La bella imprudente

Now, you may say to yourself "Greer Garson **gasp** comedy?!" But this is actually a lovely movie about an actress who is attending her daughter's wedding. She hasn't seen her daughter in many years, since her husband, after "one year and two months (of marriage)... said 'Julia, I don't love you anymore. I think it's better if we separate.'" Julia was only invited by "accident", but one certain daughter insists that she stay, contrary to her grandmother's opinion. The film is very fun, if you don't have one of those minds that have type casted Greer Garson, and can't accept that she has a wider range than "Mrs. Miniver" type roles. She proves very adept at comedy, and also look for what seem to be "inside jokes" in some scenes.

Greer Garson is again teamed up with Walter Pidgeon in the delightful comedy, "Julia Misbehaves," which also stars 16-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and a very adorable Peter Lawford. Taylor and Lawford are a subplot in this film, which mainly concerns Garson as Julia, an entertainer, showing up to attend the wedding of the daughter she hasn't seen since infancy. Because of the breakup of her marriage and her transient lifestyle, she left the child with her husband's family.

This is a fun movie with some great scenes, the best of which is an acrobatic act featuring Julia. It is hilarious. Cesar Romero makes a game attempt at a Cockney accent, and is very good as Nicky, the head of the act who is interested in marrying Julia. Nigel Bruce is a man conned out of 6950 francs by Julia, and Lucile Watson is Julia's disapproving mother-in-law. Pidgeon plays Julia's husband, who hasn't seen her in years, but on encountering her again, realizes what he's been missing.

Wedding plans don't go as expected once Julia is in the house. A very pretty Elizabeth Taylor gets her first screen kiss from Lawford, and they make a charming couple. But this isn't their film, it's Garson's, in a different type of role for her. She is up to the task. Over the years, perhaps due to some of the sentimental movies she made and being raked over the coals by Pauline Kael, Garson's reputation has suffered. However, she is terrific in "Julia Misbehaves," and this entertaining film is well worth seeing.

Both Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon, having made several dramas together, have done a remarkable switch to comedy. Both are charming and classy in their romp of delight. Along the way with the help of the likes of Caesar Romero, as the head of a family of acrobats, the zany Mary Boland, his alcoholic mother [loved her hanging from the smoke stack of a liner], Nigel Bruce, a woman chaser, attempting to pick up Greer in a lady's clothing shop, Elizabeth Taylor, all of 16 years old and gorgeous, Peter Lawford, also young and gorgeous and Lucille Watson, the wealthy grand dame of the family, Greer and Walter go through the antics of falling into mud puddles, sinking into the water in a beaten up old row boat, being forced to go through a high flying acrobatic act, being slapped on the rear by a trained seal and generally having a grand time of it. Hats off to a slick and silly script and a cast of performers who don't take it seriously at all.

