“The problem with romantic comedies is you know the ending by the poster. So, they're not movies you can keep doing over and over again…” – Ryan Reynolds Romantic comedy seems to be one of those movie genres that can be so easily criticized for endless reasons. Whether it be cheesy or disingenuous performances, poor screenwriting, or unrealistic and pie-in-the-sky notions about love and intimacy, the timeless “rom-com” that has essentially been around since the birth of cinema is (in my humble opinion) one of the most difficult types of films to truly get right.
Can there be rom-coms with good acting but bad writing, or vice-versa? Sure. Are there rom-coms that are absolutely absurd but genuinely fun or, conversely, intelligently crafted and grounded yet don’t have that emotional punch to them? Definitely. In my humble opinion, this genre of moviemaking has nearly infinite pitfalls that, as the quote that opened this blog implies, it is nearly impossible to nail this kind of movie. Let alone nail it repeatedly. So, on this Valentine’s Day, I wanted to examine four old-school romantic comedies that excelled at what they were doing and accomplished the goal they set out to do. From the Golden Age of the 1930s to New Wave Hollywood of the 1970s, here are some of my favorite rom-coms that exhibit the best of the genre despite their age and potential to be stuck in their own time. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for several movies. You have been warned.] Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Coming off of two critically and commercially successful comedy films in 1934--It Happened One Night and Broadway Bill—director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life) was looking to make the adventure fantasy movie Lost Horizon starring Ronald Colman (Arrowsmith, A Tale of Two Cities, A Double Life). However, production was delayed a year to accommodate Colman’s other commitments and Capra went to work adapting Clarence Budington Kelland’s short story “Opera Hat” by collaborating for a fifth time with screenwriter Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, You Can’t Take It with You). While Capra cast Gary Cooper (Sergeant York, High Noon) as his “first, last and only choice” for the title role, he faced a mini-crisis three day before principal photography began when the lead actress he hired, Carole Lombard (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, To Be or Not to Be), quit the production to star in Gregory La Cava’s screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (which ended up garnering her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress). Lombard was replaced with Jean Arthur (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Only Angels Have Wings). Capra reportedly treated filming like a workshop or exercise, spending five additional shooting days testing out new angles with multiple takes. This increased the film’s budget by forty-thousand dollars. Furthermore, the film’s working title was taken directly from the short story and was not changed until the publicity department at Columbia Pictures held a contest to replace it. Finally coming in at approximately 845,000 dollars, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town received critical praise and ended up earning two-and-a-half million dollars in theater rentals. Audiences and critics alike generally deemed it Capra’s best film released up to that point, which paid off at the Academy Awards the next year. The film was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture (the third for Capra of seven that he would get in his career), but only won Best Director for Capra (his second of three Best Director Oscars). Having grown up watching the 2002 remake of this film starring Adam Sandler, I was pretty familiar with the characters and basic structure of the story of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. A simple yet kind and humble man from a small town finds himself heading to the “big city” after his deceased uncle left him a large inheritance, and he discovers that his rural mindfulness and eccentric nature clashes with the urban sensibilities of modern American cynicism. So, going into watching Capra’s original cinematic take on Kelland’s short story, I was apprehensive that it would feel outdated and boring compared to Sandler’s over-the-top version. I was happy to discover that not only is the film fantastic despite its age, but rather it is great because of when it comes from. Simply put, Capra’s personification of the nuances and complexities of the “American dream” via the journey of Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) from Mandrake Falls, Vermont to New York City fits perfectly into the 1930s. Much of the essence of what works for me in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town comes from Cooper’s performance as the title character. He manages to moralize to the audience through his performance rather than allow the writing to preach on his behalf. It is through his characterization of Deeds as a genuinely good man who ultimately refuses to let the greed and corruption of the