Quite contrary

Debbie Reynolds was TCM's Star of the Month back in March, and one of her movies that I recorded then is showing up again on TCM: Mary, Mary, tomorrow (September 8) at 1:45 PM.

Reynolds is the one big star here, although she's not the first person we meet, or even the second. The honor of first goes to Barry Nelson, who plays Bob McKellaway. Bob's a New York publisher, and he's about to get married to young socialite Tiffany (Diane McBain). But before he can get married, a few things have to happen, like his divorce getting finalized. Stop me if you've seen this one before, because it's really not difficult to see where the movie is going to wind up; it's more a question of how it gets there.

The how it gets there involves Bob's tax attorney, Oscar Nelson (Hiram Sherman). Bob is being audited for a mid-four-figure sum, which was pretty substantial for the early 1960s when the movie was made. Part of the problem is that Bob isn't the best of record keepers, with a bunch of canceled checks. Because it's a joint account, Oscar has invited Bob's wife Mary (that's Debbie Reynolds) up from Philadelphia so that the three of them can go over the accounts together, since you'd think that Mary having been his wife at the time would make a difference to her in terms of whether she has any tax liability.

Complicating matters is the fact that Mary and Tiffany have never met. Once again, as you can guess, they're about to meet, although Bob tries to prevent that. And then there's the final member of this cast of crazies. Dirk Winsten (Michael Rennie) is an actor whose best days are behind him. As a result, he's decided to write a memoir, but he's the sort of person who could really have used the more modern standard, especially with professional athletes of an "as told to" where a journalist or writer interviews the subject and then edits the interviews into something the public would want to read. The current state of Dirk's memoir is just a bunch of anecdotes, almost as messed up as Norma Desmond's screenplay for Salome. He comes up to Bob's apartment to discuss the memoir, and meets Mary there, asking her out to dinner.

When Mary and Dirk go out for dinner, Bob takes Tiffany for a night out. But Bob and Tiffany get caught in a blizzard and have to go back, while the blizzard also causes Mary to have to stay the night; not having gotten a hotel room, Mary is going to have to use the couch or a spare bedroom in Bob's apartment or something. With Bob and Mary alone together for a while, they start to wonder whether they're not still in love.

Mary, Mary was based on a popular stage play, and that really shows in this filming of the story. It's the sort of material that I have the feeling worked a lot better on the stage, where there's a live audience for the actors to play off of. Here, everything seems once again not quite right. That is, however, I think also in part because of the way Mary is written as a character. A comment is made that a big part of Mary's personality is that she's "direct, straightforward, and said exactly what she meant". This doesn't always work to make Mary a likeable character.

Still, since the play is over 60 years old and it's not as if it's going to be revived with big names any time soon, this TCM showing of the movie version is your chance to catch it.