A a writer, i enjoy the spaciousness of this story. This is a sense-of-life portrait of an indomitable woman with a keen sense of Ionic humor, the ability to defend herself when verbally attacked and a very bright and honest mind. In her youth she had married a rich man's son and thought him strong enough to stand up to parental disapproval for the sake of his young actress wife. They had a child, a girl, then later he said he did not love her and called off the marriage. She has gotten by somehow for years; he raised the child. Only now the daughter, about to be married, wants her mother beside her at the wedding. Julia, a female in the United States where few people have any rights and females less, is cadging money off old philanderers who should know better for services not rendered; the latest is a friend of her husband's. She arrives at the house and charms everyone...from the first, the husband wonders why he had ever let her go. She finds her daughter's fiancée hopeless and makes sure she gets interested in a young painter instead. Somehow she gets involved on the way there with the Flying Ghenoccios, in whose balancing act she makes an hilarious debut atop a human pyramid, winning the eldest brother's heart. He shows up then too, complicating life for the husband. They end up nearly drowned and arguing vociferously before she finally accepts her husband's second proposal and his explanation that he had allowed his snobbish family to talk him out of love when he as young. All turns out well for all concerned; but not until after many enjoyable and sometimes farcical complications, and touching moments, occur including Julai's explanation of why "cylamen pink" would be a disaster as a color for bridesmaids' gowns. This film has luminous style in B/W and an expensive look about it, the MGM touch. The roster of those who contributed to this handsome and large-appearing production is a long and much-honored one: gowns by Irene, script adapted from Margery Sharp's "The Nutmeg Tree", direction by Jack Conway, music by Adolph Deutsch, set decorations by Edwin B. Willis, art direction by Daniel B. Cathcart and Cedric Gibbons, with cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg, script by Arthur Wimperis, Harry Riskin and William Ludwig, with adaptation by Monckton Hoffe and Gina Kaus. In the large cast Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon are the mature couple, and they are unarguably wonderful together, as always. Lucile Watson as his mother, Peter Lawford as the painter, Mary Boland as the mother of the Ghenoccios and Cesar Romero as her eldest Joe are all very good. Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Taylor as the daughter, Reginald Owen, Ian Wolfe, Henry Stephenson, Veda Ann Borg and Phyliis Moore have less to do but all do what they are asked to do very well. This is a long, pleasant and occasionally brilliant satire of its own plot line--taking responsibility for one's own values. The rich and the deluded in this trenchant look at human errors and choices do not come off particularly well; virtues, though not exclusively, seem mostly to belong to those who deal with reality and not social-class expectations and conventions and appearances---in a nation that was not supposed to have any such folderol. Julia in the person of Greer Garson is a stiff breeze of fresh air; and in the brilliant and only modestly-stuffy person of Walter Pigeon we see a human edifice in exact need of that cleansing stir, motion and source of verbiage. She is obviously exactly the woman he should have married after all and should never have let go for any reason. Forget this is Greer Garson; the film would have been accepted by public and critics in 1938 as the beautifully-made gem it is; if it was made too late, it was not too late for its genial look at human honesties and foibles, but for a nation's folk no longer much interested in realities, as it s citizens had been during the late war. A true delight and a rare and major comedy appearance for the witty and delightful stars.

Greer Garson had a charmed film career. She was discovered on the English stage by Louis B. Mayer when she was 33. Her MGM career stalled until she was cast opposite Robert Donat in the classic "Goodbye Mr. Chips"(1939) which made her an immediate major star and a worthy successor to fading MGM superstars Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Garbo. Her lovely, charismatic performance in this film brought her the first of seven Best Actress Oscar nominations. Truth be told her role was too small for such a nomination and Shearer's and Crawford's superb work in "The Women"(1939) should have gotten the nominations. Garson's next film was the disastrous "Remember"(1939) a glossy flat so-called comedy that had her much too prim and proper. But after Shearer unwisely passed on "Pride and Prejudice"(1940) Garson was cast in the central role and received raves from everyone. In retrospect she seems too old for this and the more youthful-looking classy Shearer would have been much better but this film made Garson an enormous star which she remained until a string of entertaining disasters in the early 50's. Of course Garson would win her Oscar for the excellent blockbuster "Mrs.Miniver (1942) -another dumb Shearer turn-down- and Garson would now be typecast in generally too noble and ladylike roles. Nonetheless Garson gave a sparkling performance opposite Crawford in the forgotten "When Ladies Meet"(1941) and gave marvelous natural performances in the hugely popular yet maligned "Adventure"(1946) and superb in the disastrous "Desire Me"(1947). The comedy "Julia Misbehaves" came right after and proved a tremendous hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Though superficially "the lady" once again this role allows Greer to be the comedienne and she succeeds splendidly. The sparkling script and direction, the MGM gloss, her great chemistry with Pidgeon, and the beautiful young co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Lawford add to the non-stop fun. She plays a wayward showgirl who wants to be part of her daughter's wedding even though she has not been around for years. It's the kind of light hearted romp that Hollywood tries to do now in days with Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon and surprisingly Diane Keaton. Of course these recent films rarely work as well as the delightful "Julia Misbehaves." After this Garson returned to the lady roles and had her last big hit with the stodgy technicolored "That Forsythe Woman"(1949). Most of the films that followed were failures except for her outstanding work in "Julius Caesar"(MGM,1953) and Oscar-nominated as Eleanor Roosevelt in "Sunrise at Campobello"(Warner Brothers, 1960).