Grumpy

GRUMPY is now an underrated film. It was George Cukor's first film as a dialogue director. It's a combination of an American production with first-class English acting and speaking. There's an entire absence of American accent. Cyril Maude is at his best in the role that he made famous in the stage play (in four acts). This film has the addition of a few scenes that could not be given on the legitimate stage. The film is rather static and stage-bound but nevertheless very entertaining. Cyril Maude makes of Grumpy a magnetic personality. Also good acting by Frances Dade and the excellent Phillips Holmes. Very funny dialogues.

The film survives intact and was shown at the George Cukor Retrospective in London in 2004 and at Lincoln Center in 2013. However, the film is curently only available on poor quality (DVD) transfers. I am hoping for a release in the Warner Archive Collection with their top-notch print quality DVD's.

Cyril Maude was born way back in 1862 and was an accomplished stage actor long before motion pictures had even started. He came to the new medium in 1914 making a few silents before his first talkie "Grumpy" in 1930. This of course was an ideal start to his talking picture career as he had been playing the title role for near to two decades and made it his own as had George Arliss made "Disraeli" his own.

The idea of "Grumpy" being transferred to film was not novel, as it had been done as a silent in 1923 with Theodore Roberts taking the title role and interestingly enough, the talking version was also photographed in America - at Paramount's New York studios (no doubt so that Mr. Maude could do his stage work in the evenings).

George Cukor was selected to direct "Grumpy" and it was his first directorial endeavor. One would tend to think that he would have had an easy job of it, only being required to translate Mr. Maud's thorough knowledge of the work into film language.

The storyline to "Grumpy" is probably hackneyed to today's audiences as there have been such a proliferation of this type of 'jewel robbery' pictures over the years - and the only redeeming feature is perhaps the performance Cyril Maude gives - although that too is perhaps too theatrically handed for film. He plays the part of an aged ex-barrister living in retirement as a grumpy old man, irritating and loveable at the same time. A jewel is stolen, and Grumpy eventually solves the mystery. That is the story in a nutshell and the whole thing is quite entertaining if one allows oneself to watch the show in the guise of a 1930's movie-goer and thus not be overtaken with 21st Century values.

Mr. Maude was assisted in this photoplay by fellow English countrymen, Halliwell Hobbes, Robert Bolder and Paul Cavanagh, Scotsman Olaf Hytton, Irishman Colin Kenny, Austro-Hungarian Paul Lukas and Americans Phillips Holmes, Francis Dade and Doris Luray.

This film to me was interesting as a historical document - preserving for all-time a famous performance.

Cyril Maude, who talks like a Regency survivor in this modern-dress version of the play -- modern for 1930 -- is a doddering old fool who loves his grand daughter, Frances Dade, very much. When Phillips Holmes comes back from Africa, carrying a large diamond for his employer, he stops in on the old man and to make sure she is aware that now that he has a good job and prospects, he's going to make love to her the next afternoon, preparatory to their getting married.

Everyone is overjoyed, including the household staff, but then when Holmes is smoking a cigarette, the lights go out, he gets into a fight, and lies there unconscious, while the diamond goes missing. Whereupon it's up to Mr. Maude to dodder off into town and deal with the matter.

It's a sound remake of William Demille's smash 1923 silent version, and both are based on a successful play. It's notable for being George Cukor's first credit as director; since Cyril Gardner is credited as co-director, I expect Cukor directed the performances, while Gardner, who had been editing films for a dozen years, supervised set-ups and camera angles. His previous directorial credit had been on the Spanish-language version of THE BENSON MURDER CASE.

I don't know how much direction Mr. Maude took; his performance is so full of harrumphing and antiquated expressions, that it looks like a stage performance. The other performers give much more reserved performances, which might be at Mr. Cukor's direction, to allow Maude to dominate. Which he does, in a delightfully large turn.