During the first few minutes of this film, I was certain it
was going to be no more impressive than Duck Soup, and God help me if I had
to sit through that hot mess again. I wouldn’t have hesitated to shove a fork
through my eye; or anyone else’s that happened to be laughing nearby. Claudette Colbert’s first appearance on
screen, with her thirties glamour make-up and affected, over-enunciated
Standard American Stage Dialect, reinforced my initial feelings that she was
going to be no better an actress than Margaret Dumont in Duck Soup. Did
every single film that came out of this time period produce such
indication-driven overacting and barely-believable storylines?
After waiting it out for another ten minutes, I decided: I
couldn’t have been more wrong.
Like many others, I was familiar with Clark Gable by
reputation as the dashing epitome of the quintessential Hollywood
leading man. I loved his performance in Gone
with the Wind, but not enough to become a die-hard fan. So I wasn’t expecting him to be just so
darned good in a romantic comedy. I
think I, along with every other female audience member was in love with him by
the end of the movie.
As the film progressed, I’m happy to say that Colbert’s
acting seemed to relax—she didn’t force feelings or reactions to situations as
she did in the first scenes. In this
regard, I’m guessing that Capra filmed the first few scenes in sequence, which
is usually not done in film or episodic television. (Later, in a scene extra on the DVD, we learn
from Frank Capra, Jr., that Colbert had originally considered this film the
worst of her career and bitched nearly every day on set about something. Perhaps in these first few scenes, she wasn’t
fully able to keep her private disdain for the project out of her character,
but I’m just surmising at this point.)
Perhaps it was that the chemistry between herself and Gable also began
to grow, and this relaxed her a bit. I
just know that for me, there was a marked difference between her acting in the
first scenes, and her acting in the later scenes in which she and Gable are on
the road, running from her father’s henchmen.
So, once her acting improved to the point where it no longer
took me out of the story, I began to settle down and enjoy the story and
characters. The idea of a road trip for
a story that early in the 1930s was revolutionary, and it was during Capra,
Jr.’s interview that we learned why: his father had put this film together from
script to editing in just four weeks.
Hotel or Hostel rooms doubled for each other with minor set changes, car
rides were nothing more than a half-car on a sound stage with a backdrop, a
boat in the beginning, a newspaper room, and a hotel and extravagant yard for
the wedding setting at the end. Even
wardrobe was sparse: Colbert had a total of just three costume changes. I know nothing of movies from the 1930s in
general, but even I could tell this
was an unusual set-up for a movie at this time.
I knew there had to be a reason why it won five Academy Awards, other
than its two major stars.
As I said in my previous review, a strong cast cannot exist
apart from an equally-strong ensemble cast, and Capra shined in his casting in
that regard. Each minor character held
their own against the film’s two stars, creating believable atmosphere and in some
cases, stand-out scenes: I was struck by the scene with Gable on the bus with
the ticket agent. It was the first time
I’d ever seen the Rule of Threes used, and to great effect at that.
Another memorable device they used was called the “running
gag”. Gable strung a blanket between
beds each time that he and Colbert were in yet another hotel room, and he
called it “The walls of Jericho”. I didn’t expect another device in comedy to
be used, referred to as the “call-back”, in which a stand-up comic, who’s
usually beat a bit to death by repeating it until the audience slashes his
tires in the parking lot, refers back to it one last time at the end of his act,
much to the unexpected delight of that same audience (they LOVE it). In the final scene of the movie, after
Colbert and Gable’s characters are finally wed (and they played the constant
growing sexual tension to perfection all throughout), they spend their wedding
night in one of the run-down hotel rooms similar to the ones already used in
the movie. The aging owner and his wife are
standing outside, commenting on why Gable insisted on stringing a blanket
between their beds when they were on their Honeymoon, and then the man commented
to his wife that he was then instructed to go out and purchase a toy
trumpet. In the final seconds, we see
the hotel room from the perspective of the owner and his wife, curtains pulled,
but lights on. Just a second later, the
lights go out and we hear a toy trumpet.
Best. gag. ever.
The fact that this whole project was based solely on a
short-story surprised me, but also gave me hope. My own short-stories have been published in
national comedy magazines. And not just
for pizza coupons and a cookie: for real money, too.
Perhaps hope does spring eternal, and if one wishes, they,
too, can knock down the walls of Jericho.
No comments:
Post a Comment