Grand Slam

I like the oldies, usually, and this one did not disappoint.

I thought it was wittily presented, taking the upper-middle class game of bridge and making it the national obsession across all classes. And it was a nice touch that the Russian hero/waiter/writer/bridge expert did not try to present himself as a Czarist aristocrat.

Loretta Young was her gorgeous, likable self; Paul Lukacs was a revelation to me (so handsome, so youngish); and the rest of the cast were the usual great 1930's supporters.

One of its virtues was its length. Movies today are too long, especially comedies where the humorous premise gets overworked. This little bit of froth was just right!

1933 seemed to be a great year for satires ("Duck Soup" for instance) and this one fits in well even though it is about the obsession with contract bridge. The tone is like a humorous piece from The New Yorker, appropriate, since the film begins with the "Goings On About Town" page of that magazine. The only thing odd is the casting. Made a few years later William Powell and Myrna Loy would have been perfect. However, after 1934, you wouldn't have had adultery handled in such a sophisticated fashion, the young and beautiful Loretta Young in some shear and slinky outfits, or a group of prostitutes listening to a bridge contest on radio. Even if you know nothing about bridge, you may still want to check out a rare example of Hollywood satire.

The current score for grand slam is astounding for a little movie so well-directed, well-acted and so truly funny.

For those who know bridge and satire, there are some laugh-out-loud moments, particularly the vignettes of husbands and wives fighting across the tables. In fact, Stanislavsky's bridge "system" is all about keeping couples together by doing away with the rules entirely. Of course, this is a goof on the other Stanislavsky's "method" acting, which is not to act at all.

The scenes where the stuffed-shirt bridge establishment meets Stanislavsky are priceless. They just can't imagine how anybody, much less a common waiter, can make an opening bid of 7 spades, much less win. And there's the cleft between bridge players and pinochle players, who consider bridge players sissies.

A younger Paul Lukas is charming as Stanislavsky, a Russian emigré who is not an aristocrat, not a general, but rather "a genius". His wife, the key to his fame, is Loretta Young at her loveliest. They and a great supporting cast are handled, and the scenes expertly paced, by A-list director William Dieterle.

The crucial match is fought as if it were a heavyweight title fight, complete with breathless play-by-play, complete with climactic moment where the whole world stops -- literally! Of course, all of this is over-the-top, and all of it works, if you get the bridge craze that had swept America for the first half of the 20th century to ridiculous extremes.

In fact, it's still going on. Did you know that the 2008 financial meltdown and recession we're still feeling can arguably be put to bridge? One of the key players in the meltdown was investment bank Bear Stearns. There was a run on this bank, while its CEO was out of the loop...playing bridge.

Grand Slam is a good-natured dig at pop fame and enthusiasms. As Stanislavsky said to the microphone as he was being carried of the field of play, "Hello, Ma!"

In fact, the more I think of how delightful this comedy of manners is, the more frustrated I am by the score. This movie deserves at least a 7. I give it an 8.

This film breeches the fine line between satire and silliness. While a bridge system that has no rules may promote marital harmony, it certainly can't promote winning bridge, so the satire didn't work for me. But there were some items I found enjoyable anyway, especially with the big bridge match between Paul Lukas and Ferdinand Gottschalk near the end of the film. It is treated like very much like a championship boxing match. Not only is the arena for the contest roped off in a square area like a boxing ring, there is a referee hovering between the contestants, and radio broadcaster Roscoe Karns delivers nonstop chatter on the happenings. At one point he even enumerates "One... Two... Three... Four..." as though a bid of four diamonds was a knockdown event. And people were glued to their radios for it all, a common event for championship boxing matches. That spoof worked very well indeed.

Unfortunately, few of the actors provide the comedy needed to sustain the intended satire. Paul Lukas doesn't have much of a flair for comedy and is miscast; lovely Loretta Young and the usual comic Frank McHugh weren't given good enough lines; Glenda Farrell has a nice comic turn as a forgetful blonde at the start of the film, but she practically disappears thereafter. What a waste of talent!

One of the funniest comedy shorts I've seen is Al St. John's "Bridge Wives". It's ridiculous and over the top as it shows a husband losing his mind because his wife has been playing a marathon bridge game for weeks...only for it to end in a tie! Well, while "Grand Slam" isn't quite as memorable, it's quite similar and is apparently evidence that bridge was a VERY popular game back in the 1930s. It would help to understand the movie better if you understand Bridge, though you still can enjoy it regardless.

Peter Stanislavsky (Paul Lukas) is apparently very good at playing bridge, though he obviously doesn't seem to enjoy the game nor the drama that often accompanies it. Later, he ends up being pushed into playing a game and doesn't realize that one of the people he's playing against is considered the world's greatest Bridge player. Well, after defeating this champion handily, suddenly Peter is famous...and his life certainly changes for the worse. Ultimately, it even ruins his marriage to Marcia (Loretta Young).

While I'd never say it's a laugh out loud film like "Bridge Wives", it is clever and enjoyable...and I nearly gave it an 8. Unusual and well made for a B-movie.