It’s a Wonderful Cast, and This Has Become a Tiresome Gimmick The script is the work of Ben Hecht, who also gave us the back-to-back Hitchcock winners Spellbound and Notorious, as well as Wuthering Heights, The Front Page and A Farewell to Arms. I’ll admit that invoking Hitchcock’s name whenever there’s a hint of suspense or mystery comes a little too easily, but it’s entirely appropriate in this case. Therein lies another similarity to Hitchcock-we always know more about what’s going on than the characters do, and that creates plenty of opportunities for Sir Alfred’s favorite breed of suspense. I’ve given away most of the plot already and there’s really no harm in that, because the mystery in the film-who killed Ernest Truex’s wife?-is only a mystery to the people in the film, and not even to all of them. In the end, though, he had to settle for the incomparable Claudette Colbert for the part of the poet Edwina Corday. Van Dyke also directed Thin Man stars William Powell and Myrna Loy earlier that year in their first film together, Manhattan Melodrama, and he wanted Ms. Griffith on his film Intolerance, and he went on to direct franchise-starters Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and The Thin Man (1934). He started his career alongside Erich von Stroheim as an assistant to director D. Although his name sounds like that of a Preston Sturges character, it’s actually the full name of It’s a Wonderful World’s director, though he’s always billed as W. What is, McCrocodile? No, I mean Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke. Both films are classifiable as road movie-mysteries, and both have romantic screwball comedy elements and for you 39 Steps fans who balk at connecting it with the screwball genre, I have one word: McCrocodile. In the course of this pursuit, he becomes attached-literally and figuratively-to a woman who aids him in proving his innocence. The plot of It’s a Wonderful World more closely resembles a Hitchcock film rather than one of Capra’s I have in mind particularly Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps: a man, accused of a crime he did not commit, races cross-country (and one step ahead of the cops) to nail the real culprit. Furthermore, of Frank Capra’s films, the one that most resembles It’s a Wonderful World is It Happened One Night: both are “road movies,” and both star Claudette Colbert. One of my first clues that It’s a Wonderful World could never have been called It’s a Wonderful Life 2 (or worse, “It’s a Wonderful Life, Too”) is that Life was released in 1946, while It’s a Wonderful World came out in 1939, and the era of Episode IV showing up years before Episode I didn’t become acceptable for another 30 years. Also, I think I remember being told by a friend, whom I once considered a film expert, that It’s a Wonderful World was a sequel to It’s a Wonderful Life. It does, however, star Jimmy Stewart, which may be why for so long I had the mistaken impression that it was related to that beloved and, for the most part, justly revered Frank Capra signature movie. I should have said “It’s not It’s a Wonderful Life,” because one of the most important introductory facts about the movie I’m about to recommend is that it isn’t. As Ben suspects that it is his own cynicism corroding the beauty around him, he realizes that it's all a matter of perspective.My apologies. Ben's life begins to turn around with the arrival of Ibou's beautiful and sexy sister Khadi (Sanaa Lathan, "The Family That Preys") from Senegal, who moves into Ibou's room in Ben's apartment. When Ibou is suddenly struck ill and an insensitive municipal employee exacerbates the emergency situation, Ben pours his energy into a lawsuit against the city for depraved indifference. Struggling in all aspects of his life, Ben's only comforts come from smoking marijuana alone and regular chess games with his smart and opinionated Senegalese roommate Ibou (Michael Kenneth Williams, "The Wire," "The Road"). A bittersweet comedy about families, friends and a frivolous fight against corporate institutions, Matthew Broderick ("Finding Amanda", "The Producers") plays Ben Singer, a failed children's folk singer, a newly unemployed proofreader and an every-other-weekend dad to his young daughter (Jodelle Ferland), who prefers pretty much anything to listening to her dad's pessimistic ramblings.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |