BEFORE: First day of spring, my ass. We're getting a snowstorm today in NYC, one final (or so we hope) indignity of winter, and if Mayor Bloomberg had followed through on plans to put a big clear dome over the city, it wouldn't even be a concern right now. I'm assuming this was proposed at some point, because why else would we have elected a crazy billionaire mayor for three terms when the legal limit was two?
This is my third film in a row with Irene Dunne co-starring with Cary Grant, which means it's the first one they made together, since I'm still going backward chronologically.
THE PLOT: Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.
AFTER: By now, the vagaries of the production code and the typical antics of the screwball comedy are familiar to me - they've been repeated again and again since diving back into Cary Grant's career, past 1950 or so. First, we've got a set of instructions imposed by a legal system or government - here it's a divorce that will become effective in 90 days, but in past films in this chain it's been either the rules of courting a Persian princess, or Grant being forced by a judge to date a teenager. Secondly, we've got the production code, a second set of rules relating to the perceived morals of the time - Grant's character can't kiss the princess, and he certainly can't get physical with the teenager. Similarly there couldn't be direct references to extra-marital sex in "My Favorite Wife", not on the island, and not in a hotel room - separate beds, please, we're married...
In today's film, the "rules" say that there can't be references to sex outside the marriage - but come on, that's totally what's happening. The husband's pretending to be in Florida when he's somewhere else, and the wife is spending a lot of time with her music teacher. You, as a viewer, have to guess at what they're really doing. I think the couple here, like a great many people, find that legal married sex just isn't as appealing as cheating, or single sex. Oh, it's still fun, to be sure, but it's not nearly as naughty, by definition.
So the Warriner couple here decides to face facts and divorce - but the plot device that keeps them in contact is shared custody of their dog, Mr. Smith. It's clever, the dog knows tricks like "hide and seek" so he provides both comic relief and a plot device. Other plot devices abound, ones that give clues into who's really sleeping with whom. OK, so maybe it's not that much of a mystery, but compare this to a more modern film like, say, "The 40-Year Old Virgin", and it's like night and day - films can be so much more explicit now, even our modern light comedies seem sort of shocking by comparison.
Keeping the two ex-lovers in contact with each other provides them with opportunities to sabotage each other's new relationships, and in the wife's case, she pulls another identity deception by pretending to be her ex-husband's less refined sister - but she still calls him "Honey". Umm....ewwww?? We've got the same NITPICK POINT as last night - namely that someone pulls an unlikely deception, because chances are that since the Warriners were elite members of society, it's extremely likely that fellow rich people would have recognized her from photos in the newspaper, so her masquerade shouldn't have worked.
Eventually the couple realizes that maybe splitting up was the best thing for the marriage - after all, once the divorce is final, wouldn't that make sex all single-like and naughty again?
This is regarded as one of the most classic and representative films of the screwball comedy genre - but what exactly is the "awful truth" mentioned in the title? The fact that many married people cheat on each other? The fact that sex is more fun when it's not legalized? Or does it refer to the fact that the couple belongs together, which they are hesitant to admit? I'm not sure, but the dialogue seems to suggest the latter.
Also starring Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy (last seen in "His Girl Friday"), Alexander Darcy (last seen in "How to Marry a Millionaire"), Cecil Cunningham, Joyce Compton.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pratfalls
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