Mama Steps Out

I caught this movie on Turner Classic Movies, not expecting much, but was surprised to find one of those classic daffy family comedies of the 30's, where a bunch of disparate people come together in a household and play out their lives amid what seems like chaos. Think of HOLIDAY. Guy Kibbee and Alice Brady provide the broken eggs to bind everything together.

Betty Furness, well before her Westinghouse commercial days and NBC Today duties, provides the ingénue role opposite a very young Dennis Morgan who would exercise his vocal chords in MGM productions.There's a Russian character around who makes you think of Micha Auer in MY MAN GODFREY and some characters who are reminiscent of those in the much later YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU. A well timed servants strike helps to bring matters to a close. So, a revolution helps? Well, that's all a subtext.

Those of you familiar with Kibbee's screen appearances with Aline MacMahon might be delighted at seeing how he plays against a ditz (Alice Brady) instead of a capable woman (Aline). Kibbee blusters well, as we know he can, but here he has to become a virtual drunkard to match up with an actress whose dithering and screen stupidity make Marion Lorne look like a TV parody. (Aline, by the way, for those not all that familiar with her can be seen in many a Kibbee film. Her consummate role, repeated many times, was that of the rock bottomed "mater" of the family who provided the ballast while Dear Old Dad, sailed about).

The movie's enjoyable, but catch it during a time when you need a brief and pleasant diversion from bombs bursting in air and the blood and gore films, and are not expecting an AA award nominee.

The whole thing was played at top-pitch, without mercy; "over-the-top" pitch, actually. As with most of the 1930s "Screwball" comedies, they assumed that LOUD is funny - but it's just idiots yelling at each other.

It's also impossible laugh at anyone you'd rather strangle; the Mama is a driveling moron who spends the entire European trip in their rented house. Go outside and look around! When a Guy Kibbee character is the most intelligent in the whole film, you're in trouble.

Based on a 1930 Broadway play adapted by Anita Loos ("Gentleman Prefer Blondes") for the screen, this MGM film starts off as a delightful satire of Innocents Abroad with snappy dialogue and memorable comic performances by Alice Brady as the socially-ambitious mid-western housewife who aspires for European culture but only ends up with a trio of bohemian phonies, and Guy Kibbee, perfectly cast as her good-hearted but bumbling husband, who finally has enough of the free-loaders sponging at his rented Antibes villa. Unfortunately, the high-jinxs are pulled down by a vapid and predictable love story featuring Betty Furness and Dennis Morgan, then known as Stanley Morner. Only a year after singing "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" uncredited in The Great Ziegfeld, Morgan, groomed for stardom as MGM's answer to Paramount's Bing Crosby, looks wonderful, croons exquisitely in a tenor voice, but acts stiffly and self-consciously. Brady and Kibbee, however, manage to be both absurd and touching in comic character roles they were to repeat in many a film.

reworking of "Dodsworth" but with comedy and less impact once again, a flighty woman wants to be accepted by the smart set in Europe

One of the very best (and underrated) films of the 1930s was "Dodsworth". It was a sad tale written by Sinclair Lewis in 1929 about an industrialist who has sold his company and did what his wife always wanted--move the family to Europe to soak up the culture. Unfortunately, instead of bringing the family together, this trip ended up exposing the truth about the marriage--that Mrs. Dodsworth was a selfish and shallow jerk. "Mama Steps Out" is a very, very similar story and is based on a play that debuted in 1930 and was filmed here in 1937 (a year after "Dodsworth"). The plot is essentially the same in many ways but instead of a drama, the film is played for laughs--and thereby loses so much of the impact of "Dodsworth". Now this doesn't mean it's a bad film but it's as if this reworking of the plot only produced a much more shallow and forgettable film.

Ada (Alice Brady) is sad because so far during their European trip, they've met no one and she desperately wants to fit into society. So, she instructs her boob of a husband, Len (Guy Kibbee) to bring home interesting people--with little success. Ultimately, Ada finds a bunch of folks--folks who are phonies and leeches. Not surprisingly, Len soon gets sick of them and throws the out--announcing that they're going home to America. Ada vows to stay in Europe. What's next?

If I had never heard of "Dodsworth", I would have probably enjoyed "Mama Steps Out" much more. But the problem is that "Dodsworth" is such a great story that the other can't help but seem like a very pale imitation. The edge and depth of "Dodsworth" is missing and instead "Mama Steps Out" is a light comedy--and loses much of the social commentary and depth in the process. It also provides a kooky ending--one that is rather bland. Now I am NOT saying "Mama Steps Out" is bad--it is still a nice and inoffensive time-passer.

"Mama Steps Out" has two very good Hollywood supporting actors in the lead roles. Guy Kibbee plays Leonard 'Len' Cuppy, and Alice Brady plays his wife, Ada. The wealthy couple and their daughter, Leila, are going to Europe to live for six months. It's Ada's dream for them to get away from the Americans in their home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and meet, mix and mingle with Europeans. She wants them to absorb some "real" culture. Other reviews mention that this is a takeoff from the 1936 movie, "Dodsworth."

A second plot is Leila's crush since high school on Chuck Thompson, a hometown boy who has succeeded as a singer with a band that tours on the performing circuit. The band and singer happen to be on the ship the Cuppy's are taking to Europe, so Leila makes sure that they stay where the band and Chuck are appearing. Much to Ada's consternation, that means leaving Paris behind and going to the Riviera where Chuck and the band perform at a casino in Antibes.

Leila keeps chasing after Chuck, who keeps rebuffing and trying to avoid her. And Ada keeps sending hubby Len to the Casino to bring back a Frenchman or two. When they finally do have three younger people of the nuevo (swinging) culture visit, the trio bring a little mayhem to the household which leads the French chef and maid to go on strike.

There isn't much plot here, and the screenplay bounces around quite a bit. Kibbee and Brady are very good in their roles. Brady won the supporting actress Oscar in 1938 for portraying Molly O'Leary in the 20th Century Fox blockbuster, "In Old Chicago." An all-around good actress, Brady excelled in one type of character. She could play a discombobulated, harried, and frenzied woman within comedies better than anyone else. Her role in this film isn't as funny as in some others. Perhaps the best example of that is her role as Bridget Drake in the 1933 film, "When Ladies Meet." Brady would die of cancer within two years of this film, at age 46.

The best thing about this film, though, is the singing of newcomer Dennis Morgan. He had a great singing voice, although he didn't pursue singing parts much beyond this film. He did play Irish tenor Chauncey Olcott in the 1947 movie about his life, "My Wild Irish rose." This was Morgan's seventh film and biggest part to that time. He was then going by his real name, as Stanley Morner. By 1940, Morgan was getting leading roles at Warner Brothers, and his role opposite Ginger Rogers in "Kitty Foyle" of 1940 (for which she won the best actress Oscar the next year), lifted Morgan to star status the rest of his career.

With a tighter and better screenplay and much better script with witty and funny dialog, this could have been a very good comedy. But, there are so few instances of anything funny, that it doesn't even get a fair rating for comedy.