Second of Four Parts
Screwballs Too
by Jamie Jobb
His Girl Friday 1940
I Love You Again 1940
The Bank Dick 1940
Ball of Fire 1941
Love Crazy 1941
That Uncertain Feeling 1942
To Be or Not To Be 1942
The More The Merrier 1943
Arsenic and Old Lace 1944
Adam’s Rib 1949
Born Yesterday 1950
Beat the Devil 1953
The Captain's Paradise 1953
A Thousand Clowns 1965
The Knack 1965
Morgan 1966
Ralph Bellamy suspects Cary Grant and his gal Rosalind Russell
His Girl Friday (1940)
"You can marry all you want to, Hildy. But you can't quit the newspaper business." Fast-talking pin-striped hot-off-press ace-reporter Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson (terrific Rosalind Russell) is no "doll-faced hick" at The Chicago Morning Post. She believes in the “production-for-use defense” because“divorce lasts forever.”
Hard-core green-eyeshade Post editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is "wonderful – in a loathsome sort of way" as Hildy's ex-husband and ex-boss. Indeed, he now knows divorce "makes a fellow lose all faith in himself. Almost gives him a feeling he wasn't wanted." Hildy believes Walter "should make some girl real happy ... Slap-happy."
Albany life-insurance salesman and Hildy's fledgling fiance, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), may look“like that fellow in the movies” although he’s nothing, if not "kind, sweet, considerate" when he's out on bail and out of commissions. "Of course we don't help you much while you're alive. But afterward, that's what counts."
Afterlife is certainly creeping up on mental-case murderer Earl Williams (John Qualen) who faces noose in shadows of Criminal Courts Building courtyard. Sheriff Hartwell (Gene Lockhart) hounds “a lot of wiseguys” in the press about “aiding an escaped criminal and a little charge of kidnapping” while The Mayor (Clarence Kolb) would overlook clemency and "hang his own grandmother to be re-elected".
“I jumped out of that window a long time ago.” Directed by Howard Hawks; screenplay by Charles Lederer, based stage classic by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Breakneck gallop-to-gallows farce runs out of rope in roll-top desk hideaway. "You argue with her – otherwise you're going on a honeymoon with blood on your hands." (USA)
* * *
Myrna Loy and William Powell on a spit over a slow fire
I Love You Again (1940)
"Listen Larry, don't get me wrong. I'd like to lay my hands on some of that amnesia. But if you give yourself away to this dame, we lose a fortune."
Suave con-man George Carey (William Powell) recovers lost memory aboard S.S. Falkness to discover he's been living nine years as Larry "Grape Juice" Wilson, "silver-tongue, stuffed shirt"general manager of Habersville (Pa.) Potteries. "I certainly must've taken good care of this guy, Wilson."
Herbert (Donald Douglas) is "a man who gets loud on no drinks" and intends to marry Wilson's beautiful bored wife Kay (Myrna Loy) who wants divorce. "You turn my head" Carey/Wilson tells his"new" wife. "I've often wished I could turn your head – on a spit over a slow fire."
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke II, written by Charles Lederer, George Oppenheimer and Harry Kurnitz. Jocose screwball dawns howling but bogs down in oil deal, "elementary deer psychology" and The Brown Beaver. "If it's a boy, you can teach him to play baseball. And if it's a bicycle, oh Duke, you can put hair-ribbons on her and go walking on Sundays." (USA)
(1:39:03)
* * *
W.C. Fields and Franklin Pangborn take it to The Skinner Bank
The Bank Dick (1940)
“I want to prove to you that I’m honest in the worst way.” Hapless Lompoc Kansas bank detective Egbert Souse (W.C. Fields) admits he “never smoked a cigarette until I was nine” and never drinks “during business hours” – although he’s “never one to turn a deaf ear to a cry of distress.” So when Tel-Avis Motion Pictures needs a replacement for tipsy auteur A. Pismo Clam (Jack Norton), they turn to Egbert for cinematic direction. “Was I here last night? And did I spend a twenty dollar bill?”
And when J. Frothingham Waterbury (Russell Hicks) needs to unload five thousand worthless shares of Beef-Stake Mines in Leapfrog Nevada, Egbert leaps at the chance. “A beautiful home in the country, upstairs and down. Beer flowing though the estate over your grandmother’s paisley shawl.”