city change his moral and emotional core that allows Capra to tell this story that transcends its own time and remain both enjoyable and socially relevant to this day. But what about the “romance” and “comedy” essential to this film being a rom-com? I’m happy to report that both work. Regarding the latter, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town heavily relies on the “fish-out-of-water” nature of Deeds’s eccentricities clashing with the straight-laced, boorish personalities of the city characters, like Deed’s uncle’s lawyer John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), to produce its laugh-inducing moments. Surprisingly, this works once again because of the cultural moment that produced this film. You expect it to be cheesy to a fault, so when it pulls that off without feeling excessive it earns your respect and admiration. At least it earned mine. 😊 Certainly, though, the romance subplot of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town doesn’t hold up given modern sociocultural sensibilities around relationship dynamics in films today. Once again, I was genuinely surprised how much the burgeoning love and respect between Deeds and reporter Louise “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur) resonated with me. While it does rely on Bennett deceiving Deeds at first, thus having to redeem herself in the end, I appreciate how the storytellers allowed a female character to take action on behalf of her male counterpart to resolve the central conflict. It is her passionate plea during his sanity hearing that propels Deeds’s name being cleared and Cedar’s selfish scheming against Deeds to fail. All in all, please do not judge Mr. Deeds Goes to Town by its age. It is a worthwhile watch this Valentine’s Day if you’re looking for an old-school romantic comedy with enough timelessness to its craft to make it still watchable nearly a century after it initially premiered in cinemas. Bringing Up Baby (1938) In March of 1937, director Howard Hawks (Sergeant York, Red River, Rio Bravo) was trying to get an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Gunga Din” at RKO Pictures off the ground. However, it fell through and so he turned to look for a new project. Upon reading Hagar Wilde’s short story “Bringing Up Baby,” which made him laugh out loud, he purchased the film rights for just over one thousand dollars and hired Wilde and frequent John Ford collaborator Dudley Nichols (The Informer, Stagecoach, The Long Voyage Home) to write the screenplay (albeit with notable differences from the original short story). By the end of summer, Wilde and Nichols (after several drafts) produced a 202-page script. For the two lead roles, Hawks was briefly considering his cousin the My Man Godfrey star Carole Lombard for Susan Vance but producers wanted Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, On Golden Pond) due to her New England background. The studio, however, was hesitant due to several of Hepburn’s recent movies offering little in box-office returns. In the end, she was hired and given bonuses for her performance. Regarding the male lead, Hawks disagreed with producer Pandro S. Berman (Top Hat, Jailhouse Rock) about who should play David Huxley. Whereas Hawks wanted silent-film comedian Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!), Berman offered the role to several notable actors, like Frederic March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Best Years of Our Lives), the part but they turned it down. Ultimately, it was Hawks’s friend and business magnate Howard Hughes who suggested Cary Grant (His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story) for the part. Grant was initially hesitant about playing an intellectual character (despite the salary increase that RKO promised him), but he did accept the part based on Hawks’s promise to coach him during filming. Principal photography was supposed to begin on the first of September, but was delayed multiple weeks to secure some rights and add some more comedic scenes. Filming eventually started on September 23 and concluded nearly two months later on a production budget exceeding $760,000. Due to Hepburn’s struggles early on with overacting in an effort to be funny, Hawks had acclaimed Vaudeville performer Walter Catlett coach her. Infamously, Hepburn and Grant delayed filming on more than one occasion due to uncontrollable laughing fits (although Hawks extending shooting schedules by several days played a role, too). Furthermore, Hawks and Hepburn had a strenuous relationship on set. At one point, when Hawks shushed Hepburn and she scolded him by saying that she was friends with most of the crew, Hawks asked a lighting guy who he would rather drop a light on. Apparently, that shut Hepburn up afterwards. Due to the premise of the film’s story, Hepburn and Grant worked intensively with two animals on set. Notably, Nissa the “tame” leopard who had a trainer armed with a whip on set whenever her scenes were filmed. While Hepburn remained unafraid of the big cat, Grant was reportedly terrified. Yet, it was Hepburn that Nissa lunged at the one and only time anything like