comedy in character

Comedy in Character

One of the reasons that the movies of today aren't as much fun as

those made in the first two decades of Talkies is because they

jettisoned their great army of supporting players. At one time when

people reminisced about movies, they were more likely to be talking

about Eve Arden than Doris Day or Jane Wyman, whose friends she

played on some funny occasions. Her first appearance always caused

an appreciative buzz, and her slightest glance was treasured more

than all the star's vapourings...She could make almost any line

funny, though her forte was the sort of lines that went with the

look-elegant bitchery or advice she knows the heroine is too stupid

to accept.

That, in one of the most dead-accurate paragraphs he has ever written,

is how David Shipman summarizes the delicious Eve Arden in The Great

Movie Stars: The International Years--but he could be writing the

epitaph for all of the era's great comic character actors. It was a

golden age for comic relief and it is, alas, as dead as the dodo. For

the Newcritics Comedy Blogathon Blowout, the Siren herewith offers

some brief takes on the characters she loves. And she loves them with

a passion.

We'll start with Eve Arden. Is she not everyone's favorite thing in

Mildred Pierce, whether she's taking Jack Carson down a peg ("Leave

something on me, I might catch cold") or trying to give Joan Crawford

a clue about daughter Veda's real nature ("Alligators have the right

idea. They eat their young")? Eve made a decades-long career out of

being the smartest gal in the room, whether backstage as a Ziegfeld

Girl, in a rooming house trying to get in the Stage Door, or working

for a fashion editor in Cover Girl. In a melodrama she'd give you a

whimsical moment between hankies, as in My Reputation; in a piece of

unalloyed kitsch like Song of Scheherezade she'd be the only one who

seemed to realize the train had left Reality Station, so you might as

well live it up.

The Siren has a one-year-old who apparently harbors dreams of moving

to Australia, since that is the time zone he has decided to

synchronize with. Despite having become an unwilling participant in an

endless day-for-night shoot the Siren stayed up to midnight on

Wednesday night to watch The Hard Way from 1943. Did she watch it for

Ida Lupino, director Vincent Sherman or even the towering genius of

cameraman James Wong Howe? No way. She watched it for Jack Carson. He

was born in Manitoba (of all places) but his persona was wise-guy

American, complete with a voice so nasal it seemed to originate at the

bottom of his sinuses. Probably the best acting he ever did (and he

was always good) was in A Star Is Born, in the deeply unfunny role of

the heartless agent. He played a lot of light comedies too, often with

Dennis Morgan. But Carson's strong suit was comic relief, often mixed

with a dash of the heavy, as in Mildred Pierce ("Oh, I'm happy.

Believe me, inside my heart is singing") or more than a dash, as in

The Strawberry Blonde. He could hold his own with Errol Flynn in

Gentleman Jim and underplay in scenes with a frenetically mugging Cary

Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace.

No tribute to comic character actors could be complete without mention

of the great Margaret Dumont. She was, without question, The Greatest

Straight Woman of All Time. Marx authorities ranging from Dick Cavett

to Groucho himself all say Dumont didn't get the jokes, on or off

screen, but the Siren doesn't buy it. Dumont had a long career as a

comic foil, and face it, she is too good not to know what she's doing.

To be a good straight (wo)man, it isn't enough to keep a poker face

and ignore the lunacy. Kitty Carlisle, Lillian Roth and Kay Francis

all do that, and they still get flattened. No, Dumont had something

extra--the ability to broaden her characterization with each new joke.

Her finest moments probably came in Duck Soup, where her manner is so

impeccably grand she seems to have wandered in from some Ruritanian

operetta filming on another soundstage. Groucho was one of the

funniest men American comedy ever produced--and if you want to say THE

funniest the Siren won't argue. But it takes nothing away from Groucho

to state that he was never funnier than when he was bouncing joke

after joke off Dumont's imposing figure.

