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Two Cents Takes on Shakespeare and Hitler with TO BE OR NOT TO BE
Ed, Elizabeth, and Frank spent January 20 celebrating one of funniest and most groundbreaking comedies ever made.
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: To Be or Not to Be (1942)
It feels right that Two Cents should have chosen Ernst Lubitsch’s classic To Be or Not to Be for the penultimate selection in this month’s classic screwball comedy series. Given the darkness of this January 20th, a comedy about Hitler invading Poland during WWII feels more than appropriate. It’s understandable that the premise of such a movie could turn people off, especially with the state of things today being what they are (only three of us contributed to this week’s column). Still, Lubitsch’s 1942 masterpiece remains exactly the kind of tonic that is so very much needed in times like 2025. Starring Carole Lombard (in her final role) and Jack Benny, the movie features the pair as the husband and wife heads of a Polish theater troupe in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who hatch a scheme to infiltrate the Gestapo and thwart their plans using a wide assortment of cloak-and-dagger antics that lead to hilarious results.
– Frank Calvillo
The Team:
What I’m perhaps the most surprised by with the screwball comedies I have been exposed to by my programming teammates thus far is the almost heist film level complexity of plotting that they seem to have, with To Be or Not to Be being no different. Ernst Lubitsch writes/directs Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, and Robert Stack (primarily known to me as the Unsolved Mysteries guy, so this was a bit of a shocker) in a harrowing exercise: trying to make a comedy in and around Hitler’s invasion of Poland. It was easy for this modern viewer to forget the setting since no attempt was made to even use differing accents much less languages. Everyone blasts into the rapid fire dialog in “of the time” English, which I assume no studio in the 1940s would have even conceived of doing differently. But language quibbles aside, To Be or Not to Be does have many twists and turns more akin to something like an Ocean’s 11 type film than any kind of sweeping romance or classical drama.
The funniest element that speaks the loudest today is how our heroes, trying to root out a Nazi plot and escape with their lives in a spy game of double crosses executed by professional hams, err, actors, can repeatedly rely on every Nazi’s simpering need to kiss up to their Führer and appear as blindly loyal to him as possible, damn the evidence. No Nazi in the film can have a sense of humor, tell a story, or slip in the slightest with regards to their loyalty before one of our heroes can exploit their misstep. The sycophancy is off the charts, here played for laughs at the expense of the invaders, but telling to modern audiences that a race to the bottom of the boot licking barrel is the stuff of derisive comedy, not the building blocks upon which to found a life or a society. To Be or Not to Be is twisty, turny, filled with gags and smart writing and humorous quagmires our heroes must rely on their skills to escape from. But it’s also clearly poking fun at Hitler and his gestapo and their countless failings as ring kissers par excellence. Let’s learn a lesson or two from Lombard and gang and not blindly follow our leadership until we’re no more than history’s villainous punchline.
I assumed I had seen this film before, but as I watched To Be or Not to Be this weekend, it seemed new to me and not what I remembered (maybe I saw the Mel Brooks remake as a kid). The 1942 B&W comedy pairs Carole Lombard (My Man Godfrey) with radio/TV’s Jack Benny as a couple of famous Warsaw actors, the Turas. A younger Polish airman (baby-faced Robert Stack) serves as a romantic distraction for Ms. Tura from her marriage to a man who doesn’t think she’s as talented as he is. But after the Germans invade Poland, priorities shift and both Turas become involved in an espionage plot.
I’m more familiar with Benny through clips of his old TV show, so it’s fun to see him play this kind of character. Most of the scenes involving Benny have the beats of a Marx Brothers film; the jokes come quick, and you might still be laughing when the next one is made. Lombard is more understated in her role, although she still gets her own laughs.
The Lubitsch film has screwball elements – characters pretending to be someone they’re not, recurring gags, moments of slapstick – but the reality of war permeates the work. The threat of death makes this a black comedy more similar in theme to something like Elaine May’s A New Leaf (next week’s film under our Screwball 101 theme) than the previous two films we’ve discussed this month. For instance, the Shylock monologue Jewish actor Greenberg (Felix Bressart) recites gains more emotional heft in the differing context of each recitation: first, to show he knows it and feels unappreciated in his current theatrical role; secondly, as a response to the German invasion of Poland; and lastly, to distract German officials while the rest of his troupe performs a getaway. Lubitsch’s film may be thematically heavy, but never maudlin.
It’s hard to remember when I first saw To Be or Not to Be. In many ways the movie feels like one of those titles that has always been a part of my cinematic foundation. As I said before, this is a film that could give folks some pause what with the fact that it treats a very real human tragedy as fodder for a slapstick comedy romp. But the comedy in Lubitsch’s film is so well executed that it easily sweeps the audience away with its various innuendos, moments of befuddlement, and overall farcical nature. The gags here are plentiful and potent with every actor showing great comedic timing and playing off their counterparts superbly. Disguises and improvisation between Benny’s egocentric actor and the German officials he’s trying to fool prove a true comedy engine while Lombard’s ability to slide into the role of a lovestruck fake Nazi sympathizer is the perfect showcase of her comedy skills. Almost none of the jokes fail to deliver whether they be Benny’s character’s reference to himself as “that great, great actor” or the way Sig Ruman’s Nazi Colonel remains hopelessly and sidesplittingly confused throughout.
But the brilliance of To Be or Not to Be lies not just in its laughs, but in its daringness. Understandably, the film’s aim and execution comes across as somewhat surreal. The horrors inflicted by the very figures Lubistch’s movie was sending up were incredibly real, and for some, there was no comedy to be found in making anyone on that side out to be fools who could be easily manipulated. But the film cleverly takes the incredibly terrifying reality of the day and attempts to break down its frightening power through laughter. As a comedy, the beats and the timing would be stellar even if it wasn’t tackling such a dark subject at hand. The fact that it takes on the threat of Nazi Germany through laughter not only makes the film even funnier, but it allowed audiences the chance to strip away the power so many had given to that side. It’s remarkable that a high-profile studio film with two top stars leading the way should be as bold as this one was while also taking great care not to shortchange the very real danger of what the world was facing. It’s no wonder that To Be or Not to Be made it into the National Library of Congress and was remade by Mel Brooks in the early 80s to great effect. Perhaps now more than ever, Lubitsch’s film remains one of most important ever made.
A JANUARY OF VINTAGE LAUGHS!
In an effort to combat the January blues (not to mention other devastating events taking place that month), the Two Cents crew here at Cinapse have decided to dive into the world of classic screwball comedies. The likes of Carole Lombard, Ernst Lubitsch, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Benny, and Elaine May are all on deck to chase away those winter blues with a collection of movies that range from the romantic, to the scandalous. Spend the month with us and some side-splitting laughs from the masters who made the genre the riotous (and slightly subversive) staple that it remains to this day.
Join us by contacting our team or emailing [email protected]!