this happened (due to Hepburn twirling her skirt). But, thanks to the trainer’s crack of the whip, Nissa stood down. However, due to the potential financial and public-relations disaster of having a costly actor like Grant or Hepburn being injured on set by a leopard, he often used rear-screen projection or traveling mattes to shoot scenes with the leopard. The film went through a few cuts despite Hawks utilizing minimal cross-cutting in order to preserve its pacing within the frame rather than actual cutting of the film. Furthermore, there were some initial concerns about the rough cut of the movie passing muster at the Hayes Office (the pre-1968 Motion Picture Association) for its multitude of sexual references (such as Grant’s character saying he “went gay”), double entendres, and crass allusions (like when Hepburn’s character makes a reference to her aunt’s dog George urinating). Released widely in November of 1938, Bringing Up Baby received mostly positive critical reviews upon release. However, it struggled at the box office except in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. It ended up making 1.1 million dollars during its initial theatrical run, making it a box-office flop which resulted in Hawks being replaced as the eventual director of Gunga Din. Retrospectively, Hawks vowed to never make a movie where “everybody [is] crazy” ever again. Despite Hepburn’s reputation as “box-office poison, many critics were surprised at her comedic chops. While Bringing Up Baby produced lackluster results at the box office at the time of release, it gained popularity and mainstream acceptance when it premiered on television during the 1950s. Within decades, its reputation was repaired and it was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress by the National Film Registry in 1990 (the second year of the Registry’s existence). I confess that I am not a huge fan of Howard Hawks’s filmmaking. In general, I categorize him with the likes of John Ford with an artist stuck in his own time too much to make films that are genuinely great to this day. But there is one notable exception: indeed, it is Bringing Up Baby. While I would not put the film in the same league as Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town as a genuine classic, it is pretty funny for much of its runtime. Much of the film’s humor relies on the gimmick of paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) and free-spirited Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) tending to a tame leopard named Baby and the misadventures that ensue from this. In that sense, it rides the incredibly fine line of nailing physical comedy without succumbing to tackiness or shallowness. And the film (mostly) works on the backbone of its feline star Nissa the leopard who plays Baby (not to understate the efforts of Nissa’s trainer Olga Celeste) because much of the laughs in the movie originate from watching Grant and Hepburn “raising” her and keeping her out of trouble or, more often than not, failing to keep her from getting them in trouble. Unfortunately, the major drawback of Bringing Up Baby is its characterization of Susan Vance. While, in my humble opinion, she nails many of the comedic beats laid out for her I felt that Hepburn had little story besides falling in love with Grant’s character. Her personality feels antiquated for a female lead of her caliber, and her backstory or motivations are underdeveloped at best. This leaves some to be desired in Bringing Up Baby, which keeps me from wholeheartedly recommending the film. All that being said, it is still a very funny movie given that it came out nearly ninety years ago. And while it may not hold a candle to some of the best rom-coms from more recent memory, Bringing Up Baby is a fun-enough ride if you’re looking for a zanier rom-com than some other old classics. Lady and the Tramp (1955) As early as 1937, the creative team at Walt Disney Productions were developing an animated project centered on an English Springer Spaniel (specifically, story artist Joe Grant’s dog) named Lady. But by the early 1940s, Disney himself liked none of Grant’s approaches to the story because of the lack of action and Lady’s excessively sweet personality. But after reading the short story “Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog” by Ward Greene in 1945, Disney convinced Grant to incorporate a love story between Lady and a cynical dog (which had a number of working names before the team settled on “Tramp”). In the original tale, Lady had one next-door neighbors instead of two, Aunt Sarah was a more malevolent and overbearing mother-in-law but was softened for the final film, and her dogs were originally named Nip and Tuck before the team decided on Si and Am instead. Furthermore, Grant and Disney decided to keep the animation from Lady’s perspective (thereby rarely showing her owners’ faces). Also, the rat character was initially more comedic in nature but became scarier in the final film to increase the dramatic tension during the climax. Finally, a love triangle involving Lady, Tramp, and Boris (the Russian wolfhound in the dog found) was cut in order