This time around we have a Monty Woolley double bill. He's always good at Christmastime (see "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and "Since You Went Away"), and in "Life Begins at Eight Thirty"(1942) he's "Madden Thomas", a washed-up actor reduced to playing Santa Claus in a New York City department store. He can't even keep that job because he shows up drunk and curses out the patrons, telling them "I hate you all!" Everything's gonna be okay, though, because it's Christmas Eve and he has his adult daughter "Kathy" (Ida Lupino) waiting for him back at their cramped apartment. She takes care of Maddie, as she calls him, even though she's crippled herself with a mangled foot. She's never married because Maddie is an alcoholic who needs looking after. It would've been nice if he'd kept his Santa job, as they could've used the 40 bucks a week, but Kathy is ever forgiving. Her mother died in childbirth and Maddie is all she's got.
One day after Christmas, she meets "Robert Carter" (Cornel Wilde) a handsome tenant of their building. Carter is a piano composer who's up and coming in radio. He takes a liking to Kathy and starts encouraging her to live her own life. "Otherwise, you'll be a spinster one day, and you'll regret it." The trouble is, she sees herself as indispensable to her Dad, and not attractive anyway because of her infirmity. She's really quite pretty, but she doesn't think so. Carter keeps trying though. He even gets Maddie a small part in one of the radio plays he's composing for. Maddie promises Kathy he'll stop drinking during the production. "I'm on lemonade from now on," he swears, but it doesn't last. As a former Broadway star, he feels the radio show is inane, and beneath him, and he goes out of his way to get himself fired. Then he comes home and gets hammered, and Kathy takes care of him, and everything is comfortable again, i.e. co-dependent.
Soon after that, Robert Carter shows up and tells Kathy a secret he's learned: "You aren't crippled from birth." He's tracked down her pediatrician, who told him the truth, that her foot is mangled because Dad fell down drunk while carrying her in his arms. The doc made up the "genetic" crippled-from-birth story to spare Kathy from hating her Dad all her life, holding him responsible for her condition. Carter wants to take her away from Dad and marry her. But she knows it will kill Maddie if she does so.
Then good fortune strikes. An old producer friend of Maddie's calls up. "Hello, old friend. I've heard you're on the wagon" (not true). "Yes, I'm a lemonade man now." The producer offers him the starring role in his new production of King Lear, the role Maddie was known for before his downfall. He wants to accept, but can he do it? He hasn't been on a stage in 8 years! He thinks he can pull off a comeback, and this time, he swears off the booze and means it. Kathy thinks its all gonna work out, so she agrees to marry Robert Carter in secret, and break the news to Dad after King Lear becomes a success. Carter is pushing hard for the marriage. Kathy secretly fears, however, what will happen to Maddie when he hears the news. No matter how well his play does, he might start drinking again. He's relied on Kathy for so long, he won't be able to live without her. The nuance of the Maddie/Kathy relationship makes it ring true. You're actually rooting against Robert Carter, because even though he does love Kathy, he comes across as self-serving. But, there is another relationship at play that introduces itself late in the movie. The great Sara Allgood plays Carter's aunt, who (in a screenwriter's coincidence) has known and secretly been in love with Maddie all her adult life. She's in late middle age, and it's not reciprocal. Maddie doesn't like her, but she's loaded and offers her total devotion and security for him if he'll marry her. Meanwhile, you're still rooting for Kathy to stick with Maddie, because as father/daughter they have the only true love relationship in the movie. Robert Carter just pushes Kathy into thinking she's in love with him. But, because the script must follow the responsible path of "pushing the co-dependents apart and out into the world", Maddie must ultimately give up his hold on his daughter. The problem is, this isn't real life. In real life, the budding spinster daughter would stay with her Dad 99% of the time, because she loves taking care of him. Or, something would be worked out (a compromise) whereby she and the suitor get married but Dad moves in and plays the lovable rascal. In any case, all three lead actors are fantastic and the movie is tremendous, even with a Hollywoodized ending. Therefore, we give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
Now then: have you ever heard of an actress named Gracie Fields? I had not, but she was famous enough in her native England to be known as "Our Gracie", and according to IMDB, she was the highest paid movie star in the world in 1937. She was also a CBE (Commander of the British Empire), making her Dame Gracie Fields. You can see the reason for all these things in "Molly and Me"(1945), in which she plays "Molly Barry", an out-of-work actress who - needing money - takes a job as housekeeper to a wealthy recluse (Monty Wolley).
As the movie opens, she's running a boarding house for fellow actors, all of whom she's worked with. But she's broke and needs to eat. Having no real job experience, she decides to "act" her way through an interview for an advertised housekeeping position. After meeting with "Peabody" (Reginald Gardiner), the employer's butler, it turns out he's an actor, too and has seen her troupe in the theater, so her housekeeper act is both unnecessary and superfluous. Being a comrade in arms, Peabody helps her get the job, and the next thing you know, she's whipped the household staff into shape, and is starting to win over the stuffy "Mr. Graham" (Wooley). He has a stepson he's estranged from (Roddy McDowall), whose mother (Graham's wife), died when he was very small. Word around the household is that Mr. Graham resents the kid because he reminds him of his loss; his wife's death. Molly, being big-hearted, tries to reconcile Graham with the boy, but Graham is too busy trying to resurrect his once-promising political career. He wants a place in the House of Commons, and the way to get it is to invite the influential "Sir Arthur Burroughs" (Lewis L. Russell) to dinner. His wife is Mrs. Howell (huge lol!), who also happens to know Molly from her theater days.
Well, the regular kitchen staff gets fired by Mr. Graham just before this dinner. He orders Molly to find him new kitchen help, and she tries, but no agency can pull together a staff on such short notice. So, she calls the house and tells all of her acting tenants to get over there, pronto. They're gonna play the parts of chefs, servers, chambermaids, etc, though they have zero experience. What ensues is classic British farce of the highest order, headed up by Monty Wooley on the receiving end, and Roddy McDowall in the middle. Then, in the middle of the dinner, Graham's "dead" wife shows up - alive! She's not deceased after all, and definitely not the saintly woman portrayed to young Roddy. In fact she's a total shrew who attempts to blackmail Mr. Graham over his claim that she died. He told that to Roddy when he was a small boy, because it was better than telling him "your mom's a tramp who abandoned you". But now she's back and wants money to keep her mouth shut, so Molly and her acting troupe decide to work her over. Mrs. Howell pitches in and pretends to shoot her. "Oh my! I've never murdered anyone before!" The final objective is to reconcile Mr. Graham and his son. In the end, he so loves having the acting troupe as his household staff that he decides to keep them on, because they liven things up. Gracie Fields is a one-woman show. It's easy to see why she was England's most beloved actress and she has a beautiful singing voice as well. Read the comments on Youtube (below the movie post) and you'll see how much she was revered. Two Huge Thumbs Up again. This level of farce is rare, and comes from the theater training of all the main actors. It's a gem of gems, and Monty Wooley is his usual debonair, irascible stuffed-shirt self. The picture is very good. ////
So there you have it. There's only a hint of a Christmas theme in one of the two movies, but they both have a holiday feel-good charm. We'll keep looking for ones we haven't seen. My blogging music tonight is Wilhelm Kempff playing Bach. Late night is "Parsifal" by Wagner. Wouldn't ya know it? That respiratory illness I thought I'd gotten rid of made an attempted comeback today. I had a sinus condition all day long that absolutely wouldn't quit. Spent most of the day lying down, but feeling better now. No walk tonight, though.
I hope you are feeling well, avoiding all these awful germs, and enjoying your week. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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