1/27- A New Leaf
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Indian Cinema Roundup: GAME CHANGER and DAAKU MAHARAAJ Redefine”Political Action”
On this edition of Indian Cinema Roundup, a pair of action-packed Telugu-language films featuring major stars, and now showing in US theaters. Both films feature visionary leaders striving toward justice with a mix of political action and action as politics, and lean into the trope of flashbacking at the midpoint to provide additional historical reference to contextualize and motivate the contemporary story.
Both films are tremendously enjoyable, and while the box office has clearly favored the (slightly) more grounded vigilante epic Daaku Maharaaj, I preferred the clever maneuvering and one-upmanship central to the deliriously bonkers Game Changer.
Either way, your ears will be happy with the energetic, hard-driving, dance-infused music of composer Thaman S.
GAME CHANGER, dir. S. Shankar
Ram Charan, best known as one of the co-leads of the massive worldwide hit RRR, stars in S. Shankar’s (Enthiran) Telugu language directorial debut, the politically charged Game Changer.
Hotheaded Ram Nandan (Charan) is a firebrand led by a sense of righteous fury, trying to look out for the community by punishing wrongdoers. Inspired by his love for the beautiful Deepika (Kiara Advani), who shuns his violent methods and ask-questions-later approach, he channels his anger into public service by becoming a district collector – a position with a lot of practical power to effect change, which he wields effectively as a sort of supercop in many humorous and over-the-top action-packed sequences.
Ram’s bureaucratic ascent puts him at odds with the corrupt local government led by the Bobbili clan, especially the scheming Bobbili Mopidevi (S. J. Surya), the son of the Chief Minister who seeks to set himself up as the next CM.
While this plot might not seem particularly exciting, it’s executed in such a deliriously entertaining and indulgently crowd-pleasing fashion, packed with devilishly sly political maneuverings, absurd humor, high melodrama, and of course tons of show-stopping musical interludes which are brilliantly colorful and brimming with energy.
In a gag that seems pulled from the Z-A-Z style of Airplane!, Ram’s right-hand man is a guy who always walks and stands sideways, never looking directly at those to whom he’s speaking – because, he explains, he came out of the womb sideways. “Jokes” like this are all the more wild for appearing infrequently in a semi-serious political story, creating a mishmash of tones and styles which I find to be charmingly Indian-Asian, but I know some viewers could find disorienting.
In a trope that’s somewhat common to many Indian blockbusters, the film is halved by an intermission which then changes perspective to tell another story which gives context to the main conflict. We roll back a few decades and learn the untold story of the origins of the Bobbili clan’s political party and rise to power – with Charan playing a dual role of Ram’s father, a political influencer whose righteousness and hunger for justice we can see echoed in his son.
Personally I loved this and embraced the goofiness along the the excellence. It’s only January and there will undoubtedly be better movies than this in 2025, but I can’t imagine what could top this as a straight-up banger.
DAAKU MAHARAAJ, dir. Bobby Kolli
While I personally loved Game Changer, it underperformed at home and audiences seem to be more engaged with the competition, Dakku Maharaaj, starring Nandamuri Balakrishna, aka NBK. This seemed to be reflected in my own screenings, where Game Changer had a sparse turnout and Dakku Maharaaj was greeted by a loud and boisterous crowd who cheered and whooped in key scenes and in some of the more suggestive dance moves.
Nanaji (NBK) takes on a job as the driver for a wealthy estate, where the family and their fearless patriarch are dealing with fallout from opposing the powerful gangsters who are trying to use the land for illegal activities including drug production.
The driver’s interests and reasons for infiltrating the family extend far beyond employment though, and he has his own reasons for wanting to not only help the family, but protect their precocious young granddaughter. NBK has a sweet chemistry with the young girl who is his charge, creating a central beating heart that powers and informs the story. It soon become clear that Nanaji is no mere chauffeur, but an utterly badass guardian angel who fights back against the baddies guerrilla style – not only that, he’s backed by an loyal army of people who love him – a king with no kingdom – the “Daaku Maharaaj”.
Like Game Changer, the film follows the common Telugu trope of changing gears in the second half to tell the origin story behind the Daaku Maharaaj and his followers; then tying it forward to the contemporary storyline with lots lots of twists and angles in both timelines. It’s a solid grounding, telling how a concerned civil engineer took on the plight of a poor remote village without access to water, essentially enslaved to a mining operation, and became their champion.
While not as deliriously entertaining as Game Changer – which is in my mind the superior film of this pairing – I also found a lot to love with Daaku Maharaaj, which is kind of like an Indian version of Man on Fire, but you find out halfway through that the Denzel’s bodyguard character was secretly Malcolm X leading an underground militant group.
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WOLF MAN is a Lackluster Slice of Lycanthropy
Leigh Whannell’s return to the Universal Monsterverse lacks bite
After the disastrous attempt to reboot the Universal Monster brand under the blockbuster-tilted Dark Universe Umbrella, a shift was made to take a more considered and intimate approach to revisiting creature features such as Dracula, The Mummy and yes, The Wolfman. Partnering with Blumhouse, the independent film company renowned for carving out success with low cost but popular productions within the genre space (Paranormal Activity, M3gan, The Purge, The Black Phone). The collaboration hit a home run with their first outing, The Invisible Man. A timely reimagining of the tale weaving in themes of abuse, gaslighting, and powerplays into a genuinely tense thriller. Well the films writer/director Leigh Whannell (Saw, Insidious, Upgrade) is back, helming another entry to the expanding UM/Blumhouse stable, this time with an updated take on lycan lore.
The film opens in the woods of Oregon. A father and son hunting together, and a brief encounter with a mysterious predator. Safely making it home, the son witnesses the beginning of his father’s soon to be obsession with this creature in the woods. 30 years later and Blake (Christopher Abbott) now lives in San Francisco with his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their daughter Ginger (an effective and authentic turn from Matilda Firth). Despite a strong bond with his daughter, Blake’s relationship with his wife is strained. When he receives confirmation that his long missing father has been declared officially dead, he suggests a return to his childhood home to settle his father’s affairs and spend time together as a family. As they get close to the farmstead, an incident occurs on a forest road plunging them into a dire encounter with a creature in the wilderness. Seeking refuge on the family farm, the trio barricade the doors against the monster outside, only to find a threat emerges within, as Blake begins to act strangely, and undergoes a strange transformation into a more primal force.
What’s admirable about Wolf Man is a determination to repurpose the mythology behind this creature feature into something more intimate and poignant. Centering the film around a family, already challenged in its stability and variances in levels of intimacy, and upending things with encounter with this lupine menace An ominous dread builds as a ‘sickness’ consumes Blake and his inner, primal nature comes to the fore. The slow creeping shift (both physical and psychological) into this lycan state is well portrayed, both by the practical effects work and the performance of Abbott himself. Its considered and effective body horror at play. Where Whannell really finds his footing is in crafting long sequences and building tension, including a standout sequence involving a greenhouse roof. The sound work and cinematography both impress, both notably employed in a series of sequences that flip perspectives between the human world and the lycan one.
