Les amours de Marthe

"The Affairs of Martha" (1942) is a good illustration of how even a dream cast and solid directing cannot transform a weak script into anything more than a very average production. Imagine having the luxury of Marsha Hunt as your leading lady and female love interest; surround her with some of the best comic character actors of the era (Virginia Weidler, Marjorie Main, Margaret Hamilton, Spring Byington, and Grady Sutton); finally throw in Richard Carlson's best ever performance. Any movie buff would expect quite a treat from this ensemble.

In writer Isobel Lennart's defense, Weidler was miscast; what are hilarious lines coming from a precocious 11-year-old (for which the part was written and for which Weidler would have been perfect a few years earlier) just don't work coming from a 15-year-old actress who looks even older. Following this film with several similar disasters Weidler retired from the business.

Contrary to the plot summary, young housekeeper Martha Linddstrom's soon to be published book is not the real focus of the film. It is a romantic comedy much like "Bringing Up Baby", and could have benefited from a few of that film's screwball elements. Jeff Sommerfield (Carlson) returns home from a long absence with his new fiancée Sylvia in tow. Jeff does not reckon on the continued presence of Martha (Marsha Hunt) in his parent's household. Just prior to his departure he married his parent's housekeeper at the conclusion of a drunken bender. Because she is genuinely in love with him Martha did not follow through on her promise to have the marriage annulled but instead has worked to improve herself in night school and has just completed a book lauding his family.

Oddly, coming from a misunderstood woman writer and centered on a misunderstood woman writer, Lennart takes a lot of cheap shots at the third side of the screenplay's love triangle. Academic Sylvia Norwood (Francis Drake) is beautiful, intellectual, accomplished, and very well-adjusted. This is not the sterile Alice Swallow character in "Bringing Up Baby". Sylvia must serve as the film's villainess, which not only fails to generate any audience concern (Jeff would benefit greatly from being paired with either woman), it totally undermines the working woman political subtext of the production.

Along with Carlson's performance there are several very good things about "The Affairs of Martha". Marsha Hunt (as always) is excellent in both melodramatic and comedic moments; its just too bad her character as written is so bland. For my money Hunt is the Hollywood's all-time most underrated actress and I've enjoyed her each time I've seen her. Grady Sutton has the film's best moment early in the film in a nonverbal sequence at the breakfast table; unfortunately his character is not developed further Given the film's very short running length and its failure to develop many of the most amusing secondary characters it is likely that much was trimmed out during the editing process.

There is a clever dinner table scene near the end of the film in which Jeff is emotionally ranting against writers and publishers; a demonstration that further alienates Martha. Eventually you understand that it is a ploy to delay the announcement of his engagement to Sylvia but it works as a very nice bit of misdirection.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Amazing rom-com with socio-political overtones reminiscent of today. Spritely discussions of class both behind and in front the lower-class and higher-class subjects. Touches on marriage, publishing and false assumptions. Marsha Hunt shows her talent as being the dutiful maid, spurned wife, and eligible bachelorette.

We open with a narrator describing the quiet, calm life in Rock Bay, where even the horses wear silencers on their hooves to keep the peace. Then we're in the dining rooms of high society, where we find out that SOMEONE's maid has a written a "Tell-all" book about the private goings on in town... Keep an eye out for Spring Byington as the high-society Mrs. Sommerfield, and Margaret Hamilton in a smaller role a couple years after Gone With the Wind.... Grady Sutton is in here as Justin Peacock Jr (he made all those films with W.C. Fields). The awesome Marjorie Main was Ma Kettle, and also a major role in "The Women", is in here as Mrs. McKessic; Virginia Weidler is the daughter Miranda Sommerfield... you may remember her as "Mary", also from "The Women". The real story here is the class war where the maids all gather together, and the society women band together to find out who has written the book, and decide what to do about it. With that collection of stars, this one should be great, but as of September 2009, only 89 votes and 3 plot comments on IMDb. The lesser known Marsha Hunt stars in this MGM short, but it's really an ensemble film. Fun, wacky, screenplay by Isobel Lennart, who also wrote the screenplay for Funny Girl, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Anchors Aweigh, and soooo many more big time films. You can tell this was originally a play, with all the fast, clever talking. Excellent clear photography and sound. Directed by Jules Dassin, who had worked with Hitchcock. He apparently worked in France after being part of the McCarthy hearings, and was quite successful.

I've been tracking down films written by Isobel Lennart, so although I wasn't completely surprised by how charming this film is, most viewers will be since it's so obscure. This brief B-comedy opens with many splendid characters and zany complications, reminiscent of a Preston Sturges film without quite hitting that height. (There's even a "hep" kid sister that reminds me of Diana Lynn in Sturges' masterpiece "Miracle of Morgan's Creek," although I think that came out a couple of years later. In fact, "Martha" even has a drunken overnight marriage!) The comic actors--Spring Byington, Margaret Hamilton, Marjorie Main, etc.--give full-throttle readings in even brief roles, down to glances and gestures. What I perceive as typically Lennart touches: the opening "union" meetings of the maids and the matrons, who each vow to "stick together" ("One for one and all for all!" says the Swedish maid); and the appearance of the lonely, oddly touching and philosophical beach worker (shades of the character Pop in "Skirts Ahoy"). And Martha's motives in writing her book, also typically, are not selfish; she's not writing a scandalous expose as they fear but an expression of how much she likes them. Interesting that it's about a misunderstood woman writer! It's an early script for her and she co-wrote it, which may explain why there are easy stock characters and selfish negative ones (like the fiancee) who are shut out of the community instead of being recuperated.

An affluent Long Island community is thrown into a panic: word is out that a maid is writing a "kitchen's-eye view" of her employers.

Marsha Hunt stars as Martha, the family maid who doesn't really mean to cause a big ruckus. Richard Carlson is the scientist son who unexpectedly returns home from studies abroad—and it's quickly obvious that he and Martha share a sensitive secret.

Carlson and Hunt are quite good—both give unassuming performances as characters who are just slightly offbeat.

Superb character actors in colorful roles fill out the rest of the cast: Marjorie Main is at her best as the boisterous cook who rounds up all the cooks and maids on the block for a strategy session. Virginia Weidler is fine as the young daughter who says, "Every now and then I get a feeling something's going on I don't know about." Spring Byington and Melville Cooper are the mildly eccentric mother and father. Allyn Joslyn is the sharp-witted publisher of the book-in-progress. And Barry Nelson is hilarious as the delivery boy who attempts to romance Martha (Main calls him a "pantry Casanova").

No single character dominates but the entire cast is colorful and clever; the witty script gives just about everyone something funny to say and contains just enough plot to offer a few twists: It's surprising, funny and sweet.

–Oh, and Margaret Hamilton, three years removed from Oz, has one hilarious line during the maids' and cooks' discussion of their employers: "You don't know how bad those witches can get once they get moving," she says.