And when bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn) comes to inspect books of Lompoc State Bank and finds fiduciary funds racing out the door, Egbert leads the hot pursuit. “I cannot impress upon you too firmly, The Skinner Bank is a dignified institution.”
“Don’t be a fuddy-duddy! Don’t be a mooncalf! Don’t be a jabber-wow! You’re not those, are you?” Great reworking of Field’s deftly ramshackle Vaudeville sketch adaptions translated to film with complex climax in Mack Sennett-style chase. “Seems to be a great deal of traffic here for a country road, don’t you think?”
“Is that gun loaded?” “Certainly not, but I think you are.” Written by Fields, directed by Edward Cline. “Ever done any boondoggling?” (USA).
https://archive.org/details/thebankdick1940oguardaminesderien
(1:12:00)
* * *
Barbara Stanwyck stands up to Gary Cooper in Seven-Dwarf farce
Ball of Fire (1941)
“Slang, as the poet Carl Sandburg said, is language which takes off its coat, spits on its hands and goes to work.” Slap-happy professor Bertram Potts (terrific Gary Cooper) meets solid-sender chanteuse Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) who’s “an astounding specimen” in Gotham jazz club singing “Drum Boogie” with Gene Krupa’s Band. “The cat is rockin’ with a solid eight, I tell you it’s more to gait. The joint is jumpin’...”
“This is the kind of woman that makes whole civilizations topple.” Potts believes Sugarpuss is perfect mouthpiece for vernacular section of encyclopedia he and seven professors (“the dwarfs”:Richard Haydn, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers, S.Z. Sakall, Tully Marshall, Leonid Kinsky and Aubrey Mather) are writing as legacy for inventor of electric toaster – although not one of them can “jerk a zipper”. Sugarpuss: “Scrow, scram, scraw.” Potts: “The complete conjugation!”
“I should have brought along my valet, I’m a sucker for comfort.” On lam from law as moll to mob boss Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), Sugarpuss likes hiding out with scholars so she moves into their musty mansion. She also takes a shine to Potts because … “this is the first time anybody’s moved in on my brain.” Joe Lilac is not amused.
“I’m supposed to stay in this old mans’ home ‘til the moths eat holes in me?” Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, directed by Howard Hawks. Chock full of Benny-the-Creep, hep cats and “Hoy-toy-toy!” “You’re playing a polka, and I taught you a conga.” (USA)
(1:51:51)
* * *
Myrna Loy nets squirrelly William Powell
Love Crazy (1941)
"Isn't it unlucky for the groom to see the bride the night before the divorce?" Despite "a doubtful mental condition", architect Stephen Ireland (William Powell) is happily married man whose "hokey days are over" because he's "stuck for life" with one woman, and loves it.
"You weren't married, you were embalmed!" And while his "moody" wife Susan (Myrna Loy) may not be "the easiest girl in the world to understand", Steve would go insane just to prove how much he adores her. "I haven't wept a slink!"
Certainly nothing will stand in his way. Not new neighbor and old flame Isobel Grayson (Gail Patrick) who may be "an expert in holding corporations". Not fast-friend and world-champ archer Ward Willoughby (Jack Carson) who "can't shoot unless my torso's free."
And certainly not snoopy mother-in-law and brainless busy-body (Florence Bates) who insists "just go ahead, as if I weren't here" on Steve and Susan's fourth anniversary. "I'm not crying. And if I am crying, it's because I think that 12 o'clock at night's a pretty rotten time to start my life over again."
Directed by Jack Conway, written by William Ludwig, Charles Lederer, David Hirtz. Classic screwball farce boils over "steam pudding", stuck elevator, slippery rugs, "happy little feet", backwards dinner and Abe Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. "But I didn't frustrate him once. Why do I have to not frustrate him again?" (USA)
RENTAL: https://youtu.be/o2ZzqIuXjtk
(1:38:41)
* * *
Merle Oberon knows “musicians and mattresses don’t mix”
That Uncertain Feeling (1942)
"So, you can hit a man but you don't dare strike a woman. You coward, you!" Town and Country Park Avenue socialites, "The Happy Bakers" are: 1) broker husband Lawrence "Larry" Baker (Melvyn Douglas) who's either "a cheap second-rate insurance peddler" or "the party of the first part"; and 2) wife Jill (laconic Merle Oberon), aka "the party of the second part", who's "supersensitive to noises"and "tired of being an annuity".
And although "The Evans are in Bermuda, the hiccups are back." Part-time pianist Sebastian Alexander, aka "Snoogie" (terrific Burgess Meredith), is "rather an obscure musician" who "can be very impossible" because he's "inhibited artistically" but forever speaks his mind.
