The Awful Truth (1937)

 "A great many funny things happen... maneuvered, to some extent, by Mr. Smith."

With Ralph Bellamy and Irene Dunne.

The Awful Truth - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"The Awful Truth is one of those mile-a-minute comedies which never makes sense but which makes you giggle outrageously.  At the beginning Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are a young married couple on the verge of divorce; but they soon prove to be a couple of cut-ups who delight in bedeviling each other.  A great many funny things happen, most of which are maneuvered, to some extent, by Mr. Smith.  He is the biggest bone of contention.  Mr. Smith is a Scottish terrier.  

The dialogue is snappy, the action fast, and often furious, and Irene Dunne proves herself better as a comedienne than as the beautiful-but-dignified star she once was.

- Scholastic Magazine

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 29 - The Awful Truth (Lobby Card Style)

Part Of

For more, see also:

Quote From Today - 21 October 2022

On This Day - 21 October 2021

On This Day - 21 October 2020

My Favorite Wife (1940)

     "...a very pleasant style of male-animal humor, with charm and a distinct sense of where to poise or throw his weight"

With Donald MacBride and Irene Dunne.

My Favorite Wife - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"There is some of the best comedy work in My Favorite Wife, a sort of nonsense-sequel to The Awful Truth.  There is also some of the worst plot making, and Irene Dunne.  The story was written by Bella and Samuel Spewack and I am not going to tell it; but apart from its being quite impossible, which may be called comic license, it forces its best people to treat each other with an aimless viciousness that even Boris Karloff might hesitate to reveal to his public.  And while most of the characters can manage to cover up this bankruptcy of motivation with quips and tumbles, Miss Dunne has apparently become very interested in acting and what may be achieved with the Human Voice.  So it becomes her field day.  She is not one person but seven, and if she is not all seven at once she is seven in rapid succession without aid from script or meaning, running the gamut from Little Eva to Gracie Allen, from The Women to (by actual account) Amos and Andy.  What a lark.  

But this is a Garson Kanin picture and to miss it would not be sensible, for Mr Kanin is already first-string in comedy, and comedy is no steady boarder these last few months.  In addition, it shows Cary Grant developing a very pleasant style of male-animal humor, with charm and a distinct sense of where to poise or throw his weight.   ... The best indication of a director's presence is the opening scene in court, where Granville Bates as the Judge had himself a picnic.  Only four people, only one room, and it went on quite a time - but so easily you would not realize till afterwards that all the heavy exposition of Act I, Scene I, had run off in it like a shout.  There was another courtroom scene near the end, too, though with more people; and there were scenes here and there all the way through, covering the retreat of the story.  Such flowers will not bloom unseen, but it's a pity there has to be so damn much desert air around."

- Otis Ferguson, The New Republic

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 36 - My Favorite Wife (Lobby Card Style)

Part Of

For more, see also:

On This Day 17 May 2020

On This Day 16 May 2021

Quote From Today 17 May 2022

Penny Serenade (1941)

   "...there is not only that easy swing and hint of the devil in him, but faith and passion expressed..."

With Irene Dunne.

Penny Serenade - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Penny Serenade is frankly a weeper, but it is not quite like any other film I can think of.  It has no preachment in the Over The Hill tradition; it has not the ambitious glucose of Mr. Chips; it is not revolutionary in a picture sense and I cannot imagine its material being put on in a play.  It needs only three or four characters for most of the telling and its idea is simply that of a young couple who can't have a baby and so adopt one which becomes the center and the anchor of their lives, and dies at six.  What now keeps them from going completely to pieces is that they are able to adopt another - and that is all of it.  An errant sub-theme could have been strengthened with good effect, I think, in the steadying down of the young newspaperman-husband by marriage, tragedy and life with the kid; but this is not sufficiently worked into the texture to figure in the end.  It remains a picture of the early years of marriage as they pass over so many a thousand Mr. and Mrs., so ordinary as to be terribly difficult to do. 

Cary Grant is thoroughly good, in some ways to the point of surprise, for there is not only that easy swing and hint of the devil in him, but faith and passion expressed, the character held together where it might so easily have fallen into the component parts of the too good, the silly, etc.  His scene with the judge is one of the rightly moving things in the picture.  Edgar Buchanan is the darling boy though, and runs quietly away with every scene he is in, simply by the depth of his reality as the stumbling, kindly friend of the family, absurdly thick-fingered and ill-at-ease in everything but the delicate operations of the press room or washing the baby or patching troubles or cooking.  It is what is known as a juicy part and usually squeezed like an orange, till it means nothing; here it is done with the right balance of humor, loyalty and love, and you will not forget Edgar Buchanan.  

This is a picture not spectacular for any one thing, and yet the fact of its unassuming humanity, of its direct appeal without other aids, is something in the way of pictures growing up after all; for to make something out of very little, and that so near at hand, is one of the tests of artistry." 

- Otis Ferguson, The New Republic

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 39 - Penny Serenade (Lobby Card Style)

Part Of

For more, see also:

Quote From Today April 24 2022

On This Day April 24 2021

Quote From Today.... The Awful Truth (1937)

"With a minute to go, Dad had the ball..."

With Molly Lamont and Irene Dunne.

The Awful Truth was Cary Grant's 29th full length feature film.

