Make Way for Tomorrow

[The film has never been released in Finland, nor transmitted on tv, nor published on video or dvd]. US (c) 1937 Paramount. Presented by: Adolph Zukor. EX: William LeBaron. D: Leo McCarey. SC: Viña Delmar - based on the novel Years Are So Long (1934) by Josephine Lawrence and an unpublished play based on the novel by Helen Leary and Nolan Leary (1935). DP: William C. Mellor. AD: Hans Dreier, Bernard Herzbrun. Interior Decorations: A.E. Freudeman. M: Victor Young, George Antheil. Song: "Make Way For Tomorrow" (Leo Robin, Sam Coslow, Jean Schwartz). "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" (Leo Friedman, Beth Slater Whitson). S: Walter Oberst, Don Johnson. ED: LeRoy Stone. CAST: Victor Moore (Barkley Cooper), Beulah Bondi (Lucy Cooper), Fay Bainter (Anita Cooper), Thomas Mitchell (George Cooper), Porter Hall (Harvey Chase), Barbara Read (Rhoda Cooper), Maurice Moscovitch (Max Rubens), Elisabeth Risdon (Cora Payne), Minna Gombell (Nellie Chase). 91 min. A Universal print. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 2 April 2009. - A fine print. - Revisited: Leo McCarey's masterpiece of the generation gap, or, rather "a canyon between us". - The motto is "Honour Thy Father and Mother", but the film is a satire about that theme. - Parents living with children: never has worked out for anybody else. - Grandmother Lucy spoils her daughter-in-law's bridge class. - The kind shopkeeper Rubens reads Lucy's letter to Barkley. - The first half of the film is the story of the embarrasment as the old Cooper couple gets evicted from their home and cannot fit to live with their children, even separately. - The second half is their "second honeymoon" 50 years after the first one (their golden wedding), for one day only, which they spend in New York, in Central Park, in front of the car store, in the restaurant and the dancing hall of the Vogard hotel, and in the railway station. - Everybody else is very nice to them. - "We have five children". "It must be a lot of pleasure". "I bet you haven't any children". - Barkley doesn't know that Lucy is going to an old people's home. "It's been very nice knowing you". - The train leaves. A medium shot of the lonely Lucy. The End.

The Awful Truth

Rouvani sulhanen / Min fru har en fästman. US (c) 1937 Columbia. P+D: Leo McCarey. SC: Viña Delmar - contribution to screenplay construction: Dwight Taylor - based on the play by Arthur Richman (1922). DP: Joseph Walker. AD: Stephen Goosson, Lionel Banks. Interior Decorations: Babs Johnstone. Gowns: Kalloch. M: Ben Oakland, MD: Morris Stoloff. Song: "My Dreams Are Gone With The Wind" (Ben Oakland, Milton Drake). "Home On The Range". "La serenata" sung by Irene Dunne. CAST: Irene Dunne (Lucy Warriner), Cary Grant (Jerry Warriner), Ralph Bellamy (Daniel Leeson), Alexander D'Arcy (Armand Duvalle), Cecil Cunningham (Aunt Patsy), Molly Lamont (Barbara Vance), Esther Dale (Mrs. Leeson), Joyce Compton (Dixie Belle Lee), Skippy (Mr. Smith). 91 min. [Other film adaptations of the play: 1925, 1929, 1953.] A SFF print with Swedish subtitles by Torsten Manns. Viewed at Cinema Orion, 1 April 2009. - Print was intact but with low contrast. - Revisited: a film I had seen only on tv before. I had not unreservedly liked it because I sensed a mean streak in the parody of the characters around the Warriner couple. I have preferred the Lubitsch approach which makes fun of everybody, with tenderness underneath. - I still find that the film's weakness is that all except the Warriners are made too ridiculous, and as we feel no sympathy for them, the whole story is diminished. - Having said that, the film has abundant joys to offer. Even as I watch it I want to see it again, because there are too many touches to savour during a single viewing. - Cary Grant and Irene Dunne: sophisticated comedy acting at its best. - The skill of Cary Grant of making Irene Dunne's remarriage plans look ridiculous as he feigns to defend them. - The affection of Cary Grant as he rises to Irene Dunne's defense when her reputation is questioned. - Cary Grant's girlfriend's skirt-blowing song scene and its parody by Irene Dunne. - The dance scene with the waltz and the jitterbug. - The scene with the two hats and the dog. - Ralph Bellamy: "Well, I guess a man's best friend is his mother". - The final sequence is magnificent. The couple drive together on the final evening before their divorce is legal. The seriousness behind the fun. Irene Dunne tricks them to Aunt Patsy's cabin, a trysting place of affairs. There is between the two bedrooms a creaking door that won't stay shut. There is a black cat, a wind from the window, and a cuckoo clock with a male and a female figure. "Things are the way you made them". "Things could be almost the same, only a little different". The eroticism and sensuality of Irene Dunne in the final bedroom image is of Lubitsch caliber (resembling Jeanette McDonald's nightgown scenes).