to focus on Lady and Tramp’s burgeoning relationship. Despite Grant leaving the studio in 1949, artists and animators used his original drawings to continue developing the story. When he agreed to write a novelization two years before the film’s release, he lost credit on the final cut of the film which was not rectified until Eric Goldberg included his involvement in the Platinum Edition DVD release of the movie in 2006. For animating the characters of the film, the Walt Disney team studied dogs of many different breeds to capture the essence of their movements and personality. Shockingly, Disney himself was initially going to cut the now-iconic “spaghetti scene” because he felt it was silly. In order to keep the scene in the final cut, animator Frank Thomas created the scene himself (making it more romantic) which impressed Disney and he decided to keep it. Released on June 22, 1955, Lady and the Tramp become a box-office hit and outpaced every other Disney animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Throughout its lifetime in theaters, the film has earned 187 million dollars worldwide. Critically, the film was initially polarizing. While some felt it could be enjoyed by both children and adults, others deemed its tonal imbalance and flaws in animation to be subpar compared to prior Disney classics. However, in time, Lady and the Tramp has cemented its status as a classic of the Disney catalog as well as of traditional animated cinema. Having gone through much of the Disney animation catalog a few years ago, I was worried after watching several of the older “Golden Age” and “Silver Age” classics like Snow White and Cinderella that I would find little to love about any of these old-school animated flicks. Surely, there were some bright spots (notably Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio), but all in all I was convinced that nothing from the studio before the 1980s would appeal to me. But then I saw Lady and the Tramp, and my worries were extinguished. There is so much to like about this movie. In terms of the animation, it feels the most “alive” out of any Disney film that came before it. In large part, this is due to the kinetic nature of the dogs that the film centers on. And unlike prior animal-centric Disney flicks like Bambi or Dumbo, much of the audience is so intimately familiar with how dogs walk, run, jump, and lay that the animators at work here have the extra challenge of grounding their depiction of these characters within an environment that is as much relatable as it is cartoonish. Of course, what makes Lady and the Tramp better than most old-school Disney animated movies is its characters. Our two leads, Lady (Barbara Luddy) and Tramp (Larry Roberts), have a very naturally evolving chemistry over the course of the film. In essence, their arcs compliment one another and thus their budding romance works that much more because of it. While Lady learns humility and compassion from Tramp, she is able to teach him a thing or two about civility and selflessness by the end. And unlike some other, more unbalanced rom-coms of this era, I think this one pulls off giving both the male and female leads a satisfying story that allows them to fall for each other. While the two canine protagonists are magnificent, the supporting cast does well here also. The standouts for me are Lady’s neighbors and companions, the Scottish Terrier Jock (Bill Thompson) and the retired bloodhound Trusty (Bill Baucom), who offer some sillier moments of humor when compared to the more situational laughs brought on by Lady and Tramp’s misadventures. I also really like just how genteel and “normal” Lady’s owners are in their affection for each other. It acts as the cherry on top of a movie that celebrates true love in a way that feels both family-friendly but almost emotionally mature and thematically resonant for a film about cartoon dogs. I know that some of you might feel that choosing a Disney animated film as one of my favorite old-school romantic comedies is cheap, but I just couldn’t help it. Lady and the Tramp hit for me in the best ways, and it’s a movie that remains both timeless in its uplifting nature and relevant in its simplistic yet nuanced approach to storytelling. Go watch it, if for no other reason than for that iconic spaghetti scene. 😊 Annie Hall (1977) During the mid-1970s, director Woody Allen (Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Midnight in Paris) wrote a screenplay draft about a man in his forties dealing with romance, his own ambitions, and the banality of life and sent it to Brazilian-born screenwriter Marshall Brickman (Sleeper, Manhattan, Lovesick) for feedback. With this project, Allen aimed to move away from relying solely on broad comedy in his movies because he wanted to “sacrifice some of the laughs for a story about human beings.” Once they had a screenplay they liked (which had cut a murder subplot that would later be made into Manhattan Murder Mystery), Allen and Brickman went to United Artists and asked for a four-million-dollar budget. The female lead and titular role of Annie was written by Allen for Diane Keaton (The