5 posts categorized "Screwball Comedy"

October 12, 2024

I MARRIED A WITCH — SHOCKTOBER!

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Punk heart still beating.

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ColeSmithey.comWhile this classic screwball comedy's obvious influence on inspiring "Bewitched," that great '60s/'70s television show, it's Veronica Lake who casts the longest shadow.

Talk about iconic.

Veronica Lake's undeniable sensuality is a marvel to behold. What man could ever hope to resist this feminine creature of dynamic poise and lithe beauty?

Veronica Lake is at her most seductive as Jennifer, a witch being chaperoned by her alcoholic witch dad (Cecil Kellaway). Daughter and dad travel by broom while resting as smoke plumes.

Jennifer is a fire starter in every sense of the phrase.

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Ted Tetzlaff's black-and-white cinematography is so lush it could bring a tear to your eye.

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Prolific French director René Clair sets a racy tone for the comedy to spike with sexy innuendo.

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Jennifer is a shameless homewrecker to Fredrick March's upper class Jonathan Woodley, a small town politician on the verge of marrying local socialite Estelle (Susan Hayward).

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René Clair allows his energetic actors to snap their dialogue into a modern rhythm that is contagious. We get swept up in the screwball promise of unreasonable romance and all of the destruction that it brings.

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"I Married A Witch" is a high concept movie, especially for 1942. The comic absurdity carries a Frenchness in its lighthearted attitudes regarding relations between men and the women who enchant them.

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Very witchy indeed.

Not Rated. 77 mins.

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March 22, 2018

THEY ALL LAUGHED

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Colesmithey.comPeter Bogdanovich’s underseen romantic comedy is an unabashed love letter to 1980 Manhattan. Storyline and plot take a welcome backseat to an attractive if iconic cast portraying characters digging each other and the summer midtown New York vibe they inhabit.

Frank Sinatra’s songs of the era (“New York, New York”) contrast against country music tunes to give the movie a surprisingly effective musical lilt.

It is a picture about love and joy that celebrates its own purpose for being. Knowing nods between characters acknowledge the film’s open secret.

We’re constantly watching characters admiring or spying on one other from afar.

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You can’t help but stumble over yourself as an audience member watching Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, Colleen Camp, Patti Hansen, Blane Novak, and former Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten goofing around as the least believable private detectives and subjects you could dream of.  

They-all-laughed-

There may not be much dramatic conflict, but that’s the point. Colleen Camp’s request from a street vendor for a “very large orange juice” is rewarded with a small half-filled Styrofoam cup. New York culture is crammed into every frame.  

They-all-laughed-still

Bogdanovich takes inspiration from Arthur Schnitzler’s often-adapted play “La Ronde” to create this lighthearted comedy of manners that never strays from the shallow end of the screwball comedy pool. Pratfalls come with the territory but “What’s Up Doc” this is not. Still, nobody falls down funnier than John Ritter.

Algonquin

“They All Laughed” is as breezy as its title suggests, but there are so many tiny elements that make you want to revisit the picture. Patti Hansen’s guileless smile, scenes filmed in and around Manhattan’s legendary Algonquin Hotel, and Dorothy Stratten’s stunning charisma contribute to the film’s friendly appeal.

John Ritter

If you’ve ever wanted to take a time machine vacation back to 1980 New York where you can do no wrong, this fun-loving movie makes it possible. We’re all in the mood for love.

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Rated PG. 115 mins.

3 Stars

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April 03, 2016

HAIL, CAESAR!

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This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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HailCaesarThe Coens Go A Wandering In McCarthy Era Hollywood And Get Lost

The ever-streaky Joel and Ethan Coen commit a cinematic blunder with a would-be screwball comedy that has all the laughs you can count on one hand.

Lushly composed but disconnected set pieces play out in ‘50s era Hollywood backlot intrigue involving Josh Brolin’s Eddie Mannix, a movie industry “fixer.”

Eddie Mannix is in charge of keeping big budget pictures on schedule and under budget. He also patches up potentially scandalous incidents involving wayward starlets before gossip columnists can get wind of their indiscretions.

Screen Shot 2023-05-04 at 1.42.16 PM

Mannix has the bearing of a cheesy private investigator who intentionally wears too much cologne. He marks his territory.

Brolin’s modulated performance is in keeping with the comedy’s restrained tone and the film’s lulling tempo but there’s nothing to sink your teeth into.

Hail,Caesar01

It says a lot about the film that its most engaging subplot involves cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich). The ambitious but woefully unskilled Doyle is cast beyond his acting chops in a romantic period drama being directed by the esteemed British director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Ehrenreich steals what there is of a movie with abominable line readings drive Ralph Fiennes’s pleasantly articulate director to distraction. Still, the subplot doesn’t pay off. Neither do any of the film’s other narrative detours.

Hail-Caesar

Even Coen-regular George Clooney gets cornered into mediocrity. Clooney plays Baird Whitlock, an A-list star who gets kidnapped away from the sword-and-sandal epic he’s currently working on by a group of blacklisted [communist sympathizing] screenwriters looking to abandon America. Think the Hollywood Ten — Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner Jr. etc.) The nerdy movie writers keep Baird sequestered inside a plush seaside house in Malibu, where he easily falls in with his captors' anti-capitalist ideologies, at least until another script comes along. 

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The Coen’s bland use of political satire here is so inept that you can’t decipher what kind of point, if any, they are attempting to make about a [mostly] brave group of blacklisted writers who were sited for contempt of Congress, and lost their once flourishing careers for refusing to answer question about their alleged involvement with the Communist Party.

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“Hail Caesar!” falls into the same dustbin as other Coen Brother cinematic splats that include “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The Ladykillers.” Simultaneously overworked and underdeveloped, here is an unfunny comedy that will leave audiences scratching their heads about the point of so much blind slapstick razzmatazz that goes nowhere. The movie is pretty to look at, and that's about it.

“That’s all folks.”

Rated PG-13. 106 mins. 

1 Star

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