While these components work, there are fundamental problems with the film that undercut its potential. The narrative is simple yes, but underdeveloped. The characters and their arcs are poorly scripted while dialogue is excruciatingly clunky at times. The main issue is that this feels like a film with misplaced priorities. The Invisible Man dealt with resonant themes that serve as the foundation of the film, and served as a way to leap off into a creature feature. Here, themes of generational trauma (yes, a horror film yet again used to explore trauma) feel to tacked on to a threadbare plot and dynamic as a way to try and connect the film and events to an audience. It’s a muddled approach that undermines its success. The script from Whannell and Corbett Tuck is just under-baked and predictable, clunkily weaving in subtext, and paying insufficient attention to its small cast. Abbot gets plenty to chew on (no pun intended) with his role, but Garner suffers, with her character being pretty sidelined. Charlotte seems poised to come to the fore as the film advances, but never really reaches that level. The finale falls rather flat too, again stemming from insufficient buildup as well as a lackluster resolution. It’s not all bad, but taken as a whole, Wolf Man is just all too lean and lacks bite.
Wolf Man tears up cinemas from January 17th
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WOLF MAN is a Ruff Watch
The Wolf Man has had a rather tumultuous trip to the silver screen now in its second contemporary theatrical incarnation. Originally planned to star Ryan Gosling, when this film was going to be directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine/The Place Beyond the Pines), due to the strikes, the pandemic and the success of The Invisible Man, the project defaulted to Leigh Whannell, who once again co-wrote the film with his wife Corbett Tuck. Given my love of the Saw and Insidious franchise, I will watch anything Whannell puts out there. But folks, including myself, have been sort of holding their breath about this project since the film had a pop-up presence at Halloween Horror Nights last year (which I attended), which was short-lived due to the fan reaction to the creature design on display.
The film itself attempts to look at generational trauma through the guise of a werewolf narrative, but it does so with the subtlety of a jackhammer. In the first act the film basically says the quiet part out loud when we first meet our protagonist and new star Christopher Abbott, who plays the sensitive, unemployed writer/stay at home super-dad Blake. He’s been drifting apart from his wife, so the pair do the worst possible thing you can do in a film in the horror genre – go to a remote cabin in the woods to hopefully regroup and rekindle their relationship. Now the film does subvert expectations by not even letting us have that scene where the family unpacks in the new place, sharing a moment of quiet affirmation before all hell breaks loose. But the family doesn’t even get to the cabin before they encounter the film’s titular wolf man, which here for all intents and purposes feels more like a wendigo or bigfoot and spend the rest of the film running for their lives.
While I did enjoy the more folk horror tone of the film, given the direction Whannell takes, it does so while really leaning more into the body horror. The grotesque transformation here is a slow and painful one that takes place during the duration of the film, pulling a page from Cronenberg’s The Fly. This would also explain the iteration of the creature from Halloween Horror Nights, but you really need the context, that it’s more of a work in progress than the final form. While I definitely bought the relationship of Christopher Abbott and his delightful spitfire of a daughter (Matilda Firth), it’s his wife Charlotte played by Julia Garner, who falls completely flat while channeling a distracting True Blue era Madonna – both look and acting-wise. She never quite gets the audience on board, before she is tasked with carrying the narrative to completion.
See, one really cool, albeit, really strange part of the film is when we periodically go to Blake’s wolf POV once he is bitten. We experience not only his heightened senses and Bluey-like color viewing schema during his transformation, but his loss of understanding of human language, making him an animal running on pure instinct. There’s also a few other weird K9 influenced scenes, like where he pees in the house and gnaws on his own limbs. It’s moments like these that only get stranger the more you dwell on them after the fact, and wonder why the film wastes time doing this, rather than giving more time to developing the characters. There’s also a final reveal in the film that’s about as revelatory as the Khan reveal from Star Trek into Darkness, the only way you won’t groan through this is if you’ve slept through the first act.
Wolf Man is yet another not so great take on the classic Universal Monster that will probably kill any chance we have of getting a sequel to The Invisible Man. Speaking of which, I stayed till the end of the credits because I was half expecting a post credit stinger where Elizabeth Moss pulls up at the end, to recruit Charlotte for a team of women whose exes had turned into monsters. But I think the problem here is this film forgets the humanity that made Invisible as great as it was, it wasn’t a monster film first and foremost, it was this exploration of paranoia and domestic violence and later turned into one of the best damn monster films ever. Here the film starts off with this take on generational trauma, that doesn’t quite develop before we’re forced to deal with the monster it birthed. I feel like more time with the characters and possibly a different approach by Garner could have salvaged this film, that just doesn’t develop anywhere near the emotional stakes of Whannell’s previuos effort. Instead you’ve got a gnarly somewhat forgettable wendigo movie, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t what I was hoping for.
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WOLF MAN Nails Dread, Stumbles on Substance
The newest from 2020’s Invisible Man director has flashes of brilliance, but often stretches beyond its reach thematically.
Christopher Abbott as Blake in Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell In 2020, the ongoing saga of Universal attempting to figure out how to leverage their “monster” brand seemed to have found an answer: Leigh Whannel. The Australian writer-director’s take of The Invisible Man showed a strong ability to modernize even the lesser loved corners of the horror icons, tapping into both fresh themes but also honoring the classical sense of dread and tension that felt like melding both iconic and modern sensibilities. It helped that between Invisible Man and his earlier Upgrade, Whannel was developing a promising track record for high-end entertainment on modest budgets.
So it seems like a no-brainer that Whannel take up the task of updating the other slightly dusty corner of the Universal canon: the Wolf Man. And unlike Dracula, Frankenstein, or even the Invisible Man, there is no literary template the movie is drafting off of (or in some cases, explicitly ignoring.) The origins of the franchise is the original 1941 classic, and other than the handful of sequels that followed, it has only technically been tackled again once: Joe Johnston’s moody but often dull 2010 remake.
All this to say, there is very little historical or pop cultural lore that Whannell is working against, giving him even more space to create something his own. Unfortunately, Whannell has set maybe unfairly high expectations for himself, as his end product in the new Wolf Man is heavy in atmosphere and some impressively nasty moments, but lacks the emotional or social depth of his other work. There are moments of the Wolf Man that are so masterfully crafted, one camera shift in particular, that you want it to be transcendent overall. But every time the film tries to transition out of dread and drift into a more personal narrative, it clangs against its own ambition. As a result, the end product is probably his slightest effort to date, but still filled with moments that stick to bones.Discarding essentially all of the original film’s lore, the new Wolf Man centers on Blake (Christopher Abbott,) who grew up in a compound in the Oregon wilderness with his militia adjacent father. In the woods is a fabled wolf man, a lost hiker who succumbed to a disease that leads to a loss of human characters, who Blake’s father is obsessed with capturing. Once as a child (and in a killer opening sequence), Blake and his father had a very close encounter with the wolf man, which clearly left deep scars on Blake as he grew up.
