THE DVD SHELF: Another "Muppet Show" Season, Plus Four Screwball Comedies
By Steven Suskin
A close second is Midnight , which Leisen made two years later. Back in the days before they would let screenwriter Billy Wilder direct his own movies. Don Ameche is taxi-cab driver Tibor Czerny; Claudette Colbert is a penniless showgirl on the make, parading as a baroness (she picks "the Baroness Czerny" as her name, which only adds to the complications). John Barrymore, Mary Astor and Francis Lederer represent the triangle that Colbert thrusts herself into. Paris, the city, co-stars. Leisen did a fine job in both cases, but these two films — with scripts by Sturges and Wilder — are just about as good as he got. He started in the business designing dresses for Gloria Swanson, and was a busy art director before moving into the director's chair (which to some extent explains the stylish look of these movies). Wilder disparagingly called him a "window dresser," and not without reason. Still, both of these Leisen jobs are spectacularly funny.
Sturges proved a remarkable comedy director when he finally got the chance, with "The Great McGinty" in 1940. This helped Wilder convince the Paramount heads to give him a chance as well, which they did in 1942 with the third of the screwball releases, The Major and the Minor . The plot hinges on Ginger Rogers, long past her series of Fred Astaire movies, masquerading as a 12-year-old to qualify for a reduced-price train ticket. That's all Wilder needs. She runs into (or, rather, escapes behind) Ray Milland, who by now was a star in his own right. He is a Major, working at a small-town military academy. This being a Billy Wilder film, young "Su-Su" goes to school, where she is needless to say a magnet for all the boys and most of the dirty old men, too; and where, needless to say, she rescues Milland from one of those Hollywood fiancées whom you hate the moment you see her.
Fourth of the DVDs is the decidedly different She Done Him Wrong . No Wilder or Sturges here; what we get is Mae West's 1928 stage hit Diamond Lil transferred to the screen. West plays the owner of a Bowery saloon — the Gay 'Nineties, indeed — who falls for a missionary type, in the person of the up-and-coming Cary Grant. The whole thing was a major hit when the film was released in 1933, helping keep Paramount afloat and earning a Best Picture nomination. It remains pretty funny, especially if you like Mae West. And yes, this is where she proffers that in famous invitation. ("Come up sometime and see me," are the actual words.) In reviewing the stage version, Charles Brackett of The New Yorker said "pure trash, or rather impure trash, though it is, I wouldn't miss Diamond Lil if I were you." This being the same Charles Brackett who soon gave up his seat on the aisle to go Hollywood and join with Wilder to write "Midnight," "The Major and the Minor," "Ninotchka," "Sunset Boulevard," "The Lost Weekend" and more.
All four DVDs – which are being released individually, not in a box set – contain what they call an "exclusive introduction" by Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, who knows his stuff and is always interesting. Three of the films contain trailers, and the Mae West title includes "She Done Him Right," a 1933 cartoon by Walter Lantz spoofing Ms. Mae.
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(Steven Suskin is author of "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)
