春闺风月

如果说加利格兰特是美国40年代最耀眼的一颗明星，一定是实至名归。明星的产生了类型电影的兴盛永远是相辅相成，而搞怪喜剧一定是这个时代给予格兰特最好的舞台，而他本身，凭借着他高大俊朗的外形，低沉磁性的声音，他走进了40年代美国人的生活。在一个电视还不普及的时代，电影成为了人们生活中必不可少的娱乐，而在一个分级制度和审查制度正在趋于成熟化的美国，电影人越来越多地开始，也必须避免电影中的情色暴力镜头，也正是两种制度的诞生，居然催生了一种新的类型喜剧——搞怪喜剧screwball comedy。搞怪喜剧的特点就是以谈恋爱为乐趣，男女主角充分享受恋爱本身而非性所带来的欢乐，比如斗嘴、一起旅行、打情骂俏等等。或者更甚，男女主人公也许一开始就处于一种对立的状态，比如离婚的夫妻、事业上的竞争者等等。而这种喜剧和美国之前默片时代四大小丑的动作喜剧和30年代的社会批评喜剧不同，既不是在夸张的动作和造型上做文章，也不是用一些完全反社会的荒诞台词来达到喜剧效果，因为最重要的一点，40年代以后的美国电影逐渐有真正的电影演员而非小丑参与到喜剧的创作之中，就像格兰特、史都华等等。而喜剧电影也由原来的片断性故事而转而有了更加丰富饱满的剧情，成为真正的电影故事而呈现在观众面前。政治制度和社会文化也在不断变化发展当中，美国已经处于后经济萧条时期，社会主义和人民主主义等等政治运动正在如火如荼地进行，电影人非仅仅抱怨和谴责，而是更多地对现状开始进行思考。而文化上现代与传统的碰撞和对立也在紧张地进行着，比如大城市更适合人们居住，还是传统的乡村更加人性化，工业化和现代化正在如火如荼地冲击着人们的价值观。The Awful Truth正是这个时代的典型，男女主人公在影片的一开始便处于一种对立的状态，两个人对峙公堂，本意是离婚居然为了一只宠物狗由谁领养而据理力争，两个人像小孩子一样为了一只宠物狗互不相让，看似荒诞，其实是那个时代美国人对婚姻家庭的一种普遍的怀疑。然而导演麦卡雷非常聪明地通过对镜头的运用而在正部电影中传达了一个观点，男女主人公就是天生一对，最终还是要走到一起。这种聪明反映在每次男主人公和他的新女友遇到女主人公和她的新男友，镜头总是对着男女主人公，而非他们的新伴侣。同时，电影对于两个人游戏爱情的桥段描绘地非常浪漫而且有趣，同时也对两个人之间微妙的关系进行了非常聪明的处理，每次两个人想要重新认真地谈谈他们之间的关系，就会有人出来打扰，这也是搞怪浪漫喜剧的另一大特点，not taking relationship serious。结局的设计则更为精巧，两个人被一道并不牢固的门搁在两个房间，门上的钟里面的小人不停地出来，然后回到各自的小门里，预示着两个人各自内心的犹豫不决，而台词也一遍一遍预示着两个人微妙的关系——女主人公不断说着有些事情改变了，而男主人公则不停地强调事情变了可是本质不会变，其实这里指的，大概就是两个人对对方的感情和现在的处境，而当最后两人和好的时候，钟里的两个小人也进了同一个小门，非常有趣聪明的结尾，避免了审查制度对接吻的限制，同时让结尾变得妙趣横生。两位演员在电影中的表演可圈可点，格兰特把花花公子形象诠释地非常到位，而女主角艾琳邓恩则把一位上层社会的名媛演绎地非常完美，无论是优雅的举止还是得体的一颦一笑，处处表现出她纯熟的演技。最后，作为花花公子和名媛的一场经典的花火游戏，The Awful Truth不但代表了美国40年代搞怪喜剧的高制作水准，同时更体现了那个时代美国人对喜剧的高度热情。

看过许多经典好莱坞神经喜剧(Screwball comedy)，感觉这一部相当有水平！大多数此类电影情节过于起伏，节奏匆忙，或者对白繁多，观赏起来显得嘈杂和疲惫。个人感觉这部相比之下做到了张弛有度。情节上与其他神经喜剧类似，不是很复杂，基本沿袭小误会引发大麻烦的套路，由于阴错阳差产生众多笑料。典型但是不流于平淡的人物、紧凑而前后呼应的剧情、妙语连珠、满是双关的对白、聪明小狗和顽皮猫咪穿插其间，总之，它具备了一部轻松喜剧片的必备元素。加里·格兰特对此类角色驾轻就熟，显示出一贯的自然和幽默感。 艾琳·邓恩的表演也很自然，歌舞才华也有展示，从先前崇尚华尔兹的花腔女高音，到后来伪装成轻浮粗俗的酒吧女郎，给男主角出尽洋相，实在令人捧腹。谈笑间道出婚姻中信任的重要——不说教的佳片，值得一看。