After growing up, Blake moved away, married, and started a family: wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). But out of the blue, Blake is summoned back to the wilderness after the pronounced death of his father. As a bonding experience, Blake takes Charlotte and Ginger along with him. But soon things go off the rails when the family encounters the Wolf Man, who in an attack scratches Blake. This leads to him transforming, infected by the same disease, meaning the family is in danger both in and out of their secluded wilderness home.
(from left) Ginger (Matilda Firth) and Charlotte (Julia Garner) in Wolf Man, directed by Leigh Whannell.
There is an efficiency in how simple Whannel keeps the storytelling. There are long stretches, especially as Blake’s transformation begins, where the film remains dialogue-free. It instead leans on pure dread and tension, leaving the audience to witness Blake’s descent into becoming less and less human. This is when the film is humming, leaning into Whannell’s strengths for visual composition and scene structure. At one point the film visually transitions from Blake’s perspective to Charlotte’s, ceding the film to her, in a glorious triumph of almost entirely visual filmmaking.And then the film tries to drudge up subtext, and the wheels fall off. Without getting into explicit spoiler territory, though the film itself telegraphs most of its next moves, the film attempts to dig into generational trauma and the means by which parents pass off their worst selves to their children. This a deep vein for horror to explore, as proven by it being a theme in seemingly every high-minded horror movie for nearly two decades now. The problem lies in Wolf Man fumbling the delivery. The acting itself mostly maintains the center, but it is working with a script that is heavy with thudding dialogue and the shallowest characterization. By splitting the difference of keeping itself satisfied to be a simple narrative but also wanting to gesture towards larger concepts it doesn’t seem equipped to grapple with. The end result frustrates, as it excels at one speed and falters at the other. And the clanging gears when it tries to shift can distract.
Abbott in particular is having a lot of fun with his transformation acting, physically embodying a man who is losing control of himself. He is buoyed by Garner doing good work as someone who finds themselves in an unimaginable scenario but having to maintain their composure for the sake of her family. You just wish these performances were in service of something more in tune with its strengths, rather than cramming two tones that can’t coexist. Perhaps doomed by his own past successes, Whannell has made a film that both highlights his strengths and his weaknesses, and here’s hoping he leans more fully in the former for future outings.
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THE LADY EVE: The Two Cents Team Swoons Over Stanwyck [Screwball Comedy 101]
![THE LADY EVE: The Two Cents Team Swoons Over Stanwyck [Screwball Comedy 101]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-13-at-7.31.33-PM.png?resize=1140%2C707&ssl=1)
IMDb Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: The Lady Eve (1941)
The Team
Elizabeth Stoddard
Preston Sturges was a one-of-a-kind writer/director whose work continues to influence filmmakers, generations after his death. The Lady Eve shows his distinct writing and directing style, sharp wit, and flair for casting. Here the usual romance gender dynamic is switched, with con artist Jean (Barbara Stanwyck) pursuing and seducing naïve brewery heir/ophiologist Charles (Henry Fonda). But then she really falls for him and thus must have revenge after he finds her out. “I need him like the axe needs the turkey,” she quips to her team as she plots next steps.
Stanwyck shines in romantic comedies — my first exposure to her was Breakfast for Two, which made me a fan for life – but The Lady Eve stands out. What other film would have her attempting a British accent? She can’t quite pull it off, but she doesn’t need to. We’re in on the con.
And Fonda, better known for his dramatic roles, takes pratfall after pratfall. The gag where he goes through about five different suits in one party never fails to crack me up. He and Stanwyck share sizzling chemistry, especially during the early shipboard romance. And then there’s the horse that steals the scene in a later confession of love! There’s not a dull character to be found here. Each role is delightfully quirky, from Jean’s card sharp dad (Charles Coburn, a popular character actor in the ‘30s and early ‘40s) to the British con artist/uncle-type Jean ropes in to her scheme (Eric Blore, another notable character actor of the time) to Charles’ skeptical minder, Murgatroyd (William Demarest, a regular in Sturges’ films). Sturges points fun at the American obsession with British aristocracy/monarchy and makes the audience fall for a group of con artists. The Lady Eve pushes the limits of the production code and takes the audience for a rollicking ride.
IMDb Frank Calvillo
No one had better skill at handling the different elements that comprised cinematic comedy than director Preston Sturges. His ability to craft an array of comedic setpieces featuring characters who felt like genuine people set the standard for the genre and has rarely been matched since. There’s nothing but pure pleasure when it comes to The Lady Eve with Fonda at his most affable and endearing and Stanwyck at her most…Stanwyck. Sturges’ film is so carefully measured with such comedic precision, that there isn’t a missed beat or cue to be found. The laughs are plentiful, especially the ones that come courtesy of Fonda’s Charles Pike and his many tumbles throughout the film. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find another movie that managed the art of the pratfall the way The Lady Eve did.
Both actors tackle the piece with such abandon, giving themselves totally to the material and the many zany places its prepared to take them in this tale of a con artist who falls for her latest prey, a snake-obsessed member of high society. The romantic chemistry between the two remains pitch perfect. Both actors are clearly so into each other (from a character perspective, at least) and it shows. The moments when Charles and Jean are seen falling for each other are just ripe with the kind of passion and fire that the best romantic comedies are made of. In later years, Fonda would call Stanwyck his favorite leading lady and it’s easy to see why. The actress balanced comedy with take charge femininity in the way that only she could. Meanwhile it’s refreshing to see how Fonda, known primarily for playing men of dignity, was totally willing to look the fool here, which he did magnificently. When it comes to comedies of the romantic kind, The Lady Eve remains the blueprint.
IMDb I know that casting Henry Fonda as the heavy in 1968’s Once Upon A Time In The West was a stunt because Fonda is primarily known as a heartthrob, nice guy, hero type. But seeing as OUATITW is my favorite western of all time, I primarily know Fonda as villainous. So it was a surprise and delight to see him as the befuddled and besotted, pratfalling, love sick puppy Charles Pike in Preston Sturges’ 1941 comedy The Lady Eve.
I’m unfamiliar and inexperienced with screwball comedies so this month I’m learning and exposing myself to something largely unknown to me. And while I probably enjoyed last week’s My Man Godfrey a little more than I did The Lady Eve, there is something primally amusing about a man simply outmatched and outwitted and undone by a dame running circles around him, and Barbara Stanwyck (don’t be mad if I said this is likely the first Stanwyck film I’ve ever seen) is so brazenly confident as the firecracker that will just absolutely decimate this poor lovestruck lunk into submission.
I did have a little trouble accepting the sheer stupidity of Fonda’s Pike as he falls for Stanwyck two different times in the film as her conwoman works her wiles on him and convinces him that she’s a long lost twin of some sort after her con is exposed and he breaks things off with her. I mean, how dense can this guy be? But humorously the film plays into that question, even closing with Pike’s guardian who’s been skeptical of Eve the whole time noting “Positively the same dame”.
In the end this is a wacky comedy about a man just being totally wrapped around the finger of an overwhelmingly dynamite woman, and I quite enjoy the sincerity and purity of a film built entirely around the undeniable charisma of Stanwyck and the spicy-for-1940s chemistry of our two leads.
