The Great Dictator (1940)

The Great Dictator (1940) straddles absurdity and warning.  The monologue Chaplin delivers at the end is shockingly timely today, and yet it was meant for a previous generation who fought fascism with humor, and then drama, and then, when that wasn’t enough, with armies.

Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” persona had been officially retired in his previous film, Modern Times (1936), which we covered here.  Yet the hapless misfit, here known only as a Jewish Barber, retains the Tramp’s innocence, athletic clumsiness, and knack for getting in and out of trouble.  But here he also has a doppelganger, in the form of a dictator who sends his goon squads to threaten Jews, as he plans for war on a neighboring country.  Despite the childishly pompous dictator’s fiendish actions, he is himself a buffoon, a joke, and something to be laughed at for his ineptitude. We do not really fear him…but we do have a sense of fear over his cult following, who carry out his every whim.

It was a daring film, not only to mock a figure who was clearly meant to represent Hitler during a time when we were not yet at war, but to draw attention to the fact that the Jews were so named as his scapegoats and his first victims.  Other films of the late 1930s and early 1940s, even those that boldly decried fascism at home and abroad, shied away from explicitly pointing out that Jews were being treated badly.  It was a courageous and utterly decent move by Chaplin, but he wrote in his 1964 My Autobiography (NY: Simon & Schuster, p. 392), Had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator, I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.  For all its boldness in showing ruffian soldiers painting “JEW” on a shop window, the movie has more than its share of silliness.

Some scenes, such as the dueling barber chairs between the dictator and his adversary dictator played by Jack Oakie, clearly meant to be Mussolini, seem right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  Mel Brooks-style Springtime for Hitler-type gags that mock the arrogance of the fascists, and the dictator's frantic speech delivered to his adoring throngs in a kind of pidgin-German reminds one of the fast and furious faux German speech of Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. They were the imitators; Chaplin was the original.

There are two serious characters, though, on either side.  Henry Daniell plays an advisor to Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator.  Daniell is sinister, quiet and utterly serious.  He seems far more dangerous than the dictator, if only because he is more intelligent, more self-disciplined, and sociopathic. Compared to him, the dictator seems like a clown.

The other serious character is played by Maurice Moscovitch as Mr. Jaeckel, an elderly leader in the Jewish ghetto who helps the Jewish Barber and his community in any way he can.  We see his concern and his resolve, but he is actually helpless against the onslaught of oppression.

Billy Gilbert has a comic role as a bumbling staff member of the dictator, and we note the silly names further poke fun at the bad guys.  Gilbert is “Herring,” possibly a shortening of Hermann Göring, and the evil Henry Daniell plays “Garbitsch,” (garbage).

Two people who have the biggest impact on the Jewish Barber are Reginald Gardiner, who plays an officer in World War I who was saved by the barber and later repays the debt by saving him from the dictator; and Paulette Goddard as Hannah, a waif of the ghetto.  

Miss Goddard was married to Chaplin at the time, and serves as his innocent love interest.  Though this movie does not really have the Chaplin trademark pathos of many of his comedies, what there is can be discerned through the scrappy Paulette Goddard, orphaned and supporting herself doing housework and laundry, and facing the bullying soldiers.

The movie begins in the later days of World War I where Chaplin as the Jewish Barber is part of a German (or Tomanian, as the country is called Tomania) artillery.  Though the setting with its trenches and bombed-out landscape of leafless trees is bleak, there is a jolt of silliness in how he maneuvers the Big Bertha howitzer, and how he loses a live hand grenade up his sleeve.  

He comes upon Reginald Gardiner, a downed flyer who is desperately trying to escape in his plane from the advancing enemy, and Chaplin helps him, with more gags about flying upside-down.  Though the plane crashes, they survive and we have the end of the war in blaring headlines, movie fashion.

The Jewish Barber spends many years in the hospital due to his injuries from the crash, and has amnesia.  He does not realize a decade has passed when he leaves the hospital; he thinks it has been only a matter of weeks, and like Rip Van Winkle, he returns to find his village utterly changed.  His barber shop is now part of the ghetto, and “JEW” is written across the shutters.