Two first-rate 1930s Hollywood comedies from Leo McCarey, both are Oscar's Best Picture nominees and THE AWFUL TRUTH notched his first Best Director win (GOING MY WAY 1944 would nab him a second). While RUGGLES OF RED GAP and THE AWFUL TRUTH aren't sourced from original materials, and have already been preceded by several celluloid adaptations, McCarey's quick-witted comedic sensibility and low-fidelity to scripts ensure that they're not rip-offs. There is a genuine lightness and sophistication that distinguishes McCarey's comedies from his peers, and what is more precious is that he rarely overcooks its frivolous fodders. RUGGLES OF RED GAP starts as a parody deriding the savagery of the New World. The knee-jerking reaction from British valet Marmaduke Ruggles (Laughton) about the United States is "the land of slavery". But soon the joke boomerangs on him as he is blithely and summarily sent away to serve his new master, the nouveau riche American millionaire Egbert Floud (Ruggles, who can brilliantly turn gregariousness into a roisterous nuisance) after his current master Earl of Burnstead (an understatedly aloof Young) gambles him away in a poker game. Talking about slavery, a gentleman's gentleman also doesn't have any say in his own future employment. Much to his wife Effie's displeasure (Boland, fighting a losing battle with surprising gusto and gumption), Egbert is a rollicking philistine preferring checkers and boozing over haute couture and art. So she simply wishes the presence of Ruggles can infuse a certain gentility into him. But what ensues is actually the opposite. It is Egbert who drums liberty and equality into Ruggles's mind, urging him to discard formalities and seizing the day, especially when they return from the Continent to the Flouds' (ficititous) hometown Red Gap, in the profound West. In time, Ruggles will eases from a fish out of water into a beloved fixture of the town, sharing a romantic spark with Mrs. Judson (Pitts), a widowed cook. Eventually, he declines the offer of resuming his service for Earl of Burnstead and stays in the land of freedom, earning his independence as a restauranteur in Red Gap, but not before he reels off Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in its entirety before a gaggle of dumbfounded bumpkins. Laughton is in great form to keep emotion in check and his tactful finesse of handling humor and British snootiness is roundly on point. Here, McCarey's encomium of the United States's democracy reaches its crescendo. But 90 years later, viewed today, its wholesomeness also ineluctably trigger an epiphenomenon of disenchantment and non-fulfillment.

THE AWFUL TRUTH is a blue-chip screwball comedy without the rapid-fire exchanges, masterfully pairing Grant and Dunne as a posho couple undergoing their divorce proceeding, only to realize they do belong to each other in matrimonial bliss. It is a leisure class fluff playing up jealousy and suspicion which often undermine a happy union. Notable for the improvisational style that McCarey develops to extract laughter and modulate the comedic timing and the chemistry between his actors, the film unshackles its players from the stricture of a script and often asks them to think on their feet. Such spontaneity and unpredictability can create wonders. For example, Ralph Bellamy's countrified Oklahoma oilman Dan Leeson, a suitor of Dunne's Lucy Warriner, projects a more animatedly off-beat, sympathetically droll vibe (Who gives him the confidence to belt out with his off-key voice? You bet it is McCarey! And Dunne looks rather amusingly out of character in her reaction shots), which is fairly rare at then for a supporting role as an inconvenient third wheel. Poor Bellamy, he will lose the gal again to Grant three years later in Howard Hawks’s HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940), another archetypal screwball comedy. Grant does a bit of physical comedy, proving that it never hurts for a leading man in a romance to be a bit buffoonish and not taking himself too seriously. Most significantly, and retrospectively, Jerry Warriner is the prototype of Grant’s massively appealing and charismatically enduring screen persona: his none-the-wiser mannerism, gentlemanlike panache, rejoinder-ready facility, and dreamboat goofiness, the whole package has already been assembled faultlessly. Dunne is as fabulous as ever, a pluperfect combination of a sophisticated lady and a glamour puss. Her gesticulations and utterances are so immaculate that she almost seems ethereal under the flattering silver lighting. When she slums it as a low class showgirl, the contrast is side-splitting (also, now one knows where the inspiration of Marilyn Monroe's infamous subway grate and white dress scene comes from). Among classic Hollywood leading ladies,, Dunne's capacity of effacing self-consciousness is of the first order. Then who could ever forget the thunder-stealing canine star Mr. Smith (played by Asta aka. Skippy)? A fox terrier as the subject of the Warriners’s tug of love, who does some jaw-dropping high-wire acts has been unparalleled then. As for McCarey, he squares away a winsome finale just when the comedy of errors starts to wear thin. All Jerry and Lucy need is a little push and two communicating bedrooms sharing a creaky door is just an ingenious wheeze to cinch that. Only an awful truth is that, reportedly by his own account, McCarey’s more impactful and weightier drama MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, released in the same year and tanked in the box office, would’ve been a worthier picture to win him a golden statuette in a fairer world, which has still been eluding us obstinately.

referential entries: McCarey’s MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937, 8.3/10), GOING MY WAY (1944, 7.1/10); Howard Hawks’s HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940, 7.7/10); George Stevens's PENNY SERENADE (1941, 7.0/10); Preston Sturges's THE LADY EVE (1941, 7.9/10). Title: Ruggles of Red Gap Year: 1935 Genre: Comedy, Romance, Western Country: USA Language: English, French Director: Leo McCarey Screenwriters: Walter DeLeon, Harlan Thompson, Humphrey Pearson based on the novel by Harry Leon Wilson Cinematography: Alfred Gilks Editor: Edward Dmytryk Cast: Charles Laughton Charles Ruggles Mary Boland Zasu Pitts Roland Young Leila Hyams Maude Eburne Lucine Littlefield Leota Lorraine James Burke Clarence Wilson Dell Henderson Rating: 7.2/10

Title: The Awful Truth Year: 1937 Genre: Comedy, Romance Country: USA Language: English Director: Leo McCarey Screenwriter: Viña Delmar Based on a play by Arthur Richman Cinematography: Joseph Walker Editor: Al Clark Cast: Irene Dunne Cary Grant Ralph Bellamy Alexander D’Arcy Cecil Cunningham Esther Dale Molly Lamont Joyce Compton Rating: 7.5/10