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Before the film begins, another film seems to end (or, rather, short-circuit) in freeze-frames behind the opening credits, "an overture for the opera that's coming." A struggling New York couple, he (Joel McCrea) is stuck with inventions and she (Claudette Colbert) is pragmatic about sex appeal, Palm Beach the divorce capital awaits her. (The split goes from bittersweet quietness to antic brassiness when she pins the farewell note on his slumbering rump.) The chase is blessed by a wizened pixie known as "the Wienie King" (Robert Dudley), stone-deaf and philosophical and fond of pretty girls and dreamers, a classic wanderer of the screwball landscape. "Chivalry is not only dead, it's decomposed," declares the fussy moneybags (Rudy Vallee) who woos the runaway heroine, his sister (Mary Astor) is a voracious playgirl with an émigré lapdog (Sig Arno). "Bonsoir, Drip-Drap." Following Lubitsch and McCarey, Preston Sturges' marriage circle. Too many dollars or not enough (cp. Christmas in July), the wife in baggy jammies gets an opulent new wardrobe, the proudly plebeian husband crashes the mansion as her brother, "Captain McGlue." Getting there is half the fun: "There's a posse pulling through the train," shotguns and hounds and all, courtesy of the Ale and Quail Club, a blowout of doodles. (William Demarest and Jack Norton, Jimmy Conlin and Roscoe Ates, Chester Conklin and Robert Greig and...) The hellzapoppin' private car is left behind, meanwhile Colbert climbs onto a berth by stepping on the specs on Vallee's upturned face. "That's quite all right. Just pick off any little pieces you see, will you?" Geezers and nymphos, stuck zippers and crooned lullabies, ticklish frenzies for days. A triple wedding for the Twelfth Night ending, with a little help from special effects. "I hope you realize this is costing us millions." With Franklin Pangborn, Esther Howard, Robert Warwick, Al Bridge, and Arthur Hoyt. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |