The Guardsman

The Guardsman is now one of my 10 favorite films. Thanks to Turner Classic Movies audiences can continue to see the brilliant performances of Lunt and Fontanne in this hilarious play made into a film. The performances of the support cast are excellent, especially that of Roland Young.

The Guardsman does what a good comedy should do. It should make us laugh, give us insights into the human condition, and keep us wondering what will happen next to characters that we care about.

I laughed out loud and watched the unpredictable plot move through scenes of witty, fast paced dialog that led to an ending that lived up to everything that preceded it. If you carefully watch Fontanne in the ending, you will be certain of the meaning of her character's smile.

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are legendary among Broadway actors and this married couple were among the most respected stage actors of their day. Despite this, this power couple only made one sound film together (as well as a brief cameo in "Stage Door Canteen") and Hollywood was excited about their pairing--and both were nominated for an Oscar for their performances in the movie. Despite this, however, they didn't seem to want the Hollywood life and returned to Broadway.

When the film begins, the pair* are just completing yet another very successful performance. However, despite their smiles and the opinion of their fans that they are the perfect couple, the pair fight incessantly...and even do so with smiles on their faces as they take their bows! Soon you learn that he is very jealous of his wife and suspects she's cheating. And, to prove it, he creates a fake identity and begins sending his wife flowers and letters. But because he thinks he's the world's greatest actor, he even arranged to meet her in disguise. What happens next? See the film.

I think "The Guardsman" is a great example of a film that was overhyped simply because of the actors in it. Lunt and Fontanne was legendary...so folks thought it was brilliant. When seen today, the brilliant is difficult to see and the plot seems utterly unworkable as a film. After all, what wife would not recognize her own husband in disguise making love to her?! I think folks back in 1931 were able to suspend disbelief...I sure wasn't. In fact, I was bored and my score of 5 is pretty generous.

For a better film with a somewhat similar plot, try Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in "It's Love I'm After". It's not a work of genius but takes similar material and does more with it. Overall, "The Guardsman" is very talky, has a ridiculous plot and, dare I say it, a bit of overacting. And, occasionally, the great stage actors (particularly Lunt) have a tendency to talk over other actors as they deliver their lines.

*Lunt and Fontanne are not given names in the script...a strange thing and I cannot think of another film like this.

Real life husband and wife duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne play famous married theater performers (named in the credits only as The Actor and The Actress). The Actor is so convinced that his wife would be unfaithful to him if given the chance, he dresses up like a Russian officer to try and seduce her. The Guardsman remains the only sound film that either Lunt or Fontanne ever did, which is a damn shame. Both actors achieve a natural quality on screen rarely equaled in thirties films. Lunt especially gives a knockout comedic performance, not only as the whining, conceited, jealous husband, but also as the brash and passionate Guardsman. The rest of the cast play their parts perfectly as well, doing justice to the delightfully witty script. It looses some momentum in the second half, as the film slowly works its way to the conclusion you know is coming. They definitely could have played with the scenario a bit more. Nonetheless, it makes for a very enjoyable comedy.

Although Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne did do several television plays that have been recorded for posterity, The Guardsman represents the only sound filmed record we have of them at the height of their fame as America's leading thespian couple.

Years ago I read a joint biography of the Lunts and the two of them felt quite strongly that live performance was the only true test of acting ability. They also felt it was important to bring theater out to the hinterlands. Rather than be on a sound stage in Hollywood, the Lunts made many road show tours of their Broadway hits and other plays in a tremendous amount of small theaters. The problem for posterity is that those who remember seeing the Lunts on stage are getting older and fewer.

No doubt they took The Guardsman on the road after its 248 performance Broadway run in 1924-25. Given their aversion to film, it's a wonder that Irving Thalberg got them at all for a film.

This work has a play within a play, in fact the inner play in this is Maxwell Anderson's The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex. It opens with the Lunts doing the final scene from that work and to tumultuous applause as the curtain closes, we find these two bickering incessantly as Alfred is almost insanely jealous of every attention his wife receives from admirers. What to do?

So poor Alfred hatches a cockeyed scheme where with heavy makeup and costume he makes himself out to be a Russian Cossack guardsman who is quite willing to ignore marital conventions for the pleasures that Lynn can offer him. And he puts on a big campaign to win Lynn away from himself.

Ferenc Molnar's play was remade by MGM ten years later in The Chocolate Soldier which was the operetta within the play as Nelson Eddy and Rise Stevens played the roles the Lunts originated. The prose of Maxwell Anderson is replaced by the songs of Oscar Strauss from his operetta The Chocolate Soldier. But Molnar's The Guardsman plot remains the same.

The play was a tour de force for the Lunts and I don't think it was an accident that the Academy gave its only recognition of this film with Oscar nominations for Alfred and Lynne as Best Actor and Best Actress. It really is quite the personal vehicle.

By the way Herman Bing has a small role as a creditor who is trying to get a bill paid from Alfred. In the end he really deflates the pretentious Lunt and you have to see how he does it.

One of the other items there is a filmed record of is a Hallmark Hall of Fame production Yankee From Olympus that the Lunts did live for television in the Sixties. It's very good and I did do a user comment on it.

But for a chance to see the Lunts at their height, The Guardsman is the one and only vehicle for that.

The names Lunt and Fontanne to this day signify greatness in acting. This famous stage couple has a theater named after them in New York City. To see some of these "great names" perform, though, can prove to be the shattering of illusions. Today's acting styles are so different than they were back then, and one sometimes expects to see hammy gestures, trembling voices, and over the top melodrama.

I am thrilled to report that Lunt and Fontanne live up to their reputation and are as wonderful today as they were back then when they filmed their hit play, "The Guardsman." It's a silly story -- a husband and wife theatrical couple spar at each other, and the husband believes his wife is unfaithful. To test her, he disguises himself as a Russian guardsman and attempts to seduce her.

Lunt and Fontanne were a very attractive couple and absolutely charming. Their performance in a scene from "Elizabeth the Queen" at the very beginning of the film had me hankering for more. I wish they had made other films, but they refused, finding it too boring.

A real treat.