But he seems oblivious to the change at first, or at least does not realize the significance of what is happening around him.  Soon, he ends up the prey of a troop of soldiers, who put a noose around his neck and try to hang him from a lamp post.  Suddenly, Reginald Gardiner intervenes, remembers his old friend, and saves his life.  Since he is an officer, he gives orders to the soldiers to leave Chaplin and the Jews alone.

Meanwhile, the dictator is still spewing his ridiculous orders, and it seems silly when he and Henry Daniell, wanting to preserve Aryan purity, which means getting rid of dark-haired and dark-eyed people as much as Jews, remark, “We’ll get rid of the Jews first, then concentrate on the brunettes!”

Planning world domination, we then have the memorable scene of the dictator considering a large globe in his office, which is actually a balloon, and he tosses it, dances a dreamlike ballet with it.  But at last, it pops in his arms.

Back to the Jewish Barber, who no less silly, shaves a man to the frenetic strains of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5. 

The dictator wants a loan from a banker named Epstein, whom we do not see, but is denied, and therefore he will send his troops to march on a country named Osterlich (Austria).  First, he meets with his counterpart dictator, Napaloni, played by Jack Oakie, and they try to top each other in self-importance. 

The barber and Paulette Goddard are thrown together in the ghetto by circumstances and through the matchmaking efforts of Mr. Muscovitch, who advises the barber to open a beauty shop for women and insists he practice on Goddard.  At first, absentmindedly attempting to shave her as he would a male customer, the barber instead washes and coifs her hair, making the Cinderella of the ashes beautiful.

But life gets suddenly grim again when Reginald Gardiner refuses to attack Jews and has lost favor in the high command.  Though he heroically joins their resistance, he cannot protect them anymore.  He and the barber are captured and sent to a concentration camp.

When they make their escape in stolen officers’ clothing, we finally get to the point we knew was coming all along—the Prince and the Pauper switching of the identical barber and the dictator. (Chaplin’s famous character with his dark toothbrush mustache so resembled Hitler that people referring to Hitler on the sly sometimes called him The Little Tramp, to avoid saying his surname.)  The barber and Reginald Gardiner are whisked to an enormous outdoor stadium, Nuremberg-like, to make a speech of conquest. 

The jokes end here, as the barber, looking sickened in his seat, awkwardly steps up to the stage (how ironic that the word “liberty” is solidly in stone there) and the radio microphones, and the vast sea of willing cult members in uniform leaning on his every word.

He gives the famous speech that resonates with us today.  That it does resonate would not make Chaplin proud of his work, but would leave him, as it leaves us, dazed, depressed, and heartsick.  And angry.

The movie concludes with a close-up on Paulette Goddard, who listens to the speech on the radio.  It is a hopeful and inspiring ending.  But it is not true.  It would take several years of war to stop the madness, because when a people wait too long, madness can only be stopped by force.

It is important to face bleak facts and fight evil in any way possible, even to give one’s life to do so, but it is also important to realize that the evildoers are not invincible.  They can be taken down with the rule of law.  Laughing at them also helps. They hate that.

Watch the speech here below.  The entire movie can currently be found on YouTube.

*******************************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

It is also here in paperback from Ingram.

And here in hardcover from Ingram.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

Buy this or any of my books online here at Bookshop.org.

I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now - 1947

IWonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (1947) is a delightful scrapbook of turn-of-the-twentieth century song hits by composer Joe Howard.  The biography is typical Hollywood fiction; and one wonders why the Dream Factory even bothered to concoct a biography at all when it seems never to have the intention of telling the facts.  The tunes are the real draw of the show.  If crafting a credible script is difficult for legal reasons, or just the lack of a dramatic story, why not just let the music stand for itself?

We continue our series on musicals about composers.  Looking back to a film we discussed previously, Deep in My Heart (1954), about the life and work of Sigmund Romberg, that was a movie in which a parade of stars took turns singing Romberg’s hits.  The story starring José Ferrer was entertaining (especially his comic masterpiece scene), but using this template of showcasing the music through the talents of a stable of stars would have worked well for I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now, certainly preferable to the story that was cobbled together.

