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The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1930s

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Elizabeth Kendall's book analyzes a very specific and short-lived period of classic hollywood movies, coinciding in large part with the great depression. Many of the great movies of this era are notable for the strong, nuanced and mature representation of women that they portray, as distinct from films that came both before and after. Kendall explains this as a product of both the individuals (directors and actors) involved in forming these movies, and the effect the prevailing social conditions had on audience taste. Among the films that Kendall discusses in detail are 'Ladies of Leisure', 'It happened one night', 'Alice Adams', 'Swing Time', 'Mr Deeds goes to Town', 'My Man Godfrey', 'Stage Door', 'The Awful Truth', 'Love Affair', 'Penny Serenade', 'The Lady Eve' and 'The Palm Beach Story'. This is an interesting and thought provoking read about a wonderful period of movies, and it gave me some great ideas of movies I have not seen to seek out.

Along with Marjorie Rosen's "Popcorn Venus" and Brendan French's "On the Verge of Revolt," this is one of three superb feminist film books published in the '70s and '80s. Witty, engaging, and intelligent without lapsing into jargon-studded academic verbiage or theoretical pretention.

Ever since the Battelle Film Club's showing of Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, I've been on a screwball kick. Screenplays, biographies, non-fiction, what-have-you about that lunatic genre of film greatly interest me. This book by Kendall isn't solely about screwball, but rather an overview of the larger film genre that it falls under, the romantic comedy. Sturges is only the last chapter here. The majority of director coverage goes to Frank Capra and Leo McCarey, and the book goes even more into the lives of the major actresses of the period, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Claudette Colbert, who the author asserts were co-creaters of the classic romantic comedy films. The argument goes like this: due to the depression and the unusual success of particular directors (men, and I use the term correctly in this case, who were able to fulfill the cathartic needs of the public going through this rough period), these directors were given extremely free reign. They used it to explore collaborations with their favorite subjects, these independent women. Movies before and after delegated women more to the supporting roles (with notable exceptions, but only as exceptions), but in these romantic comedies of the 30s the women were the lead and often the most sympathetic and fleshed-out characters.</p>

While the descriptions of the making of the movies was quite interesting, it is the concise biographies of the people involved--directors, actors, actresses, and writers--that help you understand this moment in cinema history. An excellent book on its subject.

This is an extremely well-thought out book that should be just as interesting to a film scholar as to the casual reader. Kendall's exploration of the feminist potential in thirties romantic comedy is very assured. Biographical criticism is coming back with a vengeance (in Literary circles anyway) and the author's focus on the relationship between the directors and their female stars makes this book an ideal companion to the more textually-oriented Stanley Cavell's "Pursuits of Happiness". She chooses great movies to discuss. I particularly like her focus on the Capra-Stanwyck relationship--and I envy her for having seen "Forbidden" & "Ladies of Leisure", which I can't find anywhere!

This book is a tremendous amount of fun, especially if you watch the movies as you read the book. Elizabeth Kendall argues that at the beginning of the Depression, movie makers and watchers didn't know how to portray a heroic man any more. The bottom had just fallen out, and old-style heroes didn't make sense. So the heroine came to stand for the needs and hopes of the audience. The key movie was It Happened One Night. The analysis of this movie is worth the book alone. It focuses on how both the leads have to grow in order to be worthy of each other. (Compare this to much 1940s comedy, where that was the woman's responsibility and hers alone).

The analysis of Stage Door is also extremely insightful, as it notes that through the process of improvisation, the movie ends up being a romantic comedy with Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn playing the cross-class leads that were so important to Depression romantic comedy. Improvisation is stressed here, and the connection between the director and the leading lady is the key structuring feature of the book. This follows on Kendall's interest in dance and similar dynamics within modern dance companies.

It is so refreshing to read about these movies from a woman's point of view. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a case in point. Although many critics like it, Kendall points out that it demotes the heroine to a supporting part to the drama of Mr. Deeds. This would become ever more prominent in Capra films. She notes that Mr. Deeds, both the character and the movie, shows a sexlessness and a rejection of sexual tension in favor of a strangely maternal relationship between the leading lady and the hero. Kendall relates this to Capra's quasi-breakdown and conversion to Christian Science before filming Mr. Deeds. That really helps me to understand the difference between It Happened One Night and Capra's later films, which aside from It's a Wonderful Life, tend to hit you over the head with their Message.

Give yourself a treat and read this book.

This book is focused upon the emergence of the female star personality, and how the directors integrated and evolved their personas into romantic comedies, filled with prescient social meaning. I say emergence, because actresses like men, had to fight for status and recognition in a Hollywood that was literally inventing itself. Kendall's chapters on Claudette Colbert: Capra and "It Happened One Night"; Katharine Hepburn: Stevens and "Alice Adams"; Ginger Rogers: Stevens and "Swing Time"...to name just three...are sharp and originally insightful. And the chapter on my favorite screwball comedienne, Jean Arthur, and the wonderful Myrna Loy, like the others, is noteworthy for its clarity, contrast, and precision. The whole effort is a real contribution to understanding of the rise of the star-actress, in what was then, the "man's world" of classic Hollywood.

In this regard, highly insightful, is her take on "Stage Door", where Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers work off each other's characters...or, is it their own selves...to support La Cava's vision of a stunning ensemble of spirited depression era women, struggling, and wise cracking, their way towards independence....financial, professional, and personal.

Aside from her right-on understanding of the Stevens/Rogers partnership, I have one quibble regarding Sandrich/Rogers in "Follow the Fleet". Kendall writes that the film (and its writers), "never bothers to show us (her) disappointment, or anger" at Fred's bumbling interference....causing her, twice to lose her job. In fact, she not only gets angry, she GETS EVEN! She tricks Fred into jealousy, with an out-of-uniform officer...which lands Fred in a fountain, dripping wet, and into "the brig"...as she walks off with the officer arm in arm. In addition, Sherry also puts Bake's wise-guy persona to the test, by linking her acceptance of him, to his help with her sister's fate. A pretty tough cookie, Sherry is.

I think that Stevens "went to school" on "Follow the Fleet". He even does his own imaginatively bright version of Ginger's firing, just as he completes Fred's deconstruction, that Sandrich began. However much he belittled her, Sandrich cracked the door, that Stevens and Rogers walked through.

[I take special attention to this because, I think "Follow the Fleet", just before "Swing Time" in 1936, is one of the quietly great films of the series...and because it has one of the most, almost supernaturally beautiful, and memorably elevated....pantomime, acting, song, and dance-of-courtship numbers, of any film ever made....in "Let's Face the Music and Dance". It's a human victory over despair and doubt...a powerfully evocative and blindingly elegant paired dance, that exudes pure courage, mutual empathy, dignity, and strength...right in the teeth of the Great Depression...the living national drama, stewing outside the movie house doors. Note that in this dance, Fred is a gambler-in-tux, who, as in "Swing Time", has no money, meets Ginger by chance...and together, resolve their unhappy situations, and exit, arm in arm, stage right.]

This quibble notwithstanding, the book is a most stimulating read, especially for those familiar with the films. It's food for further thought and appreciation...clearly written, well researched, and full of good information, careful analysis; with no agenda to sensationalize. It does what all good criticism does: It provides solid information and deepens understanding. The true-to-life individual narratives, of the actresses and the film makers, have plenty of zip and spunk, to make such typically exaggerated exercises redundant. Kendall is now a proven master of the genre, and this book demonstrates it.

I found out about this book when researching Clara Bow. It really is terrific. I suggest you read it right away!