Lucy Warriner: [pretending to be Jerry's lower-class sister "Lola" at a gathering with his girlfriend's family] I'm sorry to interrupt you again, Jerry. Now, what were you saying?

Jerry Warriner: I was just telling one of Father's stories. You've heard it. With a minute to go, Dad had the ball...

Lucy Warriner: -A ball? What ball?

Jerry Warriner: -The football.

Lucy Warriner: Well, what in the world was Dad ever doing with a football, for heaven's sakes?

Jerry Warriner: I was just telling a story about when Father was at Princeton. You remember...

Lucy Warriner: [suddenly very enthused] Oh, Pop loved Princeton! He was there nearly 20 years, and if ever a man loved a place, he did. He just adored it. And he certainly kept it looking beautiful!

On this Day...My Favorite Wife (1940)

My Favorite Wife was Cary Grant's 36th full length feature film, and his second collaboration with both Irene Dunne and Leo McCarey.

What's it all about, well...the trailer says it all!

With Gail Patrick(Bianca)

With Irene Dunne(Ellen) and Randolph Scott(Burkett)

The film was remade in 1963, with Doris Day, James Garner and Polly Bergen as Move Over Darling.

Interesting to see the side by side comparison of one of the funniest scenes.

Directed by Garson Kanin

Running time: 88 minutes

Produced and distributed by RKO Radio

Leading Ladies...Part 1.

Cary Grant, over the course of his film career, starred alongside the most iconic female stars of the time and who still maintain that status, even today!

The list is impressive.

Some actresses appeared more than once with Cary Grant on screen.

Katharine Hepburn:

She appeared in the most films with Cary Grant, a total of four times.

Also, on July 20th, 1942, on the radio, in The Philadelphia Story.

Sylvia Scarlett (1936)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Holiday (1938)

The Philadelphia Story (1941)

"She was this slip of a woman and I never liked skinny women.

But she had this thing, this air you might call it, the most totally magnetic woman I'd

ever seen, and probably ever seen since.

You had to look at her, you had to listen to her. There was no escaping her."

- Cary Grant

"Cary was a lovely, very generous actor. A good comedian. And so funny. He had a wonderful laugh. When you looked at that face of his, it was full of a wonderful kind of laughter at the back of the eyes."

- Katharine Hepburn

Irene Dunne:

Appearing in three films.

Two were probably amongst the best screwball comedies on film.

Her radio appearences with Cary Grant also included:

Theodora Goes West (June 13th, 1938)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House  

(Oct 10th, 1950)

The Awful Truth (Jan 18th, 1955)

The Awful Truth (1937)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Penny Serenade (1941)

"Her timing was marvelous. She was so good that she made comedy look easy.

If she'd made it look as difficult as it really is, she would have won her Oscar."

- Cary Grant

"I loved working with Cary - every minute of it. Between takes he was so amusing with his cockney stories. I was his best audience. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The more I laughed, the more he went on."

- Irene Dunne

Deborah Kerr:

Appearing in three films with Cary Grant.

Dream Wife (1953)

An Affair to Remember (1957)

The Grass Is Greener (1961)

"Mostly, we have manufactured ladies - with the exception of Ingrid, Grace, Deborah and Audrey."

- Cary Grant

"His elegance, his wit, his true professionalism were outstanding, and I learned so much from just watching him work. The ability to ad-lib, the timing of a double-take, in fact, all his timing - so essential for true comedy."

- Deborah Kerr

Myrna Loy:

Appearing in three films.

In 1941, June 30th, she also joined Cary Grant for a radio adaptation, I Love You Again.

Wings in the Dark (1935)

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947)

Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (1948)

Carole Lombard:

Appearing in three films with Cary Grant, and one radio performance on December 11th, 1939 - In Name Only.

Sinners in the Sun (1932)

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)

In Name Only (1939)

Sylvia Sidney:

Appeared in three films.

Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)

Madame Butterfly (1932)

Thirty-Day Princess (1934)

So six actresses, appeared in three or more films with Cary Grant.

But ten more starred in two films each with him.

That will be the subject of Leading Ladies: Part Two...

My Favorite Film(s) of the 1940's...In Second Place!

Wow! This is was such a hard decade to pick only one film!

So close seconds...

My Favorite Wife (1940)....Brilliant pairing with Irene Dunne, again!

Penny Serenade (1941)....with Irene Dunne again! Who can forget the scene in the judges office?

None But the Lonely Heart (1944)....With Ethel Barrymore as Ma.

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947)....Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, "You remind me of a man..."

Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (1948)...Again with Myrna Loy..."For thirteen hundred doillars they can live in a house with three bathrooms and rough it!"

I Was A Male War Bride (1949)....With Ann Sheridan...That wig!!!

My favourite film of the 1930's...The Awful Truth.

The Awful Truth, was released in 1937, and directed by Leo McCarey.

Its a classic screwball comedy that sees Cary Grant becoming the complete package as a screen actor.

Playing opposite Irene Dunne, who is so funny, in the

role of his estranged wife.

They play the roles of Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a Manhattan society couple who are bent on divorce.
In the 90 days it takes for the divorce to become final, they embark on a new relationship and at the same time do whatever it takes to sabotage the other's budding romance.

Great performance too, by Ralph Bellamy, who gets caught up in all the chaos. So good, he received an Oscar nomination!