"You should know better. Musicians and mattresses don't mix." Legal secretary and out-of-court stenographer Sally Aikens (Eve Arden) knows answer to Twenty Questions: "Secretaries work on Saturday night?"
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart and Walter Reisch based on play by Victorien Sardou and Emile de Najac. Sluggish stage translation pokes fun at Hungarian goulash, cognac slap, "keeks" and the shepherd's mustache. "A woman didn't paint me, she performed an autopsy." (USA)
(1:23:47)
* * *
To Be or Not To Be (1942)
"Whenever I start to tell a story, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we were ever to have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother." Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) is not only Poland's most famous actress, she's "an institution ... They named soap after her!"
So she's tired of playing second fiddle to her insanely-jealous ham-fisted husband (terrific Jack Benny), "the great, great Polish actor Joseph Tura, you've probably heard of him?" Unfortunately they're stuck in 1939 Warsaw with Hitler on the march and second-row "secret love code".
That would be Polish Air Force pilot Lt. Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack) who "can drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes" and has Shakespearean crush on Maria. "I hate to leave the fate of my country in the hands of a ham."
Plot thickens when Prof. Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), secret agent posing as Polish patriot, must deliver list of resistance supporters to Gestapo honcho Col. Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman). "I don't believe Hitler will go down in history as a delicatessen."
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, written by Edwin Justus Mayer. Thrilling crafty black farce should not be confused with 1983 Mel Brooks' remake. "Now listen you, first you walk out on my soliloquy and then you walk into my slippers. And now you question my patriotism!?! I'm a good Pole. I love my country AND my slippers!"
Could be included on lists of anti-war films. Historic note: Alas, this was Lombard's last film. "A laugh is nothing to be sneezed at." (USA)
(1:38:58)
* * *
Jean Arthur outwits roommates Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn
The More The Merrier (1943)
"So how would you like it if she spilt a cocktail all over it at a party you couldn't go with her to because she borrowed it to go to it with him!?" Wartime Washington D.C. endures housing crunch with not only "eight girls for every fella" but also six people per bedroom.
So Constance Milligan (brilliant Jean Arthur) considers it her "patriotic duty" to sublet half her "sunny apartment" 2B at 1708 D Street NW. Although she's "not the kind of person anything happens to", Connie is "a very lucky little lady" who works in The Office of Facts and Figures and knows how to maintain tight schedules.
"Oh, I couldn't take one man's bag on another man's honeymoon." Moving in is "retired well-to-do millionaire" Benjamin Dingle (terrific "silent" comedian Charles Coburn). Mr. Dingle is "a funny old man" who's "neat like a pin" and wonders "Is there anything wrong with being two days early?"
Apparently not, if you play Cupid and share Adm. Farragut's motto: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." USAF Sergeant Joe Carter (Joel McCrea), aka Bill, is handsome devil who finds himself with his own propeller on secret mission in his half of "the south half" of 2B. "I'm crowded like nobody else."
Directed by George Stevens, written by Robert Russell, Frank Ross, Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster. Seductive and intimate farce reflects influence of screwball, even in World War II as it steams through rhumba and Murphy bed, Dick Tracy and slingshot pants, coffee pot and robe sleeves, "Just looking" and The Walls Of Jericho. "What's she mad about?" "Because you and the man she's engaged to aren't anything alike, and he outta be." (USA)
(1:44:10)
* * *
Cary Grant falls for Priscilla Lane in gruesome funereal farce
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
“What would the neighbors think? People coming in here with one face and going out with another.” Gotham drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) may be “the son of a sea-cook” and “the guy who wrote the bachelor’s bible” but he’s fallen head-over-hamhocks for preacher’s daughter Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane).
“You can’t marry me one minute, and throw me out of the house the next!” At start of Halloween honeymoon, Mortimer unfortunately learns engrossing Brewster family secret: “Insanity runs in the family … it practically gallops!”
His two sweetly sinister aunts, Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), may be “two of the dearest, sweetest, kindest old ladies that ever walked the earth”, although they cache more than Elderberry spirits in their Brooklyn cellar. “Make yourself comfortable, pull up a tombstone!”
