The Awful Truth (film)

• Release Date: 1937
• Director(s): Leo McCarey
• Writer(s): Vina Delmar
• Principal Actors and Roles: Irene Dunne (Lucy Warriner); Cary Grant (Jerry Warriner); Ralph Bellamy (Daniel Leeson); Alexander D'Arcy (Armand Duvalle)
• Book / Story Film Based On: The Awful Truth by Arthur Richman

Film Daily named The Awful Truth one of the ten best movies of 1937. The film is one of the best "screwball comedies" that were hugely popular from the onset of the Great Depression until about 1949.

The archetypal screwball comedy usually involves very rich people—typically the characters never go to work—where part of the humor comes from the style and class of the main characters. In a screwball comedy, very high-styled, elegant people say and do funny things. Slapstick is sometimes included. Part of the humor comes from the ridiculous situations in which the sophisticated, carefree individuals find themselves. The storylines often revolve around what Stanley Cavell named "comedies of remarriage" (Cavell, 1). The Awful Truth matches this archetype. A very rich couple on the verge of divorce rediscovers their deep love for one another through a series of odd conflicts.

The Awful Truth is also noteworthy for introducing Cary Grant’s suave, ironic, and hilarious style. During filming Grant disliked Leo McCrarey’s improvisational approach so much that he fought to get off the movie or even to switch roles with Ralph Bellamy. Grant later understood that McCrarey had helped him develop the persona which would win the actor a global audience. With that persona, Grant became the premier light-comedy star of all time.

Plot

The humor in screwball comedies derives mostly from word play and innuendo, often with slapstick sequences for the elegant, sophisticated characters thrown in. Humor also comes from facial expressions and close-up reactions. The comedy almost never comes from the plots, which tend to be simple. This is certainly true for The Awful Truth, which revolves around the tribulations of Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a pair of wealthy Park Avenue socialites. The story opens with Jerry at a health club hoping to use a heat lamp to get an instant tan. He needs to convince Lucy that he was in Florida for two weeks when he was not.

Jerry returns home to find Lucy missing, eventually discovering that she has spent the night trapped at an inn with her handsome, continental vocal coach, Armand Duvalle. Jerry is instantly and unjustly jealous. Even as his deception about Florida is revealed, he won’t back down. In a snit, Jerry and Lucy decide to divorce. The only real sticking point is ownership of their dog, Mr. Smith.

It takes a few months for the divorce decree to become final. Neither Jerry nor Lucy will admit their longing to be together and instead try to find ways to make one another jealous. In this Lucy is helped by her Aunt Patsy. In an effort to continue to enjoy New York nightlife, Aunt Patsy tries to generate wealthy dates for her niece. The first is an Oklahoma oilman named Dan Leeson. Lucy isn’t much interested in Dan, but she notes that Jerry doesn’t like having Dan around. So she continues to see the Oklahoman in order to irritate Jerry. This leads to a couple of very funny nightclub encounters as well as one of the most unusual renditions of "Home On the Range" ever recorded in a movie.

Eventually Aunt Patsy helps Jerry send Dan back to Oklahoma City, but in the process, Jerry thinks he has discovered further evidence of Lucy’s dalliances with Armand. In retaliation he becomes engaged to an heiress, Barbara Vance. Lucy manages to destroy the relationship by posing as Jerry’s sister and delivering a hilarious rendition of a burlesque song at a formal party while she pretends to be drunk.

It is always obvious that Jerry and Lucy belong together. Minutes before their divorce is to be finalized, they realize their folly in ever wanting to separate in the first place.

Significance

Director Leo McCrarey’s screwball comedy was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1937. McCrarey won as best director. The movie was critically acclaimed when it was released and very successful at the box office as well.

The Awful Truth itself was based on a play of the same name that ran on Broadway in 1921. Two silent films were made of it, and it was remade in 1953 as Let’s Do It Again. But the 1937 version joined a list of great screwball comedies that remain popular today. It was named by the American Film Institute to its list of "100 Films . . . 100 Laughs" in 2000 and to AFI’s list "100 Years . . . 100 Passions" in 2002. Part of its brilliance comes from the character McCrarey helped Grant develop. But Irene Dunne was expertly used as well; for example exploiting her tremendous singing voice in uniquely comic ways.

The film’s word play also set a standard that subsequent comedies often mimicked. For example, Lucy initially responds to Jerry’s jealousy by saying she was "caught in a truth." When she says she was trapped in the inn because Armand’s car broke down, Jerry snaps that the excuse is one "people stopped believing before cars started breaking down." The heiress Jerry woos is described as "millions of dollars and no sense."

This sort of repartee is set against outstanding physical humor, including a hat-switching scene that has become classic. In another scene, Jerry finds Armand in Lucy’s bedroom and a fight erupts. The audience never sees the fight, however, instead hearing thumps and grunts while Dan and Lucy have an innocuous conversation in an adjoining room. All of these comic techniques have been duplicated time and again in movies ever since.

Irene Dunne and Cary Grant were so electric together they were paired twice more, again delivering box-office success. Grant and McCrarey made three more movies together, the hard feelings that initially surrounded The Awful Truth notwithstanding.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1937) Best Director: Leo McCarey

Nominated

• Academy Award (1937) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1937) Best Actress: Irene Dunne
• Academy Award (1937) Best Supporting Actor: Ralph Bellamy
• Academy Award (1937) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Vina Delmar
• Academy Award (1937) Best Film Editing

Bibliography

Byrge, Duane. The Screwball Comedy Films: A History and Filmography, 1934-–1942. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004. Print.

Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage. 1981. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000. Print.

Everson, William K. Hollywood Bedlam: Classic Screwball Comedies. New York: Citadel Press, 1994. Print.

Gehring, Wes D. Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: Charting the Difference. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2002. Print. Studies in Film Genres.

Grant, Barry, ed. Film Genre Reader II. Austin: University of Texas, 1995. Print.

Horton, Andrew and Joanna Rapp. A Companion to Film Comedy. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Print.

Milberg, Doris. The Art of the Screwball Comedy: Madcap Entertainment From the 1930s to Today. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013. Print.

Renzi, Thomas. Screwball Comedy and Film Noir: Unexpected Connections. Jefferson: McFarland, 2012. Print.

Sikov, Ed. Screwball: Hollywood’s Madcap Romantic Comedies. New York: Crown, 1989. Print.