Mark Stevens, who played opposite Ann Blyth in Katie Did It (1951) previously discussed here, stars as Joe Howard, an affable composer in Gay Nineties New York City.

June Haver plays his “sister”—the daughter of the man who took him in when he was orphaned as a boy.  June will eventually develop into his love interest, a job she wants sooner rather than later.

She is a bouncy teen, prone to stringing a series of white lies, and her spunk gets her in and out of trouble.  Some of her targeted “innocent” backhanded compliments to various leading ladies who have an eye for Joe are pretty funny.

Her character was made up for the movie, by some sources made up just for her.  

Interestingly, both Mark Stevens and June Haver were second stringers in Hollywood at this time, but putting two second-stringers together make for refreshing exuberance.

She’s a great singer and dancer, and Mark Stevens also shines as a song-and-dance man—pretty impressive for somebody who was also groomed for film noir parts. I am not really certain at this time if Stevens did his own singing (maybe a reader has more information) but since he did start his career as a singer in nightclubs, I’m prepared to believe it is really his voice.  If so, it’s absolutely beautiful.  His singing is one of the very best things about this movie.  I’d love to have the soundtrack.

The songs include “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” of course, but also the rousing “Goodbye, My Lady Love” (which, if you are familiar with the stage musical Show Boat, is usually sung by the characters Ellie and Frank in their act), “Honeymoon” (accompanied by a “magic lantern” show so evocative of the era), and ”Hello, My Baby!” (which most of us associate with the singing frog leaping out of the strong box in theWarner Bros. cartoon).

Regarding “Goodbye, My Lady Love,” June Haver is wearing darker body makeup to suggest a “mulatto” character because the song is performed as a cakewalk, in the setting of the period style of entertainment.  Mark Stevens, who leaves the piano to escort her in a few steps and sing of his “heart on fire”, with top hat and cane, is not wearing darker makeup.  Did the southern movie distribution market tremble at the suggestion of this romantic pairing?  Were the miscegenation riot police busy somewhere else burning crosses?  I have to smile, wondering if Hollywood inadvertently pulled a fast one on the racists who were so careful to avoid such cozy interracial images.

Martha Stewart (not that one) and Leonore Aubert play two veteran ladies of the stage who lead Mark Stevens astray for a little while. It’s funny how, along with young June Haver, a trio of women deceive poor Mark.  William Frawley plays Martha's manager, and any movie with him is aces.  We last saw him a few weeks ago in My Wild Irish Rose, and he just seems a natural for this era.  He started in vaudeville in 1914, and though we've seen Mr. Frawley in many movies, and on TV, he seems most natural scowling backstage at a vaudeville theater, cigar in his teeth.  How many times did Fred Mertz reminisce with Ethel about their vaudeville days?  It's just in his blood, and on his face.  He wears it like a carnation in his buttonhole. 

Reginald Gardner has a brief, but standout role as the real-life partner of Joe Howard, William M Hough (or one partner. Howard worked with several lyricists – at the time this movie was produced, one such person came forward with a lawsuit to demand credit for his part in creating the title song).

The movie is richly filmed with wonderfully staged musical numbers (in Technicolor, despite these black and white studio publicity photos), some cleverly framed shots, and dialogue lines that are treasured reflections of the time – but only if you know the era. Most viewers today might not guffaw over the line, “She’s a beautiful woman, not one of the Cherry Sisters.” If you have never heard of vaudeville’s worst ever act, that might pass right by you. I laughed my head off.  At the time this movie was made, two generations of Americans still remembered. 

Admittedly, I have a fondness for this type of movie, especially when it aspires to nothing more than being an earnest valentine to the subject matter. Deep probing into what haunts composers is best left for documentaries – if there are any. George Jessel, the chief ambassador of vaudeville, produced this movie.  He and director Lloyd Bacon present it with nostalgic affection.  It might well have been better to just give up the pretense about presenting a biography of a composer, and just let his music tell us about him.

Next week, we turn to more musical fare with Alan Alda and Alexis Smith in Rhapsody in Blue (1945), the life and work of George Gershwin.

