This week's Thursday Movie Picks are for the "All in the Family Edition" which will run on the last week of every month. This month the subgenre is "Married Couples Movies", and wow is that a toughie. SO MANY MOVIES centered around married couples! I haven't gone very far back in time for most of my recent picks, so this week I decided to go all Classic Hollywood with three of my most favorite screen couples.
The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke) William Powell and Myrna Loy are unquestionably my favorite screen couple. Their relationship in The Thin Man is just too good to be true, in that old-school banter kind of way. While it's clear they love each other, neither of them have trouble dishing out the sass when it's called for. I guess this is what you get when an actual married couple write a screenplay - and this really is one of the greatest screenplays ever written (there's also a murder mystery in there somewhere, but make no mistake: the central relationship is the real star of the show). I probably quote it weekly, if not daily. "Oh, Nicky, I love you... because you know such lovely people!" "He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids!" And of course, the martinis. And that glass of rye. And "the nicest dinner I ever listened to." I could watch this movie on a loop forever and be completely satisfied.
Topper (1937, Norman Z. McLeod) After the fun-loving Kerbys (Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, both delightful) die in a car crash, they become ghosts. Believing that they haven't moved on because they've been too irresponsible to do any truly good or truly bad deeds, they decide to help their stuffy friend Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) start to enjoy life (a "good deed" only by Hollywood standards). Of course, old habits die hard, and they largely treat the afterlife as an extension of their actual lives, causing mayhem and merriment embodied by some of Hollywood's cleverest special effects. Topper is undeniable fun thanks to these two, and as Topper's snooty, social-climbing wife, Billie Burke (yes, Glinda from The Wizard of Oz) makes a hilarious foil. Also, Young's physical comedy as the Kerbys invisibly walk a drunken Topper through his building's lobby is a riot - as impressive as it is funny.
Adam's Rib (1949, George Cukor) Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made nine movies together, and for my money, this is the most enjoyable. And they make for formidable competitors as Adam and Amanda Bonner, married attorneys who find themselves on opposing sides of a case involving a woman who shot (but didn't kill) her unfaithful husband. Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon's great screenplay is perfectly mixed honey and vinegar. Okay, sure, the gender politics don't quite track, but I totally buy the "battle of the sexes" anyway. Hepburn and Tracy are on fire; no one fought onscreen quite as well as they did. Plus, a hilarious turn from Judy Holliday as the woman on trial.
BONUS: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941, Alfred Hitchcock) No, not that Mr. & Mrs. Smith. This one stars Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery as a slightly unhappy married couple who learn that through a legal snafu, they aren't actually married. It's the only romantic comedy Hitchcock ever directed (done as a favor to Lombard), and it's good, even if it is decidedly minor Hitchcock.
YAY, love that you went classics here. Adam's Rib is such a hidden gem...why don't more people talk about that movie? It's so great, and Holliday deserved an Oscar!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I had a list of about twenty films, the only one of which I knew I absolutely HAD to include was Thin Man. From there, it was mostly a necessity to limit the list somehow, and this was the easiest way to do that lol. But I LOVE Classic Hollywood so much and it's been too underrepresented in my previous picks. Totally agree on Holliday in Adam's Rib - she is such a genius! I also love that her romantic rival in it is Jean Hagen, who was her understudy for Born Yesterday on Broadway and whom she recommended for a certain role in a certain musical in which Hagen herself was unbelievably brilliant and should have won an Oscar!
DeleteI've never seen any of these (surprise, I suck at classic movies) but they sound very interesting. Nice picks!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Go on a classic movie kick soon - these are all lots of fun! And Thin Man and Topper were so popular in their day that they each spawned series of films. Topper even led to a TV show!
DeleteI LOVE all your picks...okay I only like Mr. & Mrs. Smith but I adore Carole Lombard.
ReplyDeleteAll The Thin Man films are fun but this first one is the gold standard. Myrna paired well with Gable, Grant and many others as Powell did with Lombard and Harlow but the chemistry they had with each other was of a very special kind.
Constance Bennett was so wasted in all those weepy dramas she did in the early 30's and by the time Topper came along and her gift for comedy was discovered she was pretty much through as a leading star, just as sister Joan was rising, but she's brilliant in this.
Adam's Rib is wonderful, though I have a bit more of a soft spot for the pair's Desk Set. What a cast! Actually one of my picks for the week, The Marrying Kind, involves some of the same people. Garson Kanin & Ruth Gordon wrote it specifically for Judy Holliday and it plays to all her strengths which were many. It's more somber than any of your picks but has humor mixed in as well. It's a favorite of mine, wish it was more well known.
TOTALLY agree on Constance Bennett. Wish she had done more comedies. Haven't seen Desk Set yet, but I will; I love the Hepburn/Tracy pairing. I must see The Marrying Kind. Love Judy Holliday and the Kanin/Gordon team is usually tops.
DeleteI am looking in at the sidelines:) I came from Drew's page and so on:) Love your pics! Adam's Rib is such a great play on married couples from Tracy & Hepburn to Judy Holiday and Tom Ewell. I want to own all the Thin Man-she matches him wit to wit and drink to drink. I have not seen Topper in decades (ouch) but it is so great. All 3 show the marriage partners as equals
ReplyDeleteThanks, Birgit! Hope you keep coming! It's true - all three of these couples are true equals, but in slightly surprising ways. I've seen a couple of the other Thin Man movies and even though Powell and Loy still crackle, and Asta only gets more and more adorable, the films themselves aren't very good. But still:
Delete"What hit me?"
"The last martini."
Nope, no screen couple were ever better than Nick & Nora Charles!
I haven't seen any of these, but Thin Man was recommended to me, so giving that a go sometime.
ReplyDeleteOoooooooooooooooh do! It's so much fun. The script is packed with zingers and gags, and Powell and Loy play them PERFECTLY. All the supporting players are cast to perfection in a way that only films from the Old Hollywood Studio System ever were. And the murder mystery, while I downplayed it in my write-up, is a good one, too.
DeleteHaven't seen a lot of classics, so I haven't watch any of your picks this week. I like banter so I think you may have sold me The Thin Man.
ReplyDeleteThe banter in Thin Man is unparallelled except for perhaps His Girl Friday and (in a completely different way) The Lion In Winter.
DeleteAnother that hasn't seen any of these. I will say that The Thin Man has been on my to-watch list for years. Great work.
ReplyDeleteWow - can't believe so many people haven't seen ANY of these! Please watch them - all so enjoyable and The Thin Man is really essential.
Delete