Que Mundo Maravilhoso

Drunken tycoon Willie Heywood gets married for the fourth time. Private detective Guy Johnson (James Stewart) is his hired body man. One night, Willie stumbles upon the murder of his mistress Dolores Gonzalez. It's a setup by his new wife Vivian and her lover Al Mallon. Guy quickly grabs Willie and hides him from the police. Willie promises to pay Guy $100k to solve the murder. They are quickly arrested but Guy manages to escape. He kidnaps poet Edwina Corday (Claudette Colbert) as he makes a getaway.

The pairing is great. The screwball comedy plot is a little too screwy. The initial kidnapping is a little rough and they left behind the little dog. The glasses are hilarious. The wacky rambling adventure has its ups and its downs. Mostly, one has to love the comic chemistry of Stewart and Colbert.

Stewart easily steals the picture for laughs in this fast-paced, roller-coaster screwball - playing well outside his normal character range (motivated by money, despising women). Clearly influenced by 'It happened one night', especially with Colbert in the lead. Entertaining movie, genuinely funny, and withstands repeated viewings. Highlights include Stewart's impromptu impersonations of a scout leader and Southern actor and hearing the poem that Colbert has supposedly written just for him being broadcast over the radio (wearing very thick spectacles).

Extremely funny madcap comedy starring two of the greatest stars of the classic period of American film: tongue-in-cheek Claudette Colbert and good fella Jimmy Stewart.

Stewart plays a detective on the run, who's being chased by the police, because of his involvement as an accessory in a murder case, in which the principal accused is his client. Colbert is a poetess who `accidentally' gets involved in Stewart's escapade from the cops, reluctantly at first, eventually becoming a runaway herself and falling in love with Stewart, and causing him a lot of trouble in the process. Her character is joy to behold and is hilariously played with top expertise by this gifted comedienne, in one of the last original screwballs from the '30s.

This movie is a wonderful example of classic Hollywood comedy at its best, with top performances all around, by seasoned pros (Guy Kibbee, Nat Pendleton, et al). It's non-stop fun from start to finish, and by the way, Stewart plays a much rougher guy than his usual more likeable persona in this period -he even gets the chance of knocking around Colbert. It's a pity that it's not available on VHS or DVD. You may have the luck of watching it on TCM.

I waited for months for this to come on TCM because Leonard Maltin said it was a "very, very funny" screwball comedy. He must have seen a different movie. This film has plenty of screwballs in it, alright, but the "plot" is confusing, wandering all over the place with no clear direction, the characters are irritating, and the dialog is stupid -- I can't believe Ben Hecht and Herman Mankiewicz couldn't do better than this. Not funny, just plain silly. A waste of time.

Was IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD hurt by the fact that it is difficult for me to imagine Jimmy Stewart as a hardball character, even a chauvinist, or was it helped by the fact that this movie would have been nothing without him? Granted, Claudette Colbert plays the poet, the hopelessly romantic dreamer, well, and that plays off Stewart's greed-driven detective splendidly.

The detective, crime-solving part of the film is well done within its confines, Edgar Kennedy and Nat Pendleton are cast well as the rather slow-witted police. If this 1939 film had been made two and a half decades earlier, they would have fallen over each other, broken things, and caused ultraviolence in a Mack Sennett sort of way.) Guy Kibbee is, of course, perfect as the Stewart's partner. I will not spoil the ending, but I can say that as with all well-written screwball comedies, the film has a delightful way of meandering through situations and reaching a conclusion which satisfies.

I don't know if this will help, but before viewing, I had to promise my wife that it was not that Christmas movie.