*********************
The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon, CreateSpace, and my Etsy shop: LynchTwinsPublishing.

Claudia - 1943

Claudia (1943) is a film of rare accomplishment even while cloaked in the ordinary. Its comic premise of a scatterbrained child-bride and her lovingly tolerant husband barely scratches the surface in describing this remarkably deep film, and its deft exploration of love, death, birth, and especially marriage.

This week we’ll be covering both Claudia and its sequel, Claudia and David (1946). The sequel, unlike most sequels, was every bit as good as the original, so strong in its own storyline that it stands well on its own. Both films sprang from the hit Broadway play, Claudia, which sprang from a series of magazine stories, later developed into several novels, by Rose Franken.

Stop here if you don’t want any spoilers. The whole thing is going to be spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Look! There’s another one! Duck!

Claudia, the Broadway play, shot lead Dorothy McGuire to stardom in a show than ran two years and over 700 performances. When Hollywood scooped up the rights, it scooped up Dorothy McGuire as well. Her role was then taken over on stage by Phyllis Thaxter, who recently passed away. Have a look here at my New England Travels blog for Thaxter’s Claudia on tour in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Playwright Rose Franken directed the stage show and picked Dorothy McGuire, with only some summer stock under her belt, to play the demanding role of a lead character who is in almost every scene. When she went to Hollywood, McGuire was touted as being part of that new look of young actresses, called natural, to distinguish them from the glamorous screen sirens of the 1920s and 1930s. Jennifer Jones and Ingrid Berman, Martha Scott and Teresa Wright, as well as Phyllis Thaxter, were part of this cadre.  Both McGuire and Teresa Wright understudied Martha Scott in Our Town.

A beauty column written by Sylvia Blythe, syndicated in the Milwaukee Journal, January 18, 1942 picks up on the change:

Naturalness, which at long last brings good looks out from behind a cloak of artifice and affectation, is a style trend of the times…

If you shiver with fear that this new look is going to strip you of all pretentions to loveliness, look at Dorothy McGuire. Naturalness won this young actress the coveted theatrical role of the naïve girl-wife in ‘Claudia’, one of this season’s outstanding theatrical hits.

Moreover, as a vitamin-fed, pink-scrubbed, lean-limbed, sweater-and-skirt girl, Miss McGuire has captivated Broadway, which usually pays its homage to sophisticated glitter.

Claudia is a young bride married to a slightly older, much more level-headed fellow, played here by Robert Young. He works as an architect in New York, but their home is a rambling hobby farm in Connecticut. They have an elderly German couple working for them, played by Frank Tweddell -- who played the same role on Broadway with Miss McGuire, and by Elsa Janssen, who we last saw as Lou Gehrig’s mama in The Pride of the Yankees (1943). You’ll remember her as one of the refugees at Rick’s in Casablanca (1943) as well.

Ina Claire plays Dorothy McGuire’s mother. She had a splendid stage career herself, began in vaudeville, performed in the Ziegfeld Follies as a fresh-faced comedienne, perhaps not unlike McGuire’s persona in this film, and starred on Broadway throughout the 1920s. She did only a handful of films, and Claudia was her last before spending the rest of her career back on stage which she preferred.

The movie was directed by Edmund Goulding, who worked magic with The Constant Nymph (1941) which we discussed here. This movie required the same sensitivity, despite the setting and the characters being much less artistic and fey. Still, Goulding pulled a magical twist on what could have been a really commonplace tale. He takes the characters seriously, and the script, though busy, always moves forward. The acting is superior.

Claudia, more waif than wife at first, hits us like a stiff breeze of constant activity, fast-talking speech that flits from one subject to another, even as Dorothy McGuire flits about her rather large colonial farmhouse. As was typical of Hollywood, the set designers depict what should be a fairly small home with uneven floor boards, low ceilings and small rooms -- has a living room large as a ballroom. The folks from Holiday Inn (1942) and White Christmas (1954) might put on shows here.

There is only one small touch of genuine New England architecture, when Miss McGuire proudly refers to a door being “the crookedest door in Connecticut.”

