MGM at its pinnacle – an all-star adaptation of a Broadway hit, produced by the boss’ son in law (David O Selznick), directed by George Cukor, a Kaufman-Ferber play adapted by Frances Marion and Herman Mankiewicz.
This is really wonderful, a lot better than I remembered. It’s slightly happier than the original play – for instance tycoon Wallace Beery decides not to take over Barrymore’s shipping line – but is still quite dark: John Barrymore still kills himself; Lionel Barrymore is still going to die in a few years because of his heart; his daughter (Madge Evans, who I’d never heard of, is quite good) has to marry a man she doesn’t really love; it’s clear that married Jean Harlow and engaged Madge Evans are sleeping with men they’re not supposed to (doctor Edmund Lowe and John Barrymore).
Some feel that Marie Dressler gives the best performance, but I found she mugged a little. The Barrymore brothers are touching in their different roles, Billie Burke is funny (especially when she moans as if she has all the problems in the world, unaware what is going on around her), and Beery and Harlow are brilliantly hilarious together as a married couple – Beery the uncouth tycoon, smart about business but clueless about his wife; Harlow his trashy wife, who bullies the maid, puts on a cutesy voices, and is banging her doctor. May Robson, as a maid enlisted to being a dinner guest, feels tacked on, and I don’t think we needed to actually see any scenes at the dinner itself – it would have been just as effective being all lead up. Wonderful final line (not in the play incidentally).
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