O Amor é uma Dor de Cabeça

LOVE IS A HEADACHE (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1938) directed by Richard Thorpe, stars Gladys George in a welcome change of pace, COMEDY. After a couple of serious dramas (STRAIGHT IS THE WAY (1934) and THEY GAVE HIM A GUN (1937) both with Franchot Tone, and notable tearjerkers (VALIANT IS THE WORD FOR CARRIE (1936) and MADAME X (1937)), George gets her chance to make her audience laugh. Though the title isn't as impressive as the story, this is George in rare form. Cast opposite Franchot Tone for the third and final time, working opposite a couple of kids again (Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler) as she did in VALIANT IS THE WORD FOR CARRIE, George shows she can be just as amusing as she can be sentimental.

Carlotta Lee (Gladys George) is a stage actress whose recent play, "A Lady of Experience" has closed after two days. With four consecutive flops in a row, Carlotta goes after the upcoming production of "Carolina" by Sam Ellinger. Peter Lawrence (Franchot Tone), a columnist of the New York Chronicle, having known Carlotta most of her life, keeps advising her not to assume roles in plays that would hurt her career but prefers to listen to her own conscience in play selections instead. Assisted by Jimmy Slattery (Ted Healy), her press agent, Carlotta is acquainted with Reginald Odell (Ralph Morgan) who has inherited $40 million and wants to marry her. After Joe Cannon gives the news to Peter that their former classmate from the old neighborhood, Francis X. "Buck Teeth" O'Tool, a window cleaner having plunged to his death from a twelve-story building leaving his two kids orphans, Fred decides to help the O'Toole children, Mike (Mickey Rooney) and his kid sister, Jake (Virginia Weidler) from being sent separately to an orphanage by finding them a permanent home. Following Fred's broadcast over the radio, Jimmy arranges for the kids to live in the luxurious home of Carlotta Lee without her knowledge. Not only is Carlotta angry about having a couple of street wise kids upsetting her daily routine but is equally upset with Fred accusing her of taking in these kids for publicity reasons with intentions of taking them away from her. Co-starring Fay Holden (Mary, Peter's Secretary); and Barnett Parker (Hutchkiss, the Butler). Character actress Jessie Ralph is quite amusing as both sheriff and justice of the peace of a small Connecticut town.

LOVE IS A HEADACHE is a likable story that plays fast for its 73-minutes. Aside from Gladys George gathering enough attention as a temperamental actress who only plays polite in front of the press and showing her true self behind closed doors, Ted Healy (in his final movie role) and Frank Jenks do an amusing byplay reminiscent to comedy team of George Burns and Gracie Allen pertaining to "Reincarnation." With other amusing bits by Gladys George, it's a pity she didn't get to do more comedies like this. She and Tone give the impression they were enjoying themselves during production, and it shows.

Seldom broadcast on commercial television since the 1960s, LOVE IS A HEADACHE began to surface regularly on cable television's Turner Classic Movies since 1994. For anybody who knows Gladys George solely as a character actress in secondary or minor parts of the 1940s should get to watch her in a rare leading performance that indicates love is a headache but also a whole lot of fun, too. (***)

Remember that brief period of time when Franchot Tone was young, handsome, making good movies, and not yet destroyed by life? If you love him like I do, check out Love Is a Headache. It was before his infamous divorce and subsequent wrong paths, and he's at his handsome and charming best. In this romance, he's paired with Gladys George, an actress he bickers with as much as he woos. She's had a string of stage flops, and in an attempt to gain positive publicity before her new show opens, she adopts a pair of recently orphaned kids, Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler. Franchot is a newspaper man famous for telling it like it is, and he's been the one behind the negative theatrical reviews. He was also a friend of the kids' parents, so he doesn't want to see them taken advantage of just for publicity.

This one has some laughs, some cute parts, and a healthy enough dose of drama to make it feel like a grown-up movie. Both leads were enjoying their peaks in the 1930s, before age and life and newer stars took their places. Check this one out if you like stories about hardened hearts getting softened by kiddies, or if you like the cast. You'll also see Frank Jenks among the supporting players, as Franchot's completely inept sidekick who makes mistakes as easily as breathing, and Ralph Morgan, as Gladys's ardent admirer with no flaws other than the fact that he's not Franchot Tone.

Gladys George is a fine leading lady of the stage. She's been in a string of flops recently. Franchot Tone is a Broadway columnist for a newspaper. Personally they like each other a lot. Professionally they fight like cats and dogs. He gets her fired from her latest show. Her idiot publicity man, Ted Healy (in his last role) has her adopt Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler.

And so on and so on. There are a couple of subplots, like ridiculously wealthy Ralph Morgan wanting to marry her. This movie looks like they started with the bare bones and kept adding stuff in a desperate attempt to bring it up to a length they could use. A lot of it doesn't work, especially the ending, Barnett Parker as Miss George's dull butler, and Tone's inconsistent performance.

Yet a lot of the details do work, enough to keep this working throughout. There are lots of excellent wisecracks, most of which, oddly enough, wind up in Virginia Weidler's mouth, and she delivers them well. It's a case.

This gives the superb Gladys George a good, meaty role. The plot is a bit well-worn. But she is in all her glory as a temperamental grand lady of the stage with a heart of gold. (The plot involves no drinking on her part, which is a nice change from the general typecasting her tough voice and soft manner brought.) Let's get one thing clear: The title means nothing. It seems slapped on out of desperation. What romantic title could not be called "Love Is A Headache"? From "Gone With the Wind" to "Mala Noche," with many stops in between, there could have been hundreds of movies with that title.

The supporting cast is fun. Franchot Tone is fine. Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler are real pros.

Though I liked this primarily because of Ms. George, I have to say that Rooney shines. He had that quality the camera loved that certain big stars had. Marilyn Monroe is one of them. When either of these two appeared in a movie's early scenes, the audience sits up and says "Whoa! Who is THIS?"

This is yet another variation on a genre Hollywood used to make years ago: movies about tough guys - or women - who turn out to have a heart, often revealed through interaction with children. Wallace Beery specialized in that sort of role.

The script is weak, and the direction too often leaden, which really keeps this movie from amounting to anything memorable, despite the fact that the cast is all fine and all did much better work in other pictures.

It's just a shame someone couldn't have radically improved the dialogue, to give it a little punch. A better director would have asked for significant rewrites.

If the characters had had some depth, the actors could have done something interesting with them.