Mortimer’s upstart brother Theodore “Teddy Roosevelt” Brewster (John Alexander) forever charges up “San Juan Hill” staircase, while his long-lost and maniacal other brother, scarface Jonathan Brewster (terrific Raymond Massey), seems fashioned by Frankenstein. “He would have died of pneumonia, if I hadn’t shot him.” Jonathan’s enigmatic friend, “Doctor” Herman Einstein (Peter Lorre), is either “a surgeon of great distinction” or “something of a magician”. Neighborhood beat-cop/playwright Patrick O’Hara (Jack Carson) gets “wonderful ideas, but I can’t spell them”.
Directed by Frank Capra, screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, based on perennial stage favorite by Joseph Kesselring. Classic stage-adaption thrives on ever-bold incantations of Yellow Fever, The Melbourne Method, “a new lock for the Panama Canal” and Mind Over Matrimony.“I knew this would end up in a nut house.” “We like to think of it as a rest home.” (USA).
(1:53:13)
* * *
Tracy, Holliday and Hepburn in uncivilized court
Adam’s Rib (1949)
“Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called in-breeding from which comes idiot children … and more lawyers.” Advocacy attorney Amanda Bonner, aka Judy and Pinkie, (Katharine Hepburn) knows “a slap from a slug” but what “burns my goat” is injustice in all forms.
“What’ve you got back there ... Radar equipment?” Assistant District Attorney Adam Bonner, aka Punch and Pinky, (Spencer Tracy) thinks Amanda is “shaking the law by the tail, and I don’t like it.” The Bonners, “a couple of uncivilized nuts”, are married opposing counsel battling in Manhattan court over fate of Doris Attinger (terrific Judy Holliday) who won’t let any man “make some kinda part-timer outta me.”
Poor Doris is wife who admits feeling “hungry” after shooting two-timing husband Warren (Tom Ewell) in headline-grabbing case, People v. Attinger. “There are lots of things that a man can do and in society’s eyes, it’s all hunky-dory. A woman does the same thing – the same, mind you, and she’s an outcast.”
Equally apportioned jury of six men and six women settles case, but they can’t dismiss Bonners’ shattered domestic tranquility. Amanda: “There’s no room in marriage for what used to be known as The Little Woman. She’s got to be as big as the man is.” Adam: “I want a wife, not a COMPETITOR!”
“I think the human race is having a nervous breakdown!” Ahead-of-its-time courtroom satire aims right at heart of Battle of the Sexes. “Sickness, health, richer, poorer, better, or worse … But this is TOO worse. This is basic!” Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, directed by George Cukor. “Viva la difference.” (USA).
https://m4uhd.tv/watch-movie-adams-rib-1949-237931.html
(1:41:00)
* * *
Scrap-iron tycoon Broderick Crawford manages Judy Holliday’s education
Born Yesterday (1950)
“If there’s a fire and I call the engine, so who am I double crossing? The fire?” Not-so-dim ex-chorus girl Billie Dawn (brilliant Judy Holliday) “could’a been a star, probably.” But clueless-on-purpose Billie finds herself a petty “multiple-corporate officer” in D.C. penthouse digs of her savage sugar-daddy – scrap-iron tycoon and wannabe mobster Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford), aka King Junk.
Brutish Brock is “a tough man to dig” with “quite a temper” who’s “always lived at the top of his voice.” Concerned with Billie’s lack of political polish, Brock wants “someone to smooth her rough edges”, so he hires bespectacled journalist Paul Verrall (William Holden) to “show her the ropes” of Capitol culture.
Billie wonders if Paul isn’t “some kinda gigolo” instead of her tutorial bookworm. “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever read. I don’t understand one word.” Brock’s soused counsel and ex-wannabe assistant attorney general Jim Devery (Howard St. John) sees picture bigger than one-bribe, one-vote. “What’s CAKES got to do with it?”
Screenplay by Albert Mannheimer based on blockbuster play by Garson Kanin. Directed by George Cukor, whose classic Pygmalion runs against grain of Red-baited times with The Yellowing Democratic Manifesto, “the not-so-funnies”, Watergate concerts and hilarious gin-rummy sleight-of-hand. “A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.” (USA)
RENTAL: https://youtu.be/bf34txw2cy8
(1:42:19)
* * *
Beat the Devil (1953)
“Charm and dependability so seldom go in one package.” Usual Suspects (Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Ivor Barnard and Marco Tulli) are stuck in “squalid, fifth-rate” Italian port, awaiting merchant ship Nyanga to ferry them to uranium riches in British East Africa. “It smokes, it drinks, it philosophizes … at this rate I’ll be 60 before you get to the point.”
