Dulcy

like the zany madcap film Merrily We Live, "Dulcy" is a week in the life of a trusting, upperclass family with too much money and not enough hobbies. When they meet up with strangers, they blindly invite them into their lives and into their house. Although mostly scrubbed clean for the production code, their ARE some ethnic jokes and slurs which were prevalent at the time. Billie Burke (best known as Glenda the Good Witch) was also in Merrily We Live, which also had a clever, fast-moving script. Beautiful outdoor photography of Lake Arrowhead, California, back in its hayday. The best part of this film is Reginald Gardiner, who plays one of the "Schuyler van Dykes" (really).... two years later Gardiner will play the hilarious Beverly Carlton in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Viewers will also recognize Dad Forbes (Roland Young) from Topper and Philadelphia Story. The film goes in all directions and moves right along... fun flick as long as you don't look too closely at the plot.

This is at least the third time that the stage play "Dulcy" by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly was made by MGM into a film. A silent featuring Constance Talmadge appeared in 1923. Version No. 2 appears under the title "Not So Dumb" in 1930 and features Marion Davies (directed by King Vidor). A CD version is available featuring Zazu Pitts in a 1935 radio broadcast and you can pull down off the internet a 1937 radio version with Gracie Allen. Dulcy must have been a real hit on the stage and I would expect that the Gracie Allen version was a hoot. I just did not think this was a slap on the leg comedy that aged well for viewers the 21st Century. The story's premise is that a scatterbrained young woman tries to turn a weekend social event into a business opportunity for her fiancé. Ann Sothern is a good actress but the material just does not seem quite as funny as it obviously must have decades ago. There are clever written gags and lots of physical comedy. The material has the actresses in the lead playing as if they were actually dumb - not just clever and using being dumb as a technique to get their way. Today we no longer find funny folks who are not that bright and who seem to glide through life oblivious to their situation. All ends well, despite Dulcy's efforts, and perhaps some of you will find this a pleasant diversion. Recommended for social scientists and anthropologists attempting to research what was funny to us when.

Later entry in the madcap comedy sweepstakes is paper thin but buoyed by the charming Ann Sothern. Wedged in between two Maisie pictures she gets to be a bit more addled than that resourceful gal ever was. She "fixs" things that work fine breaking them in the process and generally glides through the picture creating havoc in her wake while remaining completely unscathed.

As with most MGM movies of the era she is surrounded by an amazing cast of some of the best character actors/actresses working at the time. Billie Burke is delightfully dizzy almost matching Sothern's daffiness but the real standout besides Ann is Roland Young as the target of her unintentional "good deeds".

Inventive and illuminating it is not but thanks to the charming performances of the cast led by Ann this little known picture is worth checking out.

This film came at the end of the genre. The script is mirthless,and as a result the actors struggle manfully with their parts. Sotherns part is of a thoroughly obnoxious woman's whose antics border on the insane. She gabbles her part leading to the assumption that she wants to get to the end as soon as possible.

This movie has a great cast of comedians, but even they can't bring much life to a dead script.

Why the script is so dead is the real mystery here. It is based on a Broadway success by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. But if you compare the two works, you see that this movie script was radically altered from the original play.

What we are left with is a lot of slapstick sight-gags, some of which are funny, some not, and a lot of really hairbrained events. No one comes of as even vaguely real.

So, in the end, a fine cast that could have done great things is left high and dry - unlike the characters, who often end up all wet.