IMDb From his 2020 review of the Criterion Collection Blu-ray release of the film:
It was such a blast revisiting The Lady Eve — Sturges’ screenplay unfurls with fiendish glee through its brisk 90-minute runtime, and gives each character big and small a feast of comedic scenery to chew on. From Muggsy’s (William Demarest) cigar-chomping gumshoe valet to Colonel Harrington’s (Charles Coburn) debonair devilry, The Lady Eve is one of Sturges’ most memorable parade of faces. Stanwyck and Fonda are a wonderful match here, though; Stanwyck possesses such agency and determination which easily bests the men she’s in cahoots with as much as those she deceives, and Fonda’s established schtick as society’s most earnest upright citizen lays the foundation for such a hapless, lovable goof that you can’t help but adore. It’s such an unexpected subversion of screwball comedy dynamic — in addition to how its male characters’ bravado is endlessly undercut by their own buffoonery, as well as its quick evolution into a wickedly fun revenge story — that gives The Lady Eve such a timeless and inventive feel.
IMDb Brendan Foley
I would just like to use this opportunity to firstly shout out an all-time pantheon tough guy name that Sturges deploys here: “Ambrose Murgatroyd”. Murgatroyd! What a title. I want a whole spin-off series where he scowls his way into and out of various capers on various modes of transportation. Diamond heist on a cruise ship, missing paintings on a transcontinental railroad, let’s get Murgatroyd on the case.
Anyway, the movie! What I really appreciate about Sturges as a writer/director is his willingness to let the characters dictate the scenes and the story rather than the other way around. The Lady Eve has been ripped off and replicated ad nauseam, but reducing it down to formula misses the actual joy of the film. You can summarize the plot in one sentence (“vengeful con artists launches revenge scam against the sap who broke her heart”) but it takes an hour into a film that runs barely over an hour and a half to get there. Instead, Sturges let the audience revel in the building romance between Stanwyck and Fonda, content to park the movie in one spot and let a scene play out at length as the dialogue blazes and the chemistry sizzles.
What a picture.
IMDb Last week was my first, and now entering the second screwball comedy I’ve ever seen; The Lady Eve. While My Man Godfrey felt more like a straight comedy with romantic elements, this felt more like a straight romance that occasionally shifted into the laughs. This isn’t a complaint, of course, as the first half is remarkably sweet, as we watch these two love birds, one a card shark and the other a rich nitwit (I guess we’d call him a “himbo” nowadays?), slowly fall for each other on a cruise across the Atlantic (and, wow, I forgot how well films of this era could establish sexual tension. That entire “ideal person” conversation is a doozy).
Then, we shift into the 2nd half, and, to be frank, my patience with Fonda’s “aw shucks” naivete started to wane. What was a character that felt like a bit of a loner with a kind heart turned into a bit of an idiot (and kind of a total dickhead, especially during the train scene), that I was actually now rooting to get scammed. I think the film agreed with me, as we spend a good percentage of those last 30 minutes watching Fonda put on a master class of pratfalls, falling over seemingly everything that isn’t at eye level. It’s the uptick on the comedic beats that kept me locked in, even as Fonda was falling for one of the dumbest lies I’ve ever seen put on film.
Felt like we were shifting into a true, surprisingly-progressive-for-the-era win for Stanwyck, but, I also understand this is a love story from 1941 (also had a moment of “wait, why did all the boats stop? Ohhhhhh, yeah”), so that ending on the ship was kinda where this was always going to end up. Still, I’d let Barbara Stanwyck trick me into falling in love with her on a cruise, then trick me again into falling in love with her British “twin sister” who’s been married a dozens of times, and then finally get me to fall in love with the original girl that called me “Hopsie” any day of the week.
A JANUARY OF VINTAGE LAUGHS!
In an effort to combat the January blues (not to mention other devastating events taking place that month), the Two Cents crew here at Cinapse have decided to dive into the world of classic screwball comedies. The likes of Carole Lombard, Ernst Lubitsch, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Benny, and Elaine May are all on deck to chase away those winter blues with a collection of movies that range from the romantic, to the scandalous. Spend the month with us and some side-splitting laughs from the masters who made the genre the riotous (and slightly subversive) staple that it remains to this day.
Join us by contacting our team or emailing [email protected]!
1/20- To Be or Not to Be
1/27- A New Leaf
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PULP FICTION Celebrates 30 Years on 4K-UHD
Quentin Tarantino’s bold and brilliant sophomore effort
Pulp Fiction needs no introduction. More than a film, its a landmark of cinema. It spawned a thousand imitators while also cementing the status of Quentin Tarantino as a standout writer and director. The film is both sprawling and intimate, achieved via interconnected stories unfolding in Los Angeles. A desperate pair robbing a diner, two hitmen and a job gone wrong, a local mob boss and his wife, and a local boxer looking to escape his past. Crime is the connective tissue but that does a disservice to the more nuanced relationships, entwinned histories, trauma, and redemptive arcs that link these tales and their characters.
Pulp Fiction has cemented both its cinematic and pop culture status with a wicked blend of pitch-black comedy, quotable dialogue, needle drops, and good old fashion pulpy genre filmmaking. It’s structure, non-linear in nature, only adds to the films hook, and adds an unpredictability as the various tales twist around each other. The look exudes cool, the tone is compellingly pulpish with a sharp (and often brutal) reality check at times. The film never lets up, even as the rip roaring sequences give way to quieter dialogue driven moments, outstanding performances from the likes of John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce WIllis, and Uma Thurman hold the gaze just as easily. Even after 30 years, Pulp Fiction remains visceral and vital filmmaking. It’s a film that comes from a love of cinema, and in itself has kickstarted a love affair between the medium and a new generation of cinephiles.
The Package
As an owner of the earlier Blu-ray release of this film, this 4K is a marked step up. Far less mucky and saturated than the old format, the transfer is clean and revitalized. Blacks impress, colors are natural and strongly represented Image is free of crushing and any glitches, and the retention of a sheen of grain means the film retains much of its cinematic feel. Chatter online suggests this transfer is the same as the previous 2022 release. So if you want to upgrade, do it for the package, not the transfer alone.
The release celebrates the 30th anniversary with a few extra goodies snuck into the package, illustrated below. First, a hard card slipcover encases the movie, and a pop-up artwork card that showcases the Jack Rabbit Slim’s dance scene. Also inside are reproductions of the original lobby cards, contact sheets, and a sheet of stickers inspired by the film. A digital code for the film is also enclosed.