McGuire is all energy and little sense, and there are the usual clichés about her not being able to balance the checkbook, and having the bad wifely habit of listening in on other people’s phone conversations. However, there is a huge difference in Claudia compared to other movie scatterbrained wives.

She is forced to grow up.

Claudia is not really stupid or scatterbrained, rather she is undisciplined, coddled by a mother who thinks she’s a hoot, and tolerated by a husband who is charmed by her freshness and gaiety. The character is rather like a child or young teen who says something or does something unexpectedly funny, and wins the attention of all around her. So she tries to repeat the action until she gets the same response. Pretty soon, it gets to be a habit -- not the need for attention, but the desire not to be held accountable for anything she does or says.

Until that moment she very much wants to be taken seriously, and no one does.

McGuire is fascinating in the role. She moves like a fidgety kid, flopping on furniture, running her hands through errant hair that is always falling in her eyes. Her moods are mercurial. She and Robert Young have great chemistry. Their marriage, in so far as it has not been seriously challenged yet, is good. They are sexy, playful, with a lot of touching, tickling, and spontaneous gestures of desire and affection.

Robert Young moves gracefully between the comedy and the drama, always as steady as his character, and much of the depth of the film is due to him and his skill as a wonderfully empathetic actor.

Young is never really exasperated with his young wife, which would be the typical husband’s reaction in other films with comic scenarios of this sort. When she bungles the checkbook he is amused and play-acts frustration to bait her. He holds it over her head that she is a silly child, and to mock her innocence there is some coy conversation when their milk cow needs to be “serviced” to continue to produce milk. He tweaks her for being a mama’s girl, because she has a close relationship to her mother.

But Young, too, has a close relationship with his mother-in-law, also unusual in the movies. The two of them banter like pals.

“YOU talk to her, Mother, you gave birth to her.”

“YOU married her. She’s yours now.”

There are two moments of crisis for the couple, and both are really illustrated through Mr. Young’s reactions. First, the charming British scamp Reginald Gardner, a new neighbor, makes eyes at Miss McGuire. She encourages him because her husband’s teasing, which sounds condescending to her, makes her feel undesirable. She wants to see if she can attract another man.

In a showdown, Gardiner has one of his funniest moments when he quickly slips on a pair of glasses so Young won’t hit him.

When Young confronts his wife, we see the tenor of Young’s attitude change. He is not as angry as he is hurt, as well as disappointed in her because he knows Claudia well, has long seen a pattern that is dangerous. He wants her to grow up, for the sake of their marriage. He asks if she knows she could have destroyed their marriage with this foolishness, and she wants to know why he never tells her she is beautiful or desirable. It is a moment of quiet conversation, one of many scenes in the movie that suddenly take an introspective turn. Both admit they messed up, but remain on tenterhooks.

Robert Young has a lot on his shoulders, and his worry over his wife’s emotional immaturity is compounded by some very bad news he’s been hiding from her.

Her mother is dying.

We find out at the beginning of the film that Ina Claire is going in for x-rays and to see a specialist. She confides in her son-in-law, who is supportive and wants to go with her to the hospital, but she does not yet want to tell her daughter. She’s probably got cancer, but it’s never said aloud, and doesn’t need to be. We’re all reading each other’s minds at this point.

She's worried about how her daughter will handle it.  “Claudia has to learn to let go of people she loves. To hold close, but with open hands.”

How the film deals with this death sentence is quite frank and its very lack of melodrama gives the subject a much stronger impact. The news hits Robert Young, and us, like a ton of bricks.

“It means an operation,” Robert Young surmises.

“If I’m lucky,” she answers.

Young’s best moment is when he receives Ina Claire’s phone call about the results of her tests. Look at his expression crumble, his voice begin to shake. He is trying to be emotionless for her sake, and that makes the scene all that more emotional.

Director Goulding, who has framed this happy household in sunny window seats with billowing curtains and farmyard sets, now follows the stricken Robert Young out onto the porch in the half-dark, where Young pulls himself together after the phone call and tries to figure out a way to break the news to his wife. The camera pulls back, and we see she has been in the kitchen, listening on the extension.

