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| Claudette Colbert in Three Cornered Moon |
Elliott Nugent's Three Cornered Hat, from 1933, is a successful opening up of Gertrude Friedberg's play, a good early example of screwball comedy. As in most screwball comedies, there is overlapping dialogue, physical schtick, and a wacky and wealthy family. Mary Boland plays the ditzy matriarch of an antic clan, three immature adult brothers and a sis played by Ms. Colbert, who live in a mansion in Brooklyn. The brothers roar around the house engaging in hijinks while Colbert ponders the romantic advances of a starving artist and a stable doctor. After the first reel, the family learns that they are destitute and must now labor for their bread and board like the rest of a US locked in the Depression.
Each of the three brothers struggles with employment while Colbert suffers from sexual harassment. Eventually barriers are overcome, inhibitions are discarded, and true love emerges triumphant. The male actors, including Richard Arlen and Wallace Ford, are forgettable, but the distaff half shines. Boland plays an idiot charmingly and Colbert really swims in this kind of fare. Nugent always displays a good sense of pacing and blocking with his players, but there is a rare friskiness to his direction here, particularly in his use of sight gags. The film's sexual politics and Polish jokes have dated, but I found the film to be a tonic. It unspools in 77 minutes.
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| Donald Meek and Colbert in Maid of Salem |
Unlike the charming Three Cornered Hat, Frank Lloyd's Maid of Satan is dire. This 1937 version of the Salem witch trials changes the names of all involved (except Tituba) to protect the guilty, out of kindness I suppose. We know that Colbert's character will be fingered because she loves frippery, dancing, and Virginia cavalier Fred McMurray. As with the later Drums Along the Mohawk, Colbert is not entirely at ease in a period role. The only time she gets to show off her apple cheeked charm is a scene of her practicing the gavotte. McMurray is even more at sea in a role that seems more based on Errol Flynn than any historic character. Bonita Granville effectively reprises her These Three role as Maid in Salem's number one fink. The direction is leaden. One reason to see the film is a choice roster of supporting players: Sterling Holloway, Russell Simpson, Donald Meek, Gale Sondergaard, Beulah Bondi, J. Farrell MacDonald, William Farnum, Donald Meek (a perfectly cast Puritan), and, as Tituba, the legendary Madame Sul-Te-Wan. I also enjoyed Victor Young's score, but the verdict is... beware.
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