Extra features are hosted over the 4K and Blu-ray disc:
- Not the Usual Mindless Boring Getting to Know You Chit Chat: A great doc, running nearly 45 minutes, that weaves together interviews with 6 key actors from the film, who delve into their thoughts on Tarantino, the script, experiences on set and in rehearsals, and speak to the films release and legacy
- Here are Some Facts on the Fiction: A 20 min roundtable featuring a selection of film critics who dig into the impact of the film. An interesting and ‘balanced’ addition
- Pulp Fiction: The Facts – Documentary: Interviews with cast and crew that build into a rather promotional ‘making of’
- Deleted Scenes: Running around 25 minutes total, they’re well framed by an introduction from Tarantino
- Behind the Scenes Montages: Each splicing together footage around two of the key sequences in the film, “Jack Rabbit Slims” and “Butch/Marsellus”
- Production Design Featurette: Interview with production designer David Wasco and set decorator Sandy Reynolds-Wasco about putting the films look together
- Siskel & Ebert “At the Movies”- The Tarantino Generation: A fun exchange about Tarantino’s breakout and his impact on cinema
- Independent Spirit Awards: Short interview with Tarantino
- Cannes Film Festival – Palme d’Or Acceptance Speech:
- Charlie Rose Show: Nearly an hour in length, it’s an entertaining interview with Tarantino, who opens up about a whole host of topics
- Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots, Pulp Fiction Posters, Academy Award Campaign and Trade Ads
- Soundtrack Chapters, Marketing Galley, and Still Galleries
- Enhanced Trivia track: An overlay feature that adds extra tidbits of info to the film while watching
The Bottom Line
Pulp Fiction was an instant pop culture hit, one that solidified Quentin Tarantino’s standing as a writer/director, and gave him license to build out his vision as a filmmaker with his renowned later works. Even today, the film has impact, captivating with it’s looks, sounds, and performances. This new anniversary set nicely celebrates it’s 30 years on our screens, and the 4K transfer goes down as the best way to revisit the film at home.
PULP FICTION 30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition is available now from Paramount Home Entertainment.
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CHERRY 2000 Screen Comparisons – Checking KLSC’s New 4K-Scanned Restoration Against Their Earlier 2015 Disc
This article contains several comparisons which contrast the older Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray transfer (2015) with their new 4K-sourced restoration. The frames aren’t necessarily exact matches, but should give a solid indication of the visual differences.
Returning to Blu-ray is Steve De Jarnatt’s offbeat and futuristic Cherry 2000 starring Melanie Griffith and David Andrews. De Jarnatt’s feature debut is a cutely horny action-romance concoction mixing elements of cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic style with a uniquely campy approach.
KL Studio Classics previously released the film to Blu-ray in 2015, and is now bringing it back in a deluxe treatment with a new master, tons of extras, and enhanced packaging.
Print Damage
It’s evident throughout that the new restoration features a cleaner image, through I’m not sure whether this is due to specific cleanup or a different source. The new HD master is sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative (the older master wasn’t similarly advertised so it seems likely it was scanned from a later generation print).
In reviewing specific exact-match frames, I found many instances where scratches and speckles in the 2015 print were no longer visible.
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 Other Characteristics
The improvements or differences in the newer master are pretty consistent throughout.
The dimensions are slightly corrected; addressing a slight horizontal stretch that made the image a bit too wide. (This can also be observed on the left and right edges where a bit of additional image is pulled in).
The image is also noticeably more vibrant than before, with great color saturation and contrast.
The grain is also cleaner, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. The grain was quite “chunky” in the older version; I’m not sure if the cleaner appearance is due to finer resolution, a better source, or artificial cleanup.
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 Color Timing
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 
Left: Old 2015 / Right: New 2024 Conclusions
Overall, the newer master is one of superior fidelity, and seems to be closer to the original objective. That said, I have a soft spot for gnarly prints with a lot of character; ultimately I like both versions. While it may sound kind of silly, in my mind it’s ultimately the correction to dimensions that gives the newer print a definitive edge.
Of course the new master is just one angle on this package – the updated 2-disc release also features numerous additional extras including new restrospectives and two of de Jarnatt’s early short films, a slipcover and reversible art, and subtitles (which were omitted on the original release), making it overall a much more enticing and complete edition.
The only question that gives me slight pause of recommending the newer edition is the possibility that they might soon put out a true 4K UHD release. Given that this is sourced from a 4K master and paired with Kino’s track record, this seems well within the realm of possibility. But as for me, I’m quite happy with this Blu-ray.
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I Hated DEN OF THIEVES. Why Did I Love DEN OF THIEVES: PANTERA?
A Surprise That Not Even Donnie Could Have Seen Coming
I did not like the motion picture Den of Thieves. At all.
I do like its sequel, Den of Thieves: Pantera. Quite a bit.
How did we get here?
I’ve been on the outside looking in as the original Den of Thieves steadily evolved from a decently-performing Gerard Butler January programmer with middling reviews into a bonafide cult classic. Many was the B-movie aficionado whom I respect who wrote at length about how Den of Thieves was a new masterpiece, a modern classic of dirt-bag cinema, and the proudly trashy inheritor to the legacy of Michael Mann’s Heat, with that film’s elegance replaced with over-cranked testosterone and a proud layer of sleaze (these are compliments).
With the sequel rapidly approaching, I finally decided to see what all the hype was about and so I plunked down and fired up Den of Thieves.
And I then I sat there for two and a half hours, sort of annoyed, very bored, and then very, very annoyed when Den of Thieves capped off unofficially remaking Heat by also adding in the heist from Inside Man followed by the twist from The Usual Suspects.
In that monotonous slog of a movie, there was really only one sequence where I thought I saw a glimmer of real intelligence and subversion. It comes (relatively) early in the film when Butler’s swaggering cop Nick ‘Big Nick’ O’Brien returns home from a long night of busting heads and frolicking shirtless with sex workers and promptly gets chewed out by his soon to be ex-wife because his dumb ass sent her a text intended for his mistress. As she hustles out of the house with their young daughters, she hangs back just long enough to hiss at Nick that his infidelity is all the more unbelievable because he can’t even get it up with her anymore.
The face of a man who doesn’t necessarily know how to process that news in a healthy fashion. And here I thought writer/director Christian Gudegast was doing something really special. After a first act of nonstop alpha posturing from ‘Big Nick’, suddenly you get confronted with the notion that beneath his leather jacket and puffed out chest, our tough talking hero is actually a literally limp-dicked loser who has to loudly play a badass on the job to cover for how pathetic he is at home
Den of Thieves doesn’t really do anything more with this, though to the film’s credit the subsequent scenes involving the dissolution of Nick’s marriage are played for maximum discomfort at (intentionally) excruciating length. Instead, that first film goes back to the safety of the familiar, but a much lesser version of the familiar.
If you asked me to find a compliment for that first Den of Thieves, the two individuals I’d single out for praise would be Butler for his willingness to go full scumbag without hesitation or apology, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. who proved to be a winning and likable presence, even if his role was intentionally limited to protect the Big Shocking Twist.
Which brings us to the sequel, Den of Thieves: Pantera (no 2 in the onscreen title). Picking up right where the first film left off (spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen that movie) with criminal mastermind Donnie (Jackson Jr.) planning a diamond heist in Europe. Meanwhile, a humiliated Nick loses his marriage, his family, and his career and decides to head oversees and finally bring Donnie down. But when the two come face to face, Nick decides that he’s had it with life as a cop and joins forces with Donnie for the new heist.