Here is where Claudia has to grow up in most brutal way. She must let her mother go in way that will not put any more emotional demands on her mother. She has to let her mother feel free to die.

Not usually the stuff of domestic comedies.

There are subplots to round out the larger issues of life. A visiting Russian soprano wants to buy the farm. Olga Baclanova also came from the Broadway cast, and reminds me of Fanny Brice, with startling lung power as she erupts into high C shrieks. This was her last film role.

The servant couple have a son, who was in prison and came around to steal the egg money. We never see him, and that story is dropped pretty quickly in the film. Robert Young shoots a handgun in the air to frighten the unknown intruder away. He keeps the pistol in his car. We’ve mentioned loaded guns in desk drawers before, but not in the glove box.

There does not seem to be electricity in their house: all the rooms are lit with oil lamps. But they turn on the radio. Hmm.

One small touch I like: Ina Claire is reading the newspaper. It’s The Hartford Courant, still the oldest continuously published newspaper (since 1764) in the United States.  She said proudly.

Toward the end of the movie, Elsa Janssen diagnoses Dorothy McGuire as being pregnant, because of McGuire’s latest craving for pickles. A late menstrual period does not occur to either of them, but then only hygiene films dared mention menstruation back in the day. Robert Young insists upon a more scientific diagnosis by the doctor, and he confirms Janssen’s diagnosis.

She should know, after all, she’s the housekeeper.

The joy of having a baby is destroyed for McGuire, now she has learned she’s going to lose her mother.

“What’s the sense of pouring your heart and soul out in what you don’t possess and can never posses?”

Young answers, “Because a loan carries a greater obligation than a gift.”

Another fine moment: When Young insists to his mother-in-law that she will spend her remaining days with them, she bristles at being a charity case and mumbles, “I’d rather die.” Then she realizes the irony, and begins to chuckle.

Claudia tackles the full circle of life with surprising poignancy between waves of silliness. It established Dorothy McGuire as a star in her first film, and would lead to two other parings with Robert Young. They played the troubled couple in The Enchanted Cottage (1945) discussed here, and would return to the Connecticut farm in the following year.

Come back here for Claudia and David (1946).

*********

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.

The Man Who Came to Dinner - 1942

“The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1942) is the kind of sparkling Christmas comedy we don’t see anymore, with more glitz than guilt-ridden messages about finding the true meaning of Christmas. We’re not even looking for it, because it isn’t lost. Here, we are delightfully unburdened with pseudo-morality tales about commercialism. It’s all glamour, and slapstick. If there’s a message at all, it’s about clinging to life with an iron grip and a sense of fun.

Literate scripts are mostly out of fashion, too, and that is the driving force of this movie, taken from the hit stage play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. Monty Woolley plays the noted author, columnist, radio personality and full-time egomaniac who, making a brief Christmas visit to the home of a small-town industrialist, slips on the steps and is forced to spend his holiday with them as an invalid. Mr. Woolley is spectacular, never missing a beat in his sarcasm, his wit, and his impatience with lesser mortals. This is the role he created on Broadway, and deserved to play on film.

Bette Davis is his competent secretary, who is something of a revelation in this role. We’re used to seeing strong performances from her as larger-than-life characters, and waxing melodramatic in weepy flicks, but here she makes a smaller, quiet role pivotal to the story by being the sane and sassy anchor. She is one of the few people who cannot be bullied by Mr. Woolley by virtue of her sense of humor.

At the beginning of the film, we see the ever ditsy society matron Billie Burke fawning over Monty Woolley and inviting him to her home for dinner. She casts a brief sort of “also-ran” inclusion of the invitation to Bette Davis as his secretary. Davis accepts, quietly, with gracious humility and the self-deprecating smile worn by one who is used to being dismissed as unimportant in the great man’s shadow, but who really runs the show. It’s a subtle gesture and tells us more about her character in 30 seconds than another actress would take the entire film to convey.

