Carole Lombard Double Feature

Last night at the Film Forum.

8 p.m.:

9:45 p.m.:

It did my heart good to see that both shows were sold out. The line was down the block, and last night was a pretty bitter windy night, so to see the throngs huddled up in front of the Film Forum for a Carole Lombard double feature gave me hope for humanity! The old things do not have to die, or suffer in obscurity. They can LIVE forever! I had gotten to the box office as early as I could and scored two tickets, for me and Jen. We met up at a wine bar around the corner, and had some bruschetta and some wine, crammed in in the tiny joint, a buffer of warmth against the cold. Then, tickets clutched in gloved hands, we walked over to the theatre to start our double feature. I’ve seen both films (although never on the big screen) and Jen had seen neither so I was SO EXCITED for her to experience them. I was lucky enough to score ourselves spots in line close to the front, and just in time, too because people were POURING into that line from every direction. There was an altercation in line. A rowdy group of 22 (or so) year-old boys were behind us, and one dropped his soda and it splashed all over my calves. They all burst out laughing. No apology, nothing. Jen said to them, “An apology is in order.” The guy looked at me and said, “I did apologize.” Okay, sociopath, how can you say that with a straight face? I said, “Morons.” and turned away. Graceful, Sheila, good work!! So basically we were in a fight with people in line. I hate it when that happens. Sorry, boys, it ain’t my fault you weren’t raised right and don’t know how to say, “Oh my gosh, miss, I’m sorry!” It’s called good manners. You should try it some time. But we all moved on, and it didn’t ruin our night. Jen was getting hot about it, angry, and I was like, “Jen, these people will NOT ruin this night for me!” She stopped, and said, “Okay. Got it. You’re right.” And then we all were fine.

The place was packed. Sold out. Again: so exciting! Carole Lombard is not forgotten! Or who knows, maybe some of those people had never heard of her before, and this was their first taste of it. That’s exciting, too!

The movies just HIT. They WORK. People were HOWLING with laughter at John Barrymore (“I close the iron door on you!” LIke – what??) … but the real star of the night was My Man Godfrey, which started, after a 10 minute break, at 9:45. What a movie!!

It starts out strong and never lets up.

William Powell is a movie star of the highest order. From the first second you see him in that city dump, with his 5 o’clock shadow, and the intensity of his eyes, you can’t look away from him. He does his close-ups the way actors of today do close-ups. He is timeless. He does not have a “style” of acting, he does not come across as old-school … he comes across as nothing short of real. Not to mention sexy, and powerful and deep. Of course we are supposed to be seeing him through Carole Lombard’s wacky eyes from the beginning and she falls in love with him instantly – and so we do, too. Powell plays that perfectly. This is a man with secrets, with regrets … but we don’t know what they are until long into the picture. But he’s playing it from the start. God, isn’t he something else? MARVELOUS actor. He’s got sex appeal, too. It’s those eyes.

Carole Lombard basically falls apart over the course of the movie. She is just so into him and she doesn’t know how to behave because of it. But there she is, her eyes following him across the room, just DYING because she loves him so much. It’s so touching but also so funny. Even in the scenes where she is not the focus, you can see her in the background, trembling with repressed feeling, staring longingly at William Powell. She just plays it so right. She does not sacrifice reality for the comedy – and yet she is never less than 100% HYSTERICAL. In their one-on-one scenes, she can barely concentrate on what he is saying because she is too taken up with drinking him in with her eyes. You want to slap her out of it. FOCUS, Irene … FOCUS. But she can’t! She’s in love!

My Man Godfrey perfectly captures the sort of manic-family genre that was so popular in the 1930s, with scripts like The Man Who Came to Dinner and Philadelphia Story and You Can’t Take It With You. EVERYONE is insane in these scripts. The family is made up of a bunch of lunatics and eccentrics, and they all wheel through their large houses, following through on every impulse, pursuing their myriad obsessions … creating a cacaphony of lunacy and hilarity. You can’t get a moment to think in such a household. There isn’t time. People run in and out of rooms, they suddenly stop and make inappropriately sincere and insane comments, they ruminate on the meaning of life and then immediately skip off to lunch … and this is all happening with multiple people at the same time. My Man Godfrey is a runaway train of NOISE and dialogue that never lets up. It is relentless.

The audience at the Film Forum last night (yes, obnoxious 22 year olds and all) were HOWLING with laughter from start to finish.

Jen and I at one point were pretty much writhing in our seats (and the seats are really really thin at the Film Forum, none of this super-size seating … so once you’re there, you’re kind of trapped, like it’s an airline seat) … tears streaming down our face … particularly because of Carlo, the “protege”, played by the “mad Russian” Mischa Auer, who lives in the house with the family. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. A melancholic and yet manic Italian, who does an ape impression that goes on for what feels like 10 minutes – it gets to the point where everyone in the room is screaming and talking at once, and in the background, you can see Carlo, STILL GOING, being an ape all over the parlor, leaping up and grabbing onto two doors and hanging there in the middle … as the rest of the scene goes on around him. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life and I found it difficult to recover. I was still laughing about him three scenes later, it kept coming back to me, and I would find myself in tears all over again. We LOVED Carlo. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love Carlo?

A brilliant movie, with not one weak note … featuring strong performances from everyone. Everyone is at the top of their game.

But in the center of it circle William Powell, with his strong serious face, and Carole Lombard, with her undone-by-love stare … and it’s one of the greatest romances on the screen.

Beautiful night. One of those nights when the city itself – meaning New York – seems to have a sense of camaraderie. We were all in it together, there at the Film Forum, for our double feature … and we, for that brief couple of hours in time, became one. I love nights like that.

The whole movie is on Youtube – and the Carlo scene can be seen in the clip below – at around the 2:30 mark.

I am still laughing.