Une journée de printemps

The Hilton family awakens to a lovely, warm and sunny first day of spring and soon each are enmeshed in affairs of the heart. It's a thoroughly underrated situation comedy with a few twists. Roland Young steals the movie with his persistent wooing of Frieda Inescourt, but then again he has the best lines. Walter Woolf King is also excellent trying to repel the clinging Olivia de Havilland every time his wife leaves the studio. It's all verbal humor and it's a feel-good movie well worth seeing.

It is the first day of spring. "The first Spring day is in the Devil's pay." This is one day in the life of the Hiltons. The eldest daughter Catherine 'Cath' Hilton (Olivia de Havilland) is overly dramatic and falls for the married artist painting her portrait. Roger Hilton (Ian Hunter) is doing the taxes of famous actress Beatrice Gwynn. Other members of the family all deal with their own complications.

I do have issues with the parents' stories. I have issues with all of their stories. I guess that the Devil's pay means exactly that. I don't necessarily find any of it that funny. Maybe if you're prim and proper, it's fun to walk the other side of the road for a little while. That must be the source of the comedy here, but I get no laughs from that.

This is the first time in all the years I have been following imdb that I have seen a movie rating that I thought was too low. Call It a Day is the kind of movie that, depending on your taste, can be seen as charming or annoying. It's a gentle, pleasant little picture meant for those who like this sort of thing.

All the players here are attractive and, yes, charming--handsome, sturdy Ian Hunter, who deserved better than all those roles as a soon-to-be-discarded fiance; gracious Frieda Inescourt; adorable, bumbling Roland Young. Only the exquisite 21-year-old Olivia de Havilland gives a poor performance, way over the top as the love-crazed girl, one that a better director got her to tone down in the same role in It's Love I'm After later the same year.

The relentlessly nice, genteel atmosphere may seem phony to some--but this was a genteel time. Still, there is a wonderful performance from Alice Brady, as Inescourt's chattering, racy friend, and de Havilland throws herself at a married man with a shameless intensity not likely to be found in American movies of that date. The dialogue more often pleases by its familiarity than its cleverness, but it does please. There are more ways to be charming than to be Noel Coward.

I caught this gem of a comedy on a Saturday morning on TCM, and I wasn't expecting much from it. I watched it for the star, Olivia de Havilland. However, although she received top billing, her part was more of a supportive one as the eldest daughter. The plot centers on a married couple with three nearly grown children who find themselves each fielding persistent and unexpected flirtations. There are many clever, funny lines in the script. ("What about the children?" "Well, you could just divide them up between you." "But there are three, it wouldn't come out even!" ) Olivia's facial expressions in her scene with the painter show her rarely tapped comedic talent. I'm not sure why other reviewers gave this film such low marks; I've watched dozens of films from the era (often with bigger stars) that weren't nearly as funny. Another plus for this film is that it doesn't, like so many other Hayes Code era films, pretend that adultery either doesn't exist or that no one ever actually goes through with it. The two lead actors are witty and believable and the ending is surprisingly touching.

Author Dodie Smith probably far better known for her novel 101 Dalmatians was the author of the play Call It A Day which ran on Broadway in 1936 for 194 performances. Before that it had done well in London. Hollywood's British colony with some American leavening was drafted into casting this rather slight comedy which gave Olivia DeHavilland her first role top billed.

I took note of the fact that it was Cosmopolitan Productions that made this film at Warner Brothers studio. This of course was the company headed by William Randolph Hearst and I'd bet that he bought this one for Marion Davies. He always saw her years younger and as the virtuous heroine. Olivia was 21 when she made this film and Marion was 41. Funny thing is she might well have been cast in Frieda Inescourt's role as Olivia's mother, but W.R. would never have let her appear in film in a mother's role.

Olivia is the oldest of three Hilton children the others being Peter Willes and Bonita Granville. On the first day of spring the entire family get themselves into some innocent spring flings with various people except Granville who's just in love with love and acts as kibitzer to her siblings. Ian Hunter is an accountant who gets more than he bargained for when he tries to work on the taxes of actress Marcia Ralston while Inescourt gets the mojo going for neighbor Roland Young. Olivia develops a crush on artist Walter Woolf King though for the life of me I can't see why, but his wife Peggy King is bothered. Willes starts paying attention to neighbor Anita Louise.

The film is done in the cross cutting style originated by Intolerance though the stories involve the actions of one family.

Call It A Day was an amusing bit of fluff in its time, but it's aged rather badly. It didn't do Olivia DeHavilland's career any harm and I'm sure she was grateful for the time away from being the heroine in crinoline just waiting supper for the hero which was usually Errol Flynn at this point in her career. Still no one will ever consider this one being in her top 10 performances.