Right off the bat, this is the most fun possible angle a sequel could take. For one, knocking Butler’s Big Nick down to zero allows the film to engage with those dropped themes from the first film. When we meet Nick this time out, he’s literally living out of his truck and Butler is somehow even more haggard and greasy than ever. You can almost smell the BO coming off him.
Butler also has a surprising amount of chemistry with Jackson Jr., and the two prove to be tremendous fun playing off one another. Their dynamic is somewhere in the mix of father/son, older/younger brothers, reluctant co-workers, with a healthy hint of homoerotic tension and the pairing gives Pantera a compelling narrative engine and a lighter, funnier touch. Turning Butler’s snarling big dog into the fish out of water trying to blend in with Jackson Jr.’s underworld crew gives both actors far more to chew on than the endless scenes of men in undershirts glowering at one another that ballooned that first film’s running time.
Pantera has a similarly sprawling length, but this time the pacing feels on point. Gudegast uses that breathing room not only to lay out a legitimately inventive and involving heist but to sell you on how seductive this outlaw lifestyle is to Nick. Part of what I found so confounding about the first film was that for all its bloat, it couldn’t find the time to create a single distinctive character or personality for any member of either the cops or the robbers. The whole ensemble blended together in a kind of morass of bloated muscles, shaved heads, and permanent scowls.
Here, the film brings you into the crew and lets the process absorb you as it does Nick. There’s a love of process and jargon, and a quiet confidence to both the characters and the filmmakers that can’t help but be intoxicating. You sincerely want to see these guys pull off their heist, but you also know that going through with this will dynamite whatever decency is left in the rancid mound of hamburger meat that Nick has for a heart.
The heist itself is an exceptional bit of nerve-rattling thriller filmmaking, a series of puzzles and tricks that fit together into a hugely satisfying mousetrap. And the fallout from the robbery makes for an impressive piece of action. You can see where Gudegast is culling from the history of other heist and Euro-thriller films, sure, but none of it feels wholesale cribbed from superior sources.
And maybe that’s the biggest differentiator between the first film and this second one. The shadow of Michael Mann still looms over Pantera because, well, it’s a crime film made in the 21st century. You’re gonna feel some Mannly fingerprints. The jargon-heavy exposition (and one plot-critical dance) feel indebted to Mann’s (brilliant) Miami Vice movie especially.
But Pantera lands on the healthier side of inspiration and influence. It no longer feels like Gudegast and company are trying and failing to copy Mann’s work, but like they’ve absorbed his style and themes and are now creating something indebted to those influences but wholly distinct from them as well.
The best thing I can say about Den of Thieves 2 is that it left me genuinely hopeful that we’ll get a Den of Thieves 3. I want to see Nick and Donnie chase each other around every continent we got until Donnie’s heisting nuclear warheads and Nick is commanding law enforcement from a moonbase. Hell, the Fast and Furious series is finally/mercifully due to wrap up soon, so let’s turn Den of Thieves into our new ongoing meathead soap opera that escalates from movie to movie until things enter live-action cartoon territory. I’m all in, let’s do this.
Den of Thieves – Pantera is in theaters now.
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Two Cents Welcomes the New Year with MY MAN GODFREY
Our month of screwball comedies begins with the 1936 film starring William Powell as a homeless man turned butler (who is not what he seems)
Alice Brady, William Powell, Carole Lombard and Mischa Auer in MY MAN GODFREY. Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: My Man Godfrey (1936)
My Man Godfrey came first to mind after I suggested a month of screwball comedies as a Two Cents theme. The classic romantic comedy stars former spouses William Powell (The Thin Man) and Carole Lombard (Nothing Sacred) as a homeless man turned butler and the dotty heiress who falls for him. Gregory La Cava’s film was one of the earliest to receive Oscar noms in all acting categories (Director and Screenplay, too) without receiving a Best Picture nomination. The talented performers make it seem effortless, but there’s a real craft evident in the construction of this film. With the class differences involved in the romance at its center and the quick patter of the dialogue, it’s an excellent example of the screwball genre. – Elizabeth Stoddard
The insanity of the scavenger hunt at the start of MY MAN GODFREY. The Team
My Man Godfrey has long been a personal favorite. I own the Criterion Blu-ray now, but I once had it on a videotape I’d recorded off either AMC or TCM back in high school. An impressive combination of factors makes the classic movie the masterwork it is. There’s the impeccable casting, the set design, the biting, laugh-out-loud humor of the script, and the talented film-making team which put it all together, led by director Gregory La Cava.
Leading man William Powell gamely plays straight man Godfrey, a homeless man from privileged beginnings, to contrast with the zaniness of the ridiculously wealthy Bullocks who hire him as a butler. Alice Brady is utter perfection as the flighty matriarch who lives in her own world while supporting “artist” Carlo (Mischa Auer), her protégé who lives off the largess of the family. The Bullock sisters tend to spar with each other; Gail Patrick’s Cordelia is a cruel young woman who aims to get Godfrey out of the house, while Carole Lombard’s spacey Irene hopes to win his heart.
In La Cava’s film, the rich folks are portrayed as blithe nitwits while the down-on-their-luck men living at the dump are witty and wise. Godfrey’s friend Tommy (Alan Mowbray) is the exception to this rule, as his plans with Godfrey straddle both worlds. Sure, the story is ridiculous, but upon the utter madness of the scavenger hunt which opens the film, the audience is removed from the drudgery of our everyday life and transported into the opulence of the Bullock home. And the comic timing! There’s so much silliness to appreciate here, along with a dialogue delivered in a magical rhythm.
The Depression-era work is of its time, and yet timeless in the laughter it brings and the talent it showcases. Even the social issues it touches on remain relevant, from the lack of affordable housing and need for supportive services to the tendency of the ultra rich to detach from reality. My Man Godfrey remains an utter joy to watch.
Carole Lombard and William Powell in MY MAN GODFREY. My Man Godfrey continues its reign as the quintessential classic screwball comedy. Last year, I got the chance to review the 1957 remake starring David Niven and June Allyson, which was an amusing affair, mainly because the original story itself was a real winner with the ability to transfer through the decades. It had been years since I’d watched the original film, nearly 20 in fact. Unsurprisingly, it holds up.
My Man Godfrey remains the perfect blueprint for the screwball comedy, with elements of farce and multiple bits of innuendo coming at the audience every which way. The timing remains pitch perfect with just the right amount of story being packed into the most efficient 90 minutes ever filmed. The colorful collection of actors are given room to make an impression with their characters, all of which become indispensable while the dialogue makes My Man Godfrey’s script one of the finest comedic screenplays to date, boasting such gems as: “All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.”
