This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is political comedies, which I'll assume was scheduled for this week because the electoral season in the US finally ended. Despite the argument that can be made about our having had an uninterrupted series of jokes in the White House for the past quarter century, our politicians are really more a cause for distress than a laughing matter, as I tend to think of them as sick, twisted perverts who get their rocks off using the power of the state to boss other people around. They like to call themselves public servants, but I can only imagine the outrage if the people started treating them the way the hired help gets treated in old movies.
With that in mind, however, I was able to come up with a pair of movies in which the characters running for office were actually hired help. I'm sure there's a third out there, but I can't think of a third offhand, so I had to go in a different direction rather than having a full theme within a theme.
The Baroness and the Butler (1938). William Powell plays the butler, working for the Hungarian Prime Minister (Henry Stephenson), who runs for parliament for the opposition party, and continues to work for his old boss even after getting elected and becoming opposition leader. The Baroness (Arabella) is the Prime Minister's married daughter, and our butler's falling in love with her causes all sorts of problems.
The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Loretta Young puts on a phony accent to play a farm girl who winds up first being a maid in the house of Ethel Barrymore and her son Joseph Cotten. The son is in Congress, and he and the farmer's daughter begin to form a relationship until she gets involved at a political rally, and it propels her to a political career that ultimately has her running against her boss' political machine.
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). Eddie Bracken plays a small-town boy who goes off to fight in World War II, only for him to fall at the first hurdle when his hay fever makes him unfit for duty. He's been lying about what he's doing, but when he meets a Marine commander (William Demarest) and the commander's platoon, the commander insists that he's going to take Eddie back home and make a hero out of him. The way to do that involves putting Eddie up for mayor against the corupt local machine. How Preston Sturges got this subversive comedy made during World War II, I'll never know.
Around the Blogosphere This Week
4 hours ago
3 comments:
Terrific choices.
The Baroness and the Butler is probably the lightest of the three but you can't go wrong with William Powell.
I share you're wonder about how Sturges slide Hail the Conquering Hero past the censors, same goes for The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, but I'm glad he was able to. A really wonderful movie.
The problem with The Farmer's Daughter is Loretta Young. How she ever won any award is beyond me but an Oscar for this nothing performance? Urgh. But then the further she got away from her saucy pre-code period into her shellacked prissy lady years the less I like her.
I didn't go quite as far back as you but I did go with two older titles.
State of the Union (1948)-Successful businessman Grant Matthews (Spencer Tracy) is convinced to run for president by newspaper publisher Kay Thorndyke (23 year old Angela Lansbury believably playing a controlling 40ish shrew), his politically ambitious longtime girlfriend. At the instigation of his cynical campaign manager Spike McManus (Van Johnson), Grant and his long-estranged wife, Mary (Katharine Hepburn-who stepped in for Claudette Colbert at the last minute), attempt a reconciliation to increase his changes of a win. But when the idealistic Mary learns of Kay's behind-the-scenes role and sees how the campaign is changing Grant, it throws everything into turmoil. Frank Capra directed comedy/drama is one of Tracy & Hepburn’s best.
The Mouse That Roared (1959)-The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, the world’s smallest country, decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose and accept foreign aid. But things do not go as planned and suddenly it seems they are going to be the victors! What to do now? Cold War satire with Peter Sellers in a trio of roles was followed by the sequel The Mouse on the Moon.
Dick (1999)-Teenage airheads Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams) accidentally stumble into the middle of the infamous Watergate robbery in 1976. Anxious to keep them quiet Nixon (Dan Hedaya) appoints them honorary dog walkers at the White House. While doing so their innocent actions start a chain of events that may eventually lead to Nixon's resignation as president of the United States.
Yup, I'm 0/3, as usual. I really need to step up my game.
I have not seen any of these...I am so bad. I would like to see them even the Farmer's daughter with Loretta Young. I can't stand that actress and her hypocritical ways. I loved it when i heard a director threw a chair at her..I wish i could recall which director it was. I love Preston Sturges and it just shows how intelligent he was to get his films past the censor tzars
Post a Comment