You Gotta Stay Happy

Though "You Gotta Stay Happy" came after the heyday of screwball comedies, it follows the recipe well enough: take one zany heiress, mix up with earnest hero, add wise-cracking best friend, toss in some comic stereotypes for support, add a dash of innocent deception to get the plot rolling, then a pinch of mistaken identity (or something like it) to keep things stirred up, and top off with some chaste romance. Bake (or half-bake) for a little over an hour and a half, garnish with a cigar-smoking chimpanzee, and... voilà! Enjoyable light entertainment. You may be hungry an hour later, but it's fun while it lasts.

Jimmy Stewart's Marvin Payne is a variation on the actor's patented good-guy persona: a decent if sometimes cranky pilot, he's trying to keep his ramshackle airline *and* his carefully crafted life-plan running smoothly. Joan Fontaine, proving surprisingly proficient at comedy, plays indecisive rich girl Dee-Dee Dillwood, whose antics seem calculated to throw Marvin off schedule in both arenas. And Eddie Albert, as "Bullets" Baker, shines in an early and excellent incarnation of what would become his trademark 1950s character-- the lovable sidekick.

It's hard to outline the plot without giving it all away-- partly because all the pieces are intertwined, and partly because there aren't all that many pieces-- but I'll try. Fontaine's running from the altar, and Stewart, not fully aware of her circumstances, is somehow persuaded to let her aboard his cargo plane. Meanwhile, co-pilot Albert has enterprisingly sold seats to a few other unauthorized personnel. Will our intrepid fly-boys manage to steer their two-engine plane through stormy weather to complete all deliveries and stave off bankruptcy, or will they be too distracted by the fact that the police seem to be looking for one of their illicit passengers? And how about Stewart's heart, which seems to be flip-flopping for Fontaine a full six years ahead of schedule (he's penciled in "love" for 1954)? Will he be relieved or upset, if and when he learns her full story? It'd be too much to say that "the plane lifts off and hilarity ensues," but I was both amused by the proceedings and invested enough in the leads to care whether they got their happy ending. A warning: some of the aforementioned comic stereotypes-- naive Native Americans, women content to stay in their place-- haven't aged as well as others, so put on your 1940s hat before popping in the DVD.

I think this movie is charming. It is part farce and part whimsy. It is not a great comedy, and I don't think it was ever intended to be. It has a few stereotypical characters, but that can be fun. I have seen the movie several times. It is pure escapism.

Real-life airman James Stewart is enjoyed here in the first of his pilot roles. Eddie Albert, who would somehow not enjoy outdoing himself five years later in Roman Holiday, is well cast. Joan Fontaine lifted my already high opinion of her by delightfully playing an heiress whose charm and beauty are only matched by her extraordinary wealth.

You Gotta Stay Happy is one of Stewart's more rarely seen pictures despite my high rating. Fans of the aforementioned actors should consider it recommended.

At first I thought You Gotta Stay Happy was just going to be a version of Runaway Bride (decades before that movie came out) and I was not at all excited about that. However, that's not the story being told here. Joan Fontaine isn't playing a woman who is frightened of commitment, instead she's simply a woman who hasn't found the right person. It's a subtle difference, but I appreciated that, and it made the romance click for me. I absolutely loved the early scenes with all the mix-ups in the hotel room. It was charming, and I am always entertained by what was considered scandalous behavior back in the 40s and 50s. If there was any problem with those early scenes it is how quickly the husband is written out of the story, and he doesn't even seem to put any effort into finding his own spouse.

Of course, I wasn't interested in watching a love triangle film, so in the long run I like that James Stewart and Joan Fontaine get so much time alone together (although sometimes with a monkey or Eddie Albert.) Their romance was convincing and I thought they had a nice chemistry with one another. The silly stuff that goes on with their flight is humorous, and I liked how it all snowballed from no passengers to a whole handful of people on board. It was kind of weird that we didn't see all those people hanging around all the time, but they needed to create alone time for the 2 leads. Now, every good rom-com has to have a conflict, and that's the biggest struggle with You Gotta Stay Happy. The things that upset James Stewart's character are kind of ridiculous for anyone to take as offensive or disappointing. I took it all in stride because it was matching the tropes I expect from this genre, but with some different choices I would have loved the film more.

In New York, the spoiled Diana "Dee Dee" Dillwood (Joan Fontaine) is an indecisive millionaire that has broken with her various fiancées. Her uncle and her psychiatrist convince Diana to get married with Henry Benson (Willard Parker) and they go to a fancy hotel. Meanwhile the pilot Marvin "Marv" Payne (James Stewart), who owns an air flight company with two old airplanes with his friend Bullets Baker (Eddie Albert), lodges in the wedding suite on the next door of Dee Dee and Henry expecting to rest to fly to California on the next morning. Dee Dee flees from the wedding night and hides in Marv's room. She uses a strong sleeping pill and on the next morning, she does not wake up. Marv and Bullets take her to the airport and she convinces them to take her to California with them and a chimpanzee; a soppy couple that has just married; an embezzler with a wallet full of money; a coffin with a body; and frozen seafood. After a storm, passenger and crew are stranded in a farm of a hospitable family where Dee Dee learns that the she will find her true love when she kisses the right man.

"You Gotta Stay Happy" is a delightful screwball comedy with James Stewart and Jean Fontaine that show wonderful chemistry. I saw this movie yesterday and I laughed a lot with the funny situations, especially when the poor Marv wants to sleep and is interrupted many times. It is amazing how Hollywood does not present a tribute to Jean Fontaine (96), to her sister Olivia de Havilland (97), to Maureen O'Hara (90) and to Lauren Bacall (89) and any other actor or actress from the Golden Age still alive in the Oscar ceremony. Ms. Lauren Bacall is still filming but it would be heartwarming to see Ms. Jean Fontaine, Ms. Olivia de Havilland and Ms. Maureen O'Hara reunited again, after all those years. My vote is eight.

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