But if there’s two things that hold strong above all else when it comes to My Man Godfrey, it’s the chemistry between its two leads and the tellingness of the story they find themselves in. Everyone knows how Powell famously suggested ex-wife Lombard for the lead role, much to some people’s bewilderment. Powell knew how right the actress was for the part of Irene and that the two together would turn the film into magic. He was right. Lombard and Powell both soared, earning Oscar nominations for their roles and setting the standard for the romantic comedy pairing for decades to come. Their knack for banter and generating levity certainly helps in My Man Godfrey’s illustrations of class. Set during the Great Depression, the movie takes full opportunity to show the plight of those affected by society’s struggle through some quietly searing commentary which could not be ignored at the time and still comes across as striking to this day. Nearly 90 years on, My Man Godfrey remains the gold standard it very much deserves to be.
Mischa Auer in MY MAN GODFREY. Cinapse is all about cinematic exploration, and I’m thrilled about this Screwball Comedy 101 theme for this month’s Two Cents Film Club because I’m almost totally ignorant of the genre and have seen none of the films programmed by my esteemed colleagues.
My Man Godfrey was a delight, I must say. Something I couldn’t help but take note of right off the bat was the whip cracking dialog of this thing. It felt decidedly modern with its punchy, mile-a-minute dialog that would fit right into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in some respects. While not my first experience with William Powell (I’ve seen The Thin Man), this was my first exposure as far as I know to queen of the era Carole Lombard. The plotting of My Man Godfrey moves fast and furious as befits the dialog, but I was personally fascinated as someone who works with the formerly homeless in my day job to experience a plotline related to “forgotten men” of the Great Depression.
Powell’s Godfrey is a man of mystery who is picked out of his homeless circumstances by a madcap rich family who are, in a dehumanizing fashion, looking for a homeless person to win a high society scavenger hunt. Godfrey is offended, but ends up enmeshed with Lombard’s Irene Bullock and her whole crazy clan. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if Wes Anderson took inspiration from this film for The Royal Tenenbaums with all the chaos happening in this mansion. We slowly learn who Godfrey really is as he pushes and pulls against the posh Bullock family whirlwind.
The whole affair is so crackingly paced that the least modern element here is the cute upward mobility that Godfrey is able to achieve by the end. He’d come from a wealthy family, Ivy league education, and the like… but had lost it all in heartbreak (not to mention The Great Depression). It’s a lovely sentiment that Godfrey is able to take a steady job butlering for the Bullocks and simply put his mind to it and rebound back to the high society he had once fallen out of. Even if Godfrey does have a heart of gold and brings up all his “forgotten men” with him, it feels aspirational and highly fictional when viewed today in a deeply stratified oligarchy where such upward mobility is unattainable for the vast majority.
Carole Lombard and William Powell in MY MAN GODFREY. My introduction to screwball comedy was via Preston Sturges’ films–from The Lady Eve in college (and the subject of next week’s column!) to the similar madcap Depression-era romantic comedy Sullivan’s Travels. My Man Godfrey had long languished on my to-watch list, as has To Be or Not to Be, and I’m always excited to use Two Cents as an excuse to rectify such important blind spots.
The film’s predominantly an effective lampoon of the out-of-touch upper crust, who spend their nights stealing horses, smashing windows, and using “forgotten men” as clues for drunken scavenger hunts. Thrust back into this world is someone who tried to stay out of it–fellow forgotten man Godfrey (William Powell)–who allows himself to be brought into the game of the rich in order to help seemingly downtrodden socialite Irene (Carole Lombard) finally get one over on her overbearing older siblings. Godfrey further accepts Irene’s invitation to buttle for her Park Avenue family–only to get far more than he bargained for keeping up with their zany lifestyle as well as Irene’s hysterical affections.
Like the best screwball comedies, My Man Godfrey moves at a delightfully dizzying blur. I’ve always loved how these films feel like creatively-adapted theater plays, with a primer on rapid-fire banter and delicious wordplay. But what I loved so much about Gregory La Cava’s film is how much of an emphasis there was on the surprisingly mobile camera work–making rack focuses, elaborate dolly movements, and more an equal part of My Man Godfrey’s comedy, and making this heightened and theatrical film likewise feel incredibly cinematic.
I also enjoyed the wonderful layers La Cava peeled back on Godfrey himself–while the exact circumstances of Godfrey’s homelessness aren’t explored beyond cursory references to heartbreak, Powell delivers these moments with a moving pathos, even if they’re amid the maelstrom of whimsical madness he must endure at the hands of the Bullocks. It’s a dignity that the film fittingly extends to the other victims of circumstance who Godfrey shares his dump with, never using them or their predicament as the butt of any of the film’s humor. The film’s final set piece, allowing these men to find new rewarding purpose in life, is so rich with understated joy and hope–the perfect antithesis of My Man Godfrey’s cruelly trivial opening pursuits.
William Powell and Gail Patrick in MY MAN GODFREY. A depressing truth; I’m one of those terrible cinephiles who’s knowledge of cinema pre-1960’s is pretty abysmal. Sure I’ve seen a fair share of the larger, pop culture milestone types like Casablanca and Singin’ In The Rain, but, embarrassingly, I’ve seen very little cinema from the first 50 years of its existence. One of those major blindspots, thus, is the screwball comedies of the ‘30s & ‘40s. Coming into My Man Godfrey, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
But wow, what an absolute delight! Just a fun, goofy, genuinely funny comedy all the way through, so much so that, by the time the story started to wrap up, I wanted another 30 minutes of the Bullock family hijinks.
I think what struck me the most about this, a film almost a 100 years old, is how modern it still feels. From the opening scene where a group of rich socialites attempt to “buy” a forgotten man (which, this being the first time I’ve heard it, is an incredibly depressing term), to the continued escapades of a rich family run amok, it’s not really all that removed from our own modern class struggles; a ruling class that views the world as one big party, and everyone else who just need a job to survive. Straight up, the actual insanity that these rich kids get into (massive scavenger hunt that has them essentially robbing the city, treating criminal charges as expenses, drunken vandalism) is pretty much what we see the richest of assholes posting on socials.
To lean back into the more fun aspects, I was also caught off guard by how romantic this all was, in an actual romantic comedy sort of way. I don’t know if it is because we’ve been in a drought of true romcoms for almost 20 years now, but I couldn’t help but be completely smitten by how Godfrey and Irene play off each other; Godfrey laying a natural, almost accidental, charm in his relationship with her, and Irene slowly but surely wearing down Godfrey with her own eccentric wit. Hell, even the back and forth between Godfrey and Cornelia has some heat; in that moment, at the very end, when she realizes she is also in love with him, has better romantic tension than almost anything made this century.
Genuinely excited for the rest of this Two Cents series, for sure!
A JANUARY OF VINTAGE LAUGHS!
In an effort to combat the January blues (not to mention other devastating events taking place that month), the Two Cents crew here at Cinapse have decided to dive into the world of classic screwball comedies. The likes of Carole Lombard, Ernst Lubitsch, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Benny, and Elaine May are all on deck to chase away those winter blues with a collection of movies that range from the romantic, to the scandalous. Spend the month with us and some side-splitting laughs from the masters who made the genre the riotous (and slightly subversive) staple that it remains to this day.
Join us by contacting our team or emailing [email protected]!
1/13- The Lady Eve
1/20- To Be or Not to Be
1/27- A New Leaf