Andrew Sarris used to tell a story about a party where he encountered

a fellow who edited films for television. Seems the editor was eager

to tell Sarris about how he improved the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers

films by "cutting out all those boring dance numbers." This horrifying

tale from the days before Turner Classic Movies came to rescue us

doesn't mean that we should neglect three non-dancing stalwarts from

the Astaire-Rogers movies, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes and Edward Everett

Horton. (All three were discussed with great verve in Vito Russo's

landmark The Celluloid Closet.) Blore was in five of nine

Astaire-Rogers musicals, usually playing an English butler, frequently

one dim in wit and dubious in ethics. But Blore's best role was

undoubtedly as Sir Alfred "Pearlie" McGlennan-Keith R. F. D., con-man

confidant of Barbara Stanwyck and Charles Coburn, in The Lady Eve:

"Into the gulf that separated the unfortunate couple, there was a

coachman on the estate, a gay dog, a great hand with the horses and

the ladies, need I say more?" Rhodes appeared in Top Hat and The Gay

Divorcee, offering proof to homegrown audiences that there was

something a little swishy about these Continental types: "Your wife is

safe with Tonetti! He prefers spaghetti!" Horton usually played wholly

inadequate husbands of some sort, using his carefully honed

double-take, one of the best in the business, to convey utter shock at

being suspected of some sort of caddery, as in Top Hat. Of the three,

Horton had the most extensive career. The Siren's favorite Horton role

is his turn as the impossibly dull husband of Miriam Hopkins in Design

for Living.

Billie Burke played the dithery matron to perfection in many comedies

of the 1930s. Burke, who had been a great beauty in the days when she

was married to Florenz Ziegfeld, had an impeccably upper-crust accent

and a voice like a piccolo with the hiccups. The adjective that clings

to Burke is "fluttery"--yet, if you watch closely, you'll see that

there is an economy to her movement. She conveys fluttering without

flapping. And nobody did the wan, put-upon, strictly-social smile like

Billie Burke--watch her turn it on Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery in

Dinner at Eight. Her signature role, Glinda the Good Witch, is a good

deal mushier than Burke's usual outings. Her characters were

frequently atrociously selfish, as with her aspic-obsessed party-giver

in Dinner at Eight and blithe con artist in The Young in Heart, but

they were usually capable of being nudged into better behavior by the

last reel.

S.Z. Sakall found refuge from Hitler's Europe in roles as a bemused,

bewitched and bewildered mensch, often behind a bar or a front desk,

as in Casablanca and Seven Sweethearts. The Siren loves the way Sakall

swallows his lines--half the time you have no idea what he's

saying--and lets his rubbery jowls do much of his acting for him.

Ralph Bellamy and Gail Patrick may seem out of place in this roundup,

as they were both strikingly good-looking and often played second

leads of some sort. But they almost never got the hero or heroine, and

both of them were at their best in comedies. In My Man Godfrey,

Patrick almost walks away with the picture as she raises one bitchy

eyebrow at all of Carole Lombard's lovelorn antics. And in My Favorite

Wife, she sets up some of Cary Grant's best lines, then gets to punch

Grant in the face--and the audience knows he deserves it. Ralph

Bellamy reaches his nebbishy apotheosis in His Girl Friday, even to

the indignity of having his character described to a T as a Ralphy

Bellamy type. He is one of that beloved movie's least-sung glories,

but god is he funny, the picture of reasonable benevolence as he

intones, "Hildy, we could take the six o'clock train if it will save a

man's life!"

Finally, the Siren mulled long and hard over whether to include Sidney

Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in this list, finally deciding that no,

they really don't belong, as marvelously and subversively witty as

they are. Greenstreet and Lorre are usually playing villains, not

comic relief...and great villains would be another blogathon

altogether.

The floor is open. Go ahead, argue with the Siren. Knock her over the

head with a rubber chicken and demand to know how she could forget

your favorite character actor. Frank Morgan? Eugene Palette? Marjorie

Main? Anyone? And if you think there is someone from our own

less-funny era who deserves a place at the table, share that name too.

(This post is part of the Newcritics Comedy Blogathon, going on until

tomorrow, Nov. 11. Stop by Newcritics for more musings.)