Davis casts a warm glow of serenity, shaken up only by unexpectedly falling in love with the small-town newspaperman who comes to interview Woolley, and who squires her about at the community ice skating party. Davis’ character takes a header on the ice, and she cheerfully basks in the uncomplicated company of locals who are neither clever nor acerbic, just kind. (I know her character is not supposed to have been on skates before, but you’d think Davis, as a good New England girl, would skate better than that. Tenley Albright she’s not.)

Grant Mitchell (excellent here in “The Secret Bride”), plays the industrialist, proud of his ball bearing factory contributing to the war effort. In his own way he is as equally self-important as Woolley, but is only a big fish in a small pond. Ruth Vivian, playing his fey, fragile, and quite weird sister, along with the wonderful Mary Wickes who plays Nurse Preen, are the only ones in the cast, besides Mr. Woolley, to have appeared in the original Broadway play. (Ruth Vivian went back to Broadway next for “The Strings, My Lord, Are False”, the Elia Kazan flop mentioned in this week’s Tragedy and Comedy in New England.)

Mary Wickes is hysterical from beginning to end, as the severe nurse who gets the lion’s share of bullying from the great man, and who in the end, in her own diva scene, renounces her Florence Nightingale Pledge to serve a suffering mankind and instead get a job in a munitions factory. His obnoxious treatment of her has driven her to thoughts of destruction.

The lines are fast and funny, and almost too numerous to quote. All the lesser characters, just as with Miss Wickes’ final scene, all get great lines to say, too. The local doctor attending Wooley aspires to be an author, and seeks Woolley’s help.

“I’ve just got one patient who’s dying, then I’ll be perfectly free.”

Reginald Gardiner is as quick-witted and sophisticated as Woolley, and does a drop-dead impression of a stuttering Englishman to fool Ann Sheridan. What is perhaps most charming about Davis’ performance is her frequent lapse into delightfully natural giggles at the antics of Gardiner and Woolley playing off each other.

Ann Sheridan is a hoot. The opposite of Davis’ down-to-earth character, Sheridan is off the walls as a self-important, man-grabbing stage actress. Her first scenes playing kissyface on the phone with Woolley, and alternately hollering at her manicurist are hysterical.

Woolley turns the home of the industrialist and his ditsy society matron wife upside down, and even conducts his annual Christmas Eve radio broadcast, complete with a boys choir, in their living room. Jimmy Durante plays a raucous pal from Hollywood who leers seductively Nurse Preen,

“Come to my room in a half hour and bring some rye bread!”

The son and daughter of the house, teenagers who befriend the really-a-nice-guy-under-all-the-bluster Woolley are encouraged to pursue their own dreams and escape from their bourgeois parents. About the only weak link in the chain is Richard Travis, who plays the newspaperman in love with Davis. Probably he does not stand out simply because everyone else in the cast is so over-the-top.

Possibly the funniest aspect of this script is the constant name-dropping. We are told that Woolley’s character is so important, that he is friends with Winston Churchill, the Roosevelts and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that he has received Christmas gifts from Gypsy Rose Lee and Deanna Durbin. New York Governor, and presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey is his lawyer. The film ends memorably with the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt on the phone calling her dear friend to wish him a Merry Christmas.

To anyone with a cursory knowledge of popular history of the late 1930s and early ‘40s, this script is as fresh and funny as if it were written yesterday. However, I wonder if to someone not familiar with these names, does this make a good part of the film a mystery, and that much over-used word to describe old movies: dated?

The play was revived on Broadway in 2000 with Nathan Lane in the role. I didn’t see it (though I have seen another production), and I’m not going to review or compare it, except to imagine that these same topical references would not have had quite the same impact coming from Nathan Lane as from Monty Woolley, no matter how knowledgeable the audience might be on this time period.

And speaking of name-dropping, I’m not going to explain who Tenley Albright is. If you don’t know, shame on you and too bad.

A revival, or film remake, is always nostalgic. But this film produced in 1942 was not nostalgic. It was up to the minute and topical, and late-breaking news. Watching it, it still feels that way, decades later. That is the marvel of it.

May your Christmas have a little glitz, and glamour, too. But without the escaping penguins.