The Awful Truth

Leo McCarey, 1937, bw (8.8*)
This is one of those 30’s screwball comedies that you can watch over and over. Cary Grant plays a man who may or may not have been philandering, as he’s getting a tan in a salon in the film’s beginning because he’s supposed to have been in Florida. When he gets home, wife Irene Dunne is gone, and the two start divorce proceedings.

They also start trying to make each other jealous by trying to get engaged as fast as possible. Of course, they then play little games trying to saboutage each other’s attempts at a new relationship. All this is made a classic with some very funny dialogue and performances to match. There’s a great sequence in which Dunne has someone play her husband sister for his new lady’s family.

Asta the dog, from the Thin Man series, has one of his 14 film roles here as Mr. Smith, the family pet for whom Grant demands visitation rights in the divorce proceedings - but is he missing the dog or Dunne?

Awful Truth is a film with genuine laughs, not one of those films that is pleasant throughout and a funny concept, but seemingly lacks any laugh-out-loud dialogue. McCarey had a hand in some of the best comedies of his era, notably the Marx Brothers’ best film, Duck Soup (1933)

McCarey actually won the Oscar® for best director for this film, which he later duplicated with Going My Way in 1945, for which he also won for best screenplay. This could have easily won for screenplay as well.

Ranked #515 in our update of the top ranked 1000 films of all-time
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Ranked #84 comedy on our list of comedies in the top 100
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Duck Soup

Dir: Leo McCarey, 1933, bw (8.8*)
AFI Top 100
As Marx Brothers films go, this is the best. It includes the incredible mirror sequence between Groucho and Harpo, entirely based on timing. The movie has a typically inane plot: the government of Freedonia is bankrupt, and the country's richest woman, brilliantly played by Marx favorite Margaret Dumont, funds the government, but only if she chooses the President. Of course, that ends up being Rufus T. Firefly, Groucho of course, who wow's Margaret with this opening pickup sequence:
Groucho: Tell me, are you married, or are you rich? Answer the second question first....
Margaret: I'm a widow, I was with him 'til the end.
Groucho: Oh, so then it was homicide! ... you know, I could stay with you til the cows come home. On second thought, I could stay with the cows til you came home!

What woman could resist? The ensuing is a Marx-style sendup of politics, war, espionage (as the brothers are spies and counterspies), and government corruption. Director Leo McCarey later won two Oscars for Direction for The Awful Truth and Going My Way.

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