Category Called Comedy #6

 

CCC: The Lady Eve and Ghostbusters

THE LADY EVE (1941) --- The Lady Eve wowed 1941 for sophistication and slapstick the product of fertile mind that was Preston Sturges’, known/advertised for being so after mere two, The Great McGinty and Christmas in July. The Lady Eve was his first with top stars and proof of Sturges getting blank check to do what suited him, which also was what suited everyone in swelling attendance. What made Sturges uniquely valuable was the desire to make comedy a largest public would enjoy and support. For personality flamboyant beyond even what Hollywood afforded, let alone would tolerate, he’d be something entirely unique and not easily handled by an industry built upon structure and discipline. No one before had so flattered their audience. The Lady Eve announces intent with cartoon credits, not just funny drawings but an animated snake that crawls into the “O” of Preston’s name and can’t wriggle out, this his guarantee that we are going to laugh. Sturges adapted from a story to be changed in most particulars. Henry Fonda did other romantic comedies with Barbara Stanwyck that most would be challenged to even name. I am told Sturges was the first studio employee during the sound era who was permitted to write and direct. Also understood is that many were jealous of him from a start and longed for his downfall. It has never been satisfactorily explained to me why he was pushed out of Paramount. You do historic hit that was The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, then Hail the Conquering Hero, then poof, you’re gone? Buddy DeSylva must have had serious hate going to expel such a genius asset.

It was recognized by one and all that Preston Sturges could do Paramount comedies infinitely better than the Paramount system could do them, and this made him both an asset and a threat. There is no work safer than work routinely performed. Excellence can generate too bright a light. Extreme excellence can create need among the less gifted to bring its creator down. Sturges was extraordinary and knew it. He let others know that he knew it. There seems never to have been an ounce of malice in Sturges. Perhaps he could have protected himself better had there been. He was a small boy whose erector sets always turned out better than what other boys built, a bit little like Orson Welles but for being hugely commercial in his makings, which meant no one could touch him … until one day they could (The Great Moment) and did with gusto that to me seems wildly disproportionate to the failure-or-not of one project that certainly did not of itself cost Paramount enough to cause fiscal downfall. I feel like Bill Demarest repeating “It’s the same dame,” except mine reads, “What did Preston Sturges do to deserve what they did to him?” The Lady Eve was far enough out in front for some critics to call it Best Picture of 1941. The public laughed and many went back again. Fonda and Stanwyck had what Columbia called a “Joyous Reunion” called You Belong to Me (also 1941), which might have seemed OK had The Lady Eve not been still around to remind everyone the pretender was counterfeit. Imagine showing up to work every day on something you know won’t be a patch on what turned out so well before, but that is nature of mass-produced movies, and to stay in them, one made his/her peace with it.

The Lady Eve is pretzled now to fashion’s expectation, described on its disc box as “gender-flipped.” Don’t know how that fits, nor the Fonda character’s “judgmental priggishness.” Much if not all of repackaging old film comes to making it “relevant,” that is, acceptable to modern notions, this the “challenge” to modern marketing. Cheer for those who admire vintage because of discredited attitudes, not in spite of them. Many profess to like screwball, 30/40’s comedy in general, but there is frankly little of it I show civilians with confidence. Take two others with Stanwyck released in 1941, Ball of Fire and Meet John Doe. Great directors behind both, peerless writers, yet flawed in ways too fundamental for other than seasoned buffs to get through, let alone repeatedly. The Lady Eve benefits considerable for brevity, 94 minutes and out. Ball of Fire is 111, John Doe 122. These things matter to impatient moderns with already twitching rears. I know one who asks, “How long is it?” before any screening. If I say over 75 minutes, she’s for bailing. We therefore watch lots of precode. Trick for comedy is holding tempo and interest aloft. So many flail after promise of a strong start. Great films like lesser films have wrinkles, none perfect by anyone’s reckoning (quick: Name please a feature you regard as perfect). The Lady Eve has a start-stop-will-it-stumble point for most everyone seeing it a first time, a plot turn I’ve seen alienate some, myself included at earlier stage of life. Query then: Does Charlie/Hopsy deserve punishment he takes from Jean/Eve in a second half?

Even in farce comedy we must be sensitive to character’s feelings, maybe more so. It is clear early that Charles Pike is a scion of wealth. He has a majordomo, “Muggsy,” whose job is to see that predators don’t separate Charles from his family money. Charles is not streetwise and tends to trust unwisely, so is an easy target for Jean, who is engaged in ongoing criminal enterprise with her father. These are clearly people to be avoided, especially where one has wealth. Charles falls in love with Jean, but is apprised by the ship’s purser of her lawless background and so naturally feels betrayed and taken gross advantage of. Quite naturally he wants no further association with her, let alone marriage. Jean takes umbrage at Charles’ rejection and devotes herself to getting even by assuming a false identity and invading his family’s home, an off-putting prospect. I’ve known many turned utterly off The Lady Eve for how Jean/Eve treats Charles, marrying him under phony pretense and humiliating him on their wedding night. “I need him like the ax needs the turkey” might amuse in other contexts, but here it disturbs, for what is this woman ultimately capable of? The turn-off many experience with the second half of The Lady Eve makes for a high hill to climb. I tried it in the past and failed, though lately have reconciled with all aspects of The Lady Eve, now for me Sturges’ best comedy, but will not lose sight that mileage for it will vary depending upon who it is shown to.

GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) --- I can’t recall when television bred so many stars as in the Saturday Night Live era. And now we can’t generate stars for trying hardest, as if whole of the concept was buried as Egypt pharaohs. When Ghostbuster sequels are made (several, if frankly too many), nothing will do but to bring back principals who now spookily represent what it once was to sell tickets on names alone. I use “spookily” advisedly because even deceased Busters are back via hologram or whatever unholy device is summoned to raise what seems real ghosts. I drew Ghostbusters as part of ongoing rehab for 80’s output shunned or come frostily away from when little or nothing of then-cinema merited my approval. Warmth-up of age, willingness to meet at least halfway, sees much that is improved, or was it me that needed improving, because Ghostbusters seems in all ways a pleasant time capsule to forty years gone that need not be lived again but for flashcards from then that play better than I would have guessed they could. Worth noting is what Ghostbusters means to a generation who came upon it in kid-hood or adolescence. For them GB is Kane and Kong rolled into iconic one, and I’m not sure if Columbia/Sony/whatever owns a more valuable IP than this. There was a theatrical reissue for a thirty year anniversary, and lately a new Ghostbusters touched down to do again same things as before, aid and comfort to nostalgics and under heading of what an industry calls “fan service.” I saw neither Ghostbusters II, the reviled remake of 2016, or a sort-of-arty rethink from 2021. There will always be Ghostbusters so long as creatives are too frightened by market realities to be creative, but who you gonna call when old-timers from 1984 are too old to answer even for a cameo. I would ask how Sigourney Weaver reacted when approached by Columbia/Sony/whatever. Do young folks seeing new Ghostbusters ask, Where is our generation of personalities like these? Chances are they care less what movies offer any more, so long as there is gaming, infinite scrolling, whatever Dopamine substitutes are handy. Busters have been around long enough to see theatrical movies themselves become ghosts.