| FILM
I love old Hollywood films and despite this film's reputation, I
had not ever seen the whole thing until the other night. I probably
waited because I go back and forth on Frank Capra's films and for
whatever reason Clark Gable has never done a whole lot for me. Capra's
sentimentality at times is a turnoff, but I am now kicking myself
for not hooking up with this film earlier. In my There's Something
About Mary review, I talked about how badly most comedies are written.
This film has to be one of the best-written comedies ever. The structure
and set up of the jokes are amazing. This is considered the first
screwball comedy, and what a standard it set. Claudette
Colbert plays the daughter of a very rich man who has always controlled
her life. She has secretly wed without his knowledge and now that
he knows, he insists that he is going to have the marriage annulled.
She proceeds to escape from his yacht and goes on the lam to get
to her husband in NY. On the bus ride up, she meets Clark Cable,
a reporter who has just been fired from his job. They immediately
don�t get along but Gable feels the need to protect her. He soon
learns that Colbert is a rich heiress and decides her story would
quickly get him a job. From this starting point we get a whirlwind
story with lots of great dialogue.
The
scene from this movie that is most often shown is Colbert getting
a car to stop by showing her legs off. Typically just the final
30 seconds are shown. This is an injustice to one of the funniest
scenes ever filmed. The whole set up to Colbert�s leg show is
Gable explaining the various ways to thumb a ride. I am almost
belly laughing just replaying the scene in my head. The movie
is worth purchasing for this scene by itself.
VIDEO
The print of this film is in amazingly good condition (It could
be that the transfer was digitally cleaned up). I am so used to
seeing films from this era with washed out pictures and tons of
scratches that I could not believe I was watching a film from
1934. The are only a handful of instances where the age of the
film shows in the form of excessive grain. I do not think it is
possible for this film to look any better.
AUDIO
For a 1930's film the soundtrack is amazingly well preserved.
I did not notice the problems and fade outs typical of a film
from this era. Everything was clear and well defined.
EXTRAS
This disc comes with a nice set of extras. The problem is that
they just aren't that informative. The commentary by Frank Capra's
son, Frank Jr., has a few good insights but he only talks for
about half the films running time. I wish he had gone into his
dad's history a bit more. Instead we only get a little background
about how the screenplay was developed and a little bit about
each of the actors. The funniest thing Frank Jr. tells us about,
which is a story I had heard before, is the fact that undershirt
sales dropped by like 30% after the film premiered. This was attributed
to the fact that Gable undresses in one scene and is not wearing
an undershirt. This is funny in itself, but what really pushes
the story over the top is that the undershirt manufactures actually
tried to sue Columbia studios. The mini-documentary is only about
5 minutes long and everything Frank Jr. talks about is covered
in his commentary. One nice addition that I did not get around
to fully listening to is a radio broadcast from 1939 in which
Gable and Colbert reprise their roles from the film.
SUMMARY
This was the first film to win Oscars in the five major categories
(film, director, actor, actress and writing) and every one was
deserved. Go buy this disc. You are unlikely to find a more entertaining
film.
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