Yet Again Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime-time, Maybe -Cary Grant And Irene Dunne’s “The Awful Truth (1937)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts   

[In a recent introduction to this new series, a series based on short film reviews for films that deserve short reviews if not just a thumb’s up or down I noted that Allan Jackson, the deposed previous site manager, required his film reviewers to write endlessly about the film giving the material an almost cinema studies academic journal take on it. That caused a serious decline in the number of reviews over the years which I hope to make up with a flurry of snap reviews for busy people. To see in full why check the archives for November 28, 2018- Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Series. Greg Green]

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Awful Truth, starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, 1937

I am inured to the trolls who have been haunting and harassing me ever since I casually mentioned that a couple of films dealing with romance and thwarted romance especially would find no airspace on the vanilla-flavored one plot fits all Hallmark Channel that during the Christmas  has distracted a good portion of the population from anything more controversial than what to wear to the festivities in small town home town America where almost all the action takes place. One reader of those reviews in a deliberate slap in the face called me either asexual or a hermaphrodite, heartless, lacking in manly virility even in comparison to the guys the lead female character had dumped, lacking human warmth or even a pulse, and needing a brain transplant. That series of bromides from my long-time companion Laura Perkins, a devoted, should I say fanatical adherent to the Hallmark Channel at Christmastime. So you can imagine what the unformed, ill-advised trolls who apparently between 24/7/365 devotion to the channel have plenty of time to commit to no holds barred defenses of this mush.

Like I said I have become inured, had in any case expected some blow back from my comments since Laura was first on the warpath and she is generally a very civilized person, except on the question of the fake love and romance stories churned out on that network. Subsequently I have been called queer, not queer in the LGBTQ sense but as some kind of withered human being. Been called various reptilian names and been charged with crimes ranging from causing the fall of Eden way back when to aggravated assault on the senses for making unkind remarks about the silliness that dare not speak its name-although I will. And have.   

I have been doing film reviews of one kind or another for many publications of one kind or another, some with generous payment and some for a penny a word or so it seemed with the time spent and I would be hard-pressed to see plots, and I have seen some horrible ones, so mundane as those on Hallmark. Therefore I have begun a little campaign, probably hopeless and thankless, of reviewing films with a slant toward whether they would make the networks’ programming format. Or that they were too real for the mud thrown at the audience on Hallmark.    

My latest  presentation, a 1930s film to boot which given the Hollywood codes of the day should easily allow it to qualify  for Hallmark consideration, is a Cary Grant-Irene Dunne vehicle entitled The Awful Truth which is a pretty good if not great romantic comedy which nevertheless deals with the question of trust between married people, or any couple whatever their marital status or these days gender. The plotline is not spectacular but the play by play of a marriage gone down the tubes, and then resurrected, is worth a peek.

Cary, playing the gallant don’t take living on the high side of life too seriously that he made into an art form when he did comedic Mayfair swell characters, American version, is miffed at his ever-loving wife, Irene, because she seemingly has been having a flirtation, an affair although do look for that word in the script, with a French guy who she claims is her music teacher. Cary, manly, virile Cary does not believe the innocent story she had to tell about why they, she and that French guy, had been out all night. So to the courts, the chancery courts in those days for the decree nisi, including giving custody of the inevitable cute family dog to Irene. A decree which will become final in ninety days unless something happens.    

During that crucial ninety days she, Irene, gets herself engaged, reluctantly engaged, to some cowboy angel drifter from Oklahoma and he, Cary, cavorts, nice word, with some society dame with plenty of dough and status. But rather than go their separate ways this pair find about sixteen ways to cross each other’s path and either make trouble or surprise for the other. Of course, we are going for the big ending, an ending Hallmark would appreciate-the kiss and make-up at the end. And as if on cue just minutes short of the ninety- day cutoff they walk into that good night-together. But Hallmark in 2018 might object that Cary was down on his knees playing with the dog, might object that they shared an open door between bedrooms, that Irene was drunk as a skunk in one scene, that some of the songs as performed were too suggestive and showy. The list goes on. No, once again this is not fare for Hallmark eyes and ears. Let’s see what remarks Laura will make, all others I am inured to so fire away.