain, wishing to sell the place where his late daughter and her husband had once lived so that his granddaughter's future is secured. There's a standoffish quality about him, as though he's holding back details. His granddaughter Stella Meredith (Gail Russell) is unhappy about the sale, having had grown up not being allowed near her childhood home. The commodore has forbidden her from entering the place. Rick finds himself taken with Stella, and in fact the pair share some sparks.

Rick and Pam soon move in, with Rick fetching their maid Lizzie (Barbara Everest) from London, along with the last of the furniture. We've already seen that all is not quite well with Windward House- the dog has run off, the cat seems hesitant about going up the stairs. A studio upstairs seems to have a depressing atmosphere. And Rick wakes up late in the night to the sound of a woman's crying in the house. He and Pam listen from the upper floors to the tears of a grieving woman; Pam tells him she's heard it each night since she first moved into the place, that there's no one there to be found, and yet the sound is there. The two have themselves a haunted house. And the reasons for the haunting are connected to Stella, and secrets about her family.

Director Lewis Allen helmed this movie, and there are many good reasons it's a classic. The story, adapted from a novel by Dorothy McCardle, treats the theme of the supernatural seriously. Where ghost stories on film had earlier been used for a joke, this is not the case with The Uninvited. Yes, there is humour to be found here, but the matter of ghosts is taken seriously. Allen was limited with the technology of the time, yet conveys a story that gets under your skin. There are glimpses of spectral beings (apparently the studio insisted), and perhaps because of the limitations on technology, they actually look like you'd think ghosts would look- misty and shadowy. Beyond that, Allen makes full use of the other senses in conveying the presence of the spectral realm. Animals respond to things that people do not see. Pages turn in books by an unseen hand. There are drafts where there should not be drafts. Rooms have a way of draining the energy out of a person. Sounds are heard in the night. The scent of a perfume can be detected in the air when no woman in the house uses it. And a presence can be felt from time to time. By giving the audience hints of the ghostly presence, it proves to be more effective than what we'd see in the current day, with no sense of the subtle at all, in favour of as graphic a ghost story as you can get.

Allen uses all of these qualities through the film, and he and his crew shoot the entire story in ways that really build the atmosphere. The lighting Allen uses in particular contributes to this, with a house that seems one way in the day, and another in the deep dark shadows of the night. The end result is a beautifully rendered and yet foreboding kind of film that leaves you looking over your shoulder, wondering if there's someone- or something- watching you. The score by Victor Young is gorgeous, romantic, and well tuned to the themes of the story, and spawned a hit tune in the day, Stella By Starlight, which remains a standard today. 

The adaptation of the novel into a screenplay gives us a smart narrative. It takes the ghostly side of things seriously, but also emphasizes strong characterization. And the dialogue is clever, and has a dry, fun side to it at times. We particularly find that in the flirtation between Rick and Stella, but it's common throughout the film, perhaps giving us a bit of levity while the film keeps getting under our skin. And the writing pushes the envelope for what was acceptable at the time. A friend of Stella's late mother, Miss Holloway (Cornelia Otis Skinner), currently running a mental hospital, has her own part in the secrets of Stella's family past, and a subtext lesbian relationship in her past. It's obvious to the contemporary viewer, and back then was practically screaming it out without saying so.

Casting is ideal in this film. Donald Crisp is thoroughly gruff and disapproving, just the way you'd think a retired military officer would be. He comes across as permanently scowling at the world, and entirely too protective of his granddaughter-though as we learn, there's a good reason. As a character actor, he inhabits the role just right. Cornelia Otis Skinner rarely appeared in films as an actress, but her turn here as the enigmatic Miss Holloway has a very creepy, unhinged quality to it, particularly as she goes along. There are secrets beneath that cold exterior. Barbara Everest has a good turn as Lizzie; she's something of a motherly figure to Rick and Pam, and she's very wary and superstitious of the notion of messing around with the spiritual world. 

Alan Napier- who decades later would be cast as Alfred in the Batman television series- turns up in the sympathetic supporting role of Doctor Scott, who like the Fitzgeralds is an outsider in the area- he's only lived there for a few years and is still considered a newcomer. He proves to be an ally in their efforts to get to the truth, and he and Pam have a warmth to their scenes. Gail Russell plays Stella in one of her first roles- and would later end up meeting something of a tragic end. She conveys the qualities one might expect of Stella- the overprotected granddaughter chafing for some freedom, and some answers about all of the things her grandfather has kept from her. She's quiet and pensive at first, but in some ways as the story goes along, and as it becomes clear how central she is to the events in the house, she has more of a sense of what's happening than Rick or Pam. 

It's the two leads who bring so much of the heart to the story. Ruth Hussey never quite attained the stardom that she deserved, which is a shame. A few years earlier she was bantering with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. She was a gifted actress, with a good sense of timing, a quick wit, and the impression that she was a woman who followed her own will. That's the quality that comes through in films I've seen her in, and it's certainly on display in this movie. Pam is the one who takes the initiative and coaxes her brother into buying the house with her; she's calm under pressure (perhaps more so than her brother, who can be a bit unnerved by crying in the night from unseen women). We get to like her, and that's all due to Hussey's performance. There's an easy going rapport she has with her brother, the playful and teasing nature of two siblings who genuinely like each other, and we can buy the two actors as siblings. Ray Milland is wonderfully cast as Rick. Milland had a lot of credits to his name down through the years, and he could play the hero and the villain, but there was always a charm about him. Even as the villain (say in Dial M For Murder, for instance), you can't help but like him. Here he plays Rick as an affable lead, a music composer who doesn't take things seriously. There's a quality of the rogue at times, the man smirking at the world. He's a natural flirt, given to occasional risk (such as inviting the Commodore for a drive at the worst possible moment)... and on the other hand he's a fellow who gets seasick on a yacht outing, or as mentioned before, doesn't quite seem that brave when hearing a strange woman crying in the night. And yet he ends up rising to the occasion.

The film is a classic ghost story. For years there have been rumors of a DVD release (apparently Criterion is  finally releasing it). It's been a staple over at TCM off and on for many years, and it's overdue for that DVD release. It gets under your skin in the best of ways, creeps you out... and in the end leaves you immensely satisfied. This is a ghost story you should see.

Have you seen it?