The Good Fairy

Five years before she butted heads with James Stewart working at Matuschek and Co. in Ernst Lubitsch's classic pen-pal romance, "The Shop Around the Corner", Margaret Sullavan was playing another character living in Budapest, this time a naïve young woman chosen to become an usherette in an elaborate movie palace. This warm-hearted 1935 screwball comedy has impressive credentials beyond a luminous Sullavan in only her third film, as it offers a screenplay by Preston Sturges ("The Lady Eve") and direction from William Wyler ("The Best Years of Our Lives") who married Sullavan during the tempestuous production. Alas, this was their only collaboration since they divorced less than two years later, but this long-forgotten collaboration is a fruitful one as the then-25-year-old actress sparkles in a role that could have easily been cloying if Wyler didn't maintain the right tempo for Sturges' alternately scatterbrained and clever story.

Sullavan plays the improbably named Luisa Ginglebusher, a gregarious, pig-tailed orphan who regales the younger girls with her fanciful fairy tales. A blustery theater owner comes to the orphanage looking for girls to be silver-costumed usherettes at his Budapest movie palace. The head of the orphanage allows Luisa to accept the job on the condition that she performs at least one good deed a day in the real world. At the theater, Luisa meets Detlaff, a waiter who gets her an invitation to an exclusive party at which he is serving. She almost immediately has to hold off the bold advances of Konrad, a somewhat lascivious South American meat-packing millionaire who wants to seduce her and shower her with gifts. However, she isn't interested and lies about being married. When he insists on employing her "husband" so he can send him away, Luisa randomly picks a name from the phone book, hoping to do a good deed and divert some of Konrad's wealth to someone else. The lucky man is poor but proud Dr. Max Sporum, but complications obviously ensue when Luisa meets Sporum and Konrad finds out the truth.

Although she had few opportunities to play comedy, the adorable Sullavan shines in this type of shenanigan-driven farce, whether using her electric wand to point patrons to their theater seats or prancing with a multiplicity of her mirror images as she models a "foxine" stole at the department store. Reginald Owen (Scrooge in the 1938 "A Christmas Carol") gamely plays Detlaff with rubbery charm, while Frank Morgan (the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz") is a bit too fey and downright wizardly as Konrad. Generally a tight-lipped presence on the screen, Herbert Marshall ("The Little Foxes") has never appeared more animated in a movie than he does as Sporum. Familiar character actors show up like Alan Hale as the cinema impresario, Beulah Bondi as the orphanage matron, a hilariously over-the-top Eric Blore (from all the early Fred-and-Ginger pictures) as a monocled drunk, and a menacing Cesar Romero as a pushy stage-door lothario. An unusual entry on Wyler's resume, this is quite a charmer thanks to Sullavan. The print is clear on the 2002 DVD, which includes the original theatrical trailer and a photo gallery as extras.

Circumstances afford a young woman an opportunity to enrich the life of a poor person that she picks randomly out of a telephone book. Sturges delightfully adapts a Hungarian play, incorporating the kind of snappy dialog that would mark his later directorial efforts. In one of three great films he directed in the mid 1930s (Counsellor at Law, Dodsworth), Wyler displays a touch comparable to Lubitsch. Sullavan, an actress whose career and life were both sadly short, is charming as a good-hearted orphan. Marshall is perfectly cast as a dignified lawyer. Laughs are provided by Owen as a waiter who wants to protect Sullavan and by Morgan as a tycoon who wants to be Sullavan's Sugar Daddy.

The story of a naif who goes out into the world, skirts calamity (i.e. seduction, in the guise of Frank Morgan, no less), and finds true love (Herbert Marshall, who likewise should be better remembered--he'd a been a bigger star if he would have been five years younger when the talkies started in earnest). Of course, Sullavan the naif is the one who instructs the world weary cosmopolitans rather than vice-versi.

The script, being by Preston Sturges, is funny and witty and artfully plotted. Sullavan was a great actress/star of the '30's early '40's who unfortunately is mostly forgotten now. She has a quality, a sly subtle acidity that makes her different from other screwball heroines. She also had the knack of bringing out the tenderness in her male leads (James Stewart was never more suave, articulate, and keenly perceptive than opposite the funny cruel little egomaniac Sullavan in The Shop Around the Corner, which is a masterpiece, and she brought out the early best in her former husband, Henry Fonda, in The Moon's Our Home, which is another forgotten little gem). It's not so much she's vicious a la Bette Davis or the divine Barbara Stanwyck: she's too minutely picky, petty really in getting what she wants, too self-centeredly rational in getting her way for that. But, anyway, The Good Fairy has a younger softer Sullavan. The supporting cast is superior, too.

Don't let the title or director give you the wrong idea; THE GOOD FAIRY is a snappy and sophisticated example of the kind of civilized lunacy for which screenwriter (and later director) Preston Sturges became so well-known. Yes, it's adapted from a Hungarian play, and yes, it's directed by William Wyler, but Sturges' creative influence is evident - even dominant - throughout. Though Wyler did make the occasional foray into lighter material ("Roman Holiday," "How To Steal a Million"), he's mostly associated with intelligent drama, and here one can almost sense idea man Sturges lurking just behind him, whispering, "Hey, Willie, how about this....?" There's so much about this picture that is prototypical of later Sturges classics such as "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" and "Unfaithfully Yours." Indeed, THE GOOD FAIRY utilizes a plot device that was later modified for "The Palm Beach Story," wherein Claudette Colbert tries to get a millionaire to enrich her husband by pretending he's not her husband. Here, Margaret Sullavan tries to get a millionaire to enrich a complete stranger by pretending the stranger IS her husband. Only Sturges could make such near-insanity seem almost logical.

There's not much point in synopsizing the plot; it's rather like a benign little tornado that sweeps the characters - and the viewer - up with it; there's nothing to do but surrender and see where it will touch down next, and what happens when it does. Let it suffice to say that, if you're any kind of Sturges fan, you'll find the ride delightful.

It's no surprise that winsome Sullavan, blustery Reginald Owen and the eminently reliable Alan Hale handle the material so deftly, but even normally serious players such as Herbert Marshall and Beulah Bondi exhibit understated but devastating comedy chops. Special mention must be made of Eric Blore (whose tipsy descent of a brief flight of stairs is nothing short of a miniature comic ballet) and Frank Morgan, at his flustered best, giving a performance of such sustained energy and velocity that (as my viewing companion said) he must have had to lie down for a rest after every take. An odd little sidelight: quintessentially American players Sullavan and Morgan made exactly three pictures together, in two of which they played Hungarians (this one and "Shop Around The Corner"), with the story taking place in Budapest. (In the third - "The Mortal Storm" - they played Germans in a small Alpine town.) Just one of those curious bits of trivia.

As noted in other comments, this gem of a film is apparently little known or remembered. Perhaps its release on DVD will accord it the attention and praise it so richly deserves. Do yourself a huge favor and get your hands on it right away. I saw it just a week ago and am already looking forward to watching it again.

I am always amazed with the talent of Preston Sturgis. He is a true painter of WORDS, a tunesmith of dialog and staging. In this early William Wyler Universal film using Preston Sturgis screen play we have scene after scene of people acting and reacting off each other's follies which is a true documentation of this race we call Human. This film depicts the constant struggle to make sense of human interaction.

The nice thing is there is no murders, explosions, mayhem or outright evil. All these things get in the way of DIALOG. I watch this film in awe, there is musical rhythm in the first third of the film combining dialog, action and music. You will really like all these people at the end of the film.

Time Well Spent., No Noise