Godfather, Radio Days, Something’s Gotta Give), with whom Allen had worked with before in films like Sleeper and Love and Death. Despite Allen’s insistence to the contrary, Keaton did confirm that the relationship between her and Allen’s characters was partially inspired by their former real-life romance. However, other elements of the film such as Allen’s character Alvy being a comedian who attended New York University and “Alvy” being a childhood nickname Allen stated were not autobiographical in nature. Principal photography occurred sporadically over the course of ten months, beginning in May of 1976. Much of the screenplay was changed during filming, notably Allen adding in context for Alvy’s childhood home sitting under a rollercoaster (inspired by the real-world Thunderbolt rollercoaster on Coney Island). Despite the two weeks given by the studio for post-production photography, the film went through several cuts as initial versions left Brickman feeling that the movie was too scattershot and not focused enough on the core of the narrative. Released in April of 1977, Annie Hall earned 38 million dollars at the domestic box office. When adjusted for inflation, it outdoes the 2011 fantasy comedy Midnight in Paris as Allen’s highest-grossing film to date. Critics at the film also loved it, with many calling it Allen’s best film at that point. Nominated for the “Big Five” at that year’s Academy Awards, it won four of them: Best Picture, Best Director for Allen, Best Actress for Keaton, and Best Original Screenplay for Allen and Brickman. In 1992, fifteen years after its release, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. The legacy of Annie Hall today is multifaceted. It has been revered for its sophisticated exploration of themes like love and sexuality, Jewish identity, and psychoanalysis. Furthermore, it remains a go-to film as a prime example of a cinematic love letter to New York City. The style created for Keaton’s character in the film by costume designer Ruth Morley (The Hustler, Taxi Driver, Kramer vs. Kramer) influenced the fashion industry of the decade despite Keaton’s dress style nearly being excluded from the movie. Strangely enough, Allen and Keaton have polar-opposite feelings about the film. Whereas Allen has been honest about his disappointment in how the final cut turned out and has rejected the idea of making a sequel, Keaton identified her character as her favorite role of her career and is happy that so many people see her in this role. Within its genre, Annie Hall has been a staple of modern romantic comedies and others in recent decades—from Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally… to Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer—have been compared favorably to the film. I don’t consider myself a big fan of Woody Allen as a filmmaker, writer or actor. Many of his movies that I’ve seen are either inaccessible or sorely unfunny despite putting forth every effort to be just that. But, there are some notable exceptions. I wrote about my favorite Woody Allen flick, Midnight in Paris, last year. But a close second, and easily my favorite of his early classics, is Annie Hall. When contextualized within the broader rom-com genre, Annie Hall comes off as a watershed moment that allows the movie to feel very much in its own time but also thematically and culturally pressing if one makes connections to modern times. Much of this has to do with the writing. Allen and Brickman’s screenplay creates a mature and equitable yet playful dynamic between Alvy (Woody Allen) and Annie (Diane Keaton) that allows both characters to breathe and process their thoughts on the relationship on their own terms. In that respect, it is easy to understand why Keaton received an Oscar for her performance in the film. While Alvy’s narration serves as the framing device for the movie’s core perspective, Keaton’s Annie is very much the subject of Alvy’s exploration of what love is at its core. Thus, it is a movie about her but also it is about the idea of her. In exploring the intricacies of Alvy’s neuroses around his in-and-out-of-love journey with Annie, Woody Allen creates a modern comedic and romantic masterpiece which says that sometimes the people we think we are supposed to fall in love with isn’t enough to make that happen. Of the old-school rom-coms I’ve written about here, Annie Hall is undeniably the most modern in how it tells its story and in what it wants to say. Thus, it is indeed a transitional film of the genre that serves as a bridge between the corny and zany ambience of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Bringing Up Baby, and Lady and the Tramp with some of the best modern rom-coms. What are some of those films? I might blog about them…One day. 😊 But for now, I leave it with these old classics of cinema that are worth your time for the laughs and the heart. Take your pick. Which of these old-school rom-coms is your favorite (or least favorite)? What are some other rom-coms from way back when do you think are worth checking out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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