Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields team up in this genial family fodder. I don't
know if it's Christmas coming up on us and the constant beat of Christmas
music everywhere I go - but I am in the mood for sweet and sentimental. Molly
and Me with these two gave me oodles of it and this serves it in on a hot
plate. Gracie had come down with cervical cancer in 1939 and went to recuperate
in Capri. She was there when the war broke out and made her way back to England.
But there was a complication - she was married to an Italian and all Italian
citizens were interned. So with the blessing of Churchill she went to America.
There she made a handful of films during the war but spent most of her time
entertaining the troops all over the world. Do those kinds of entertainers
still exist any more? I can't recall hearing of many who went to Afghanistan
or Iraq. But perhaps I missed it.
She plays a very different character in this one than she did as a music
hall actress in Molly and Me. No songs or comedy - perfectly straight - just
a plain old housewife who loves her husband dearly. Let me go back a bit
though. Woolley plays a famous English painter Farrl who has basically been
out of touch with civilization living in the South Seas. He only has his
valet Mr. Leek with him for these 25 years. The valet is Eric Blore - always
a delight but sadly a short-lived one in this film. The King wants to Knight
Farll and he and Leek go back to England - "Sir should I lay out your trousers
or your liquor bottle" - but Leek catches pneumonia and dies. Gadzooks. I
don't think I have ever seen Eric Blore die in a movie. Pies in his face
and embarrassed many times - but death. It felt cruel. Like shooting your
cat.
But when he dies the doctor mistakes him for Farrl and Farrl for Leek. And
Farrl goes along with it because he is tired of being Farrl though slightly
regretful when the King comes to his funeral and he is buried in Westminster
Abbey. But then he meets Alice who the dead Leek had corresponded with through
a Marriage Agent. And they get married! And he is very happy. But complications
arise when he paints again. And his wife sells his paintings for 15 pounds.
Dabs of humor but generally just a light drama full of charm and sentiment.
Appearing also are Laird Cregar as an agent, Una O'Connor as the still Mrs.
Leek - it seems our boy Blore deserted his wife and three sons - Alan Mowbray
as a lawyer, Franklin Pangborn as the cousin, George Zucco and Walt Bissell
as one of the three sons. A very nice line-up but this film belongs to Woolley
and Fields. I wish they had made a dozen films together. Directed by John
Stahl and written by the great Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath).