Hung up with them is their “agent”, American fortune-hunter Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) whose ravishing wife Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) is thoroughly Italian although “emotionally I am English”.
Into this tangled web fly two flighty British subjects – Gwendolen Chelm (outrageous Jennifer Jones) who “uses her imagination rather than her memory” to fall for Billy while her husband Harry (Edward Underdown) fancies Maria, although “… he wants to work out the problem of sin. Isn’t that what we’re all most concerned with, sin?”
One-of-a-kind latter-day screwball gem with staggering offbeat love scenes in lush and romantic neo-realistic Mediterranean villa vistas. “Time. Time. What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it’s money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.”
Directed by John Huston, screenplay by Houston and Truman Capote based on novel by James Helvick. The film that launched Jennifer Jones into her own orbit! “They’re desperate characters...Not one of them looked at my legs!” (USA).
(1:33:18)
* * *
Alec Guinness finds himself between Rock and hard place
The Captain’s Paradise (1953)
“He that would enter Paradise must have a golden key.” Or, in other words: “Man toils, woman spins.”
Golden Fleece steamer captain Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) leads two wives as he ferries dailybetween Gibraltar and North Africa. “Two women, each with half the qualities necessary for a man, and therefore quite easy to find. And once found, never to meet.”
Cold northern wife Maude (Celia Johnson) cooks and keeps hot cocoa ready for him at 10 p.m. “I’m 37 Henry, and I think it’s time I started to live.” Meanwhile hot Latina madam Nita (Yvonne de Carlo) keeps Henry dancing ‘til dawn and “occupied in making her attractions even more attractive”.
“That, Rico, is my solution to man’s happiness on Earth. Two happy women, each in their way perfect, and in between the company of men, the clash of intellectuals to stimulate the mind.”
Trouble stirs when Maude wants “to stay up late before it’s too late for me to stay up late, if that’s clear.” It’s clear My Dear, but what’s your poor Captain to do? “In the words of a famous English statesman: ‘We cultivate the faculty of patient expectancy.’ We wait and see.” Directed by Anthony Kimmins, written by Alec Coppel and Nicholas Phipps.
“It’s absurd to imagine that the same woman who comes home with the groceries can also come home with the milk.” (British).
https://archive.org/details/TheCaptainsParadise1953
(1:28:33)
* * *
Jason Robards and Barry Gordon take bite out of Big Apple
A Thousand Clowns (1965)
"You wanna be your own boss Murray, but the trouble with that is you don't pay yourself anything." Unemployed carefree kids-tv writer Murray Burns (Jason Robards) may be "maladjusted" and "just like to kid around", but he celebrates his "own personal national holidays" and hollers down Park Avenue: "Rich people, I wanna see you all out on the street for volleyball!"
His nephew, Nick (Barry Gordon) -- aka Little Max, Big Sam, Chip, Rock, Rex, Mike, Marty, Raphael Sabatini, et al – is "a middle-aged kid" who's four weeks away from thirteenth birthday when he must choose his "permanent first name". Nick has been "visiting" Murray for seven years in their one-room apartment, a "kind of a fallout shelter ... protection against the idiots in the atmosphere".
But according to New York's Child Welfare Board, Nick also is "an O.W. (out-of-wedlock) child"because Nick's father is "not a WHERE question, that's a WHO question", and Nick's mother has "a well-practiced theory on the meaning of life ... a philosophy falling somewhere to the left of Whoopee". One day Nick's mom left him with Murray, went out for filter-tip cigarettes and didn't return. "I tell ya folks I got a real social worker's paradise here."
Albert Amundson (William Daniels) and Sandra Markowitz (Barbara Harris) form "Social Service Unit" which considers Nick's situation "almost an emergency case" but is itself no sterling example of stability. "Children do not easily feel affection" for Albert who is "not one of the warm people" and speaks "like you write everything down before you say it".
Although she may be "a jolly old girl", Sandra cries "all the time", laughs "in the wrong places in the movies" and believes she's "unsuited" to her profession because she gets "much too emotionally involved" in her caseload. "That's a very silly thing for her to be in, that closet."
But Sandra believes "anything can happen above an abandoned Chinese restaurant" and knows "there's so many wonderful things you can do with a one-room apartment", so she moves in with Nick and Murray. "You are well rid of Albert. You have been given the rare opportunity of returning the unused portion and having your money refunded."
Meanwhile Nick's other uncle, Murray's agent-brother Arnold (Martin Balsam) is "a fruit nut" who has "a talent for surrender" but tries to help Murray regain his job as chief writer on "Chuckles the Chipmunk Show".
Leo Herman (Gene Saks) as Chuckles doesn't "get along too good with kids" and keeps "touching myself to make sure I'm still here". Surrounded on his show by "finks, dwarfs, phonies and frogs", Leo wants to do "a new kind of kids show – for adults maybe".
Directed by Fred Coe, screenplay by Herb Gardner based on his brilliant monument of American stage and film literature, salted with exceptional characters/dazzling dialogue and peppered with monkey-bar German spies, midtown rooftop kites, "Bubbles the Electric Statue" and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby!" "Hey, if most things aren't funny, Arn, then they're only exactly what they are; then it's just one long dental appointment." (USA)
* * *
All the girls line up for mythic Rory McBride
The Knack...and How to Get It (1965)
"It's not like that. It's an exaggeration. He has just got a certain success with the ladies, that's all." Four young lovers share same art nouveau house of bed-sitters in 60s London. "I mean I'm broad-minded, but a bed's place is definitely in the home. Definitely."
Dapper Tolen (Ray Brooks) cages "real flash birds dressed in all manner of rousing gear" and understands he has The Knack with women. "After being with me, a girl doesn't feel like clambering over furniture."
Lanky eager apprentice Colin (Michael Crawford) longs to have Tolen's skill and seeks instruction. "Cheese, egg, milk, meat, skirt...is that it?" "What?" "How you do it?" "Skirt IS meat!"
Awkward newcomer Nancy (Rita Tushingham) fears rape but makes big soulful eyes for them both. "Innocent eyes of blue, what her legs are walking her into."
And "secret painter" Tom (Donal Donnelly) "can't bear brown" so he must cover it up. But all stand in awe of mythic lover Rory McBride who fills Royal Albert Hall with attendant admirers.
Deftly directed by Richard Lester, screenplay by Charles Wood based on play by Ann Jellicoe. Absurdist one-liner cine-verite full of sight gags and "kiss of life". "We're, all of us, more or less sexual failures." (British)
Stream: https://watch.plex.tv/movie/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it
(1:25:00)
* * *
David Warner finds himself suspended by faulty divorce
Morgan! - A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966)
"I've been born into the wrong species, Wally. That's what it is. If I'd been planted into the womb of a chimpanzee, none of this would ever have happened." Chest-beating schizophrenic Marxist artist Morgan Delt (David Warner) comes unhitched from wealthy Kensington wife Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), but cannot accept divorce because "she refuses to de-stabilize".
He imagines Leonie as Jane rescued by his Tarzan. Now engaged to modern art merchant Charles Napier (Robert Stephens), Leonie does have her second thoughts, however. "You don't know Leonie. She married me to achieve insecurity and you're trying to take it away from her."
Morgan's worker waitress Mum (Irene Handl) considers her son a "class traitor" and leads annual pilgrimage to High Gate tomb of Karl Marx to remind Morgan of his Red roots: "He wanted to shoot the Royal Family, abolish marriage and put everybody who'd been to public school in a chain gang. Yeah, he was an idealist, your Dad was."
Pro wrestler Wally "The Gorilla" Carver (Arthur Mullard) helps Morgan shanghai love because "crime puts the human element back". But Morgan's ultimate fantasy is King Kong. "You can't count on me being civilized, I've lost the thread."
Directed by Karel Reisz, screenplay by David Mercer, based on his play. "Nothing in this world seems to live up to my best fantasies, except you." (British)
FURTHERMORE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Sennett
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032599/
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/221/i-love-you-again#overview
https://www.criterion.com/films/617-the-bank-dick
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68020/ball-of-fire/#overview
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/285/love-crazy#overview
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/19199/that-uncertain-feeling/#overview
https://www.criterion.com/films/27690-to-be-or-not-to-be
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/27925/the-more-the-merrier/#overview
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/976
https://www.criterion.com/films/29005-arsenic-and-old-lace
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/15824/adams-rib/#overview
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/69435/born-yesterday#overview
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68277/beat-the-devil#overview
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/70258/captains-paradise/#overview
https://www.oscarchamps.com/2015/10/30/1965-a-thousand-clowns/
https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/80456/the-knack-and-how-to-get-it/#overview
https://prod-www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/83979/morgan#overview
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