Quelle joie de vivre

Irene Dunne plays a Broadway singer who serves as her family's meal ticket. Her family, including sister Lucille Ball, don't do much, other than enjoy the wealth and status (by association) Dunne's success brings them. Dunne is exhausted, but is constantly pressured into taking more and more responsibilities on and Dunne does so as to not disappoint her family. Despite all of her hard work and wealth, her family's spendthrift ways have plunged Dunne deeply into depth. When she finds out about her financial woes, she is very disillusioned (who wouldn't be?).

Dunne ends up meeting heady and fresh Douglas Fairbanks Jr. At first she is put off by Fairbanks' pushiness and even has him arrested at one point, accusing him of being a masher. Fairbanks manages to charm his way out of jail time and even gets Dunne appointed as his probation officer. Legally he has to report to Dunne two times a week. As she gets to know Fairbanks, Dunne finds out that he comes from wealth but has chosen to live his life as a pleasure seeker. He also claims to own an island in the South Pacific and urges Dunne to leave her stress behind and live in paradise with him.

Lucille Ball is good as Dunne's younger sister (and understudy), but her part is so small, she doesn't really get to make much of an impression. Though, she continues to prove that she is good with the one-liners. It must have been frustrating for Lucy to have come from such a great supporting part in Stage Door, only to be put into another small supporting part, but in not as prestigious a film. Irene Dunne is good here, even though it is only sightly above average material. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is always a charmer and he's very handsome in this film. It's easy to see why Dunne would have a hard time between choosing Broadway or Fairbanks.

Does anyone know whether this movie is based on the Mary Astor case? Poor Mary, like the actress in the movie, had parents who sponged off her something rotten. They lived in a mansion she bought for them and, no matter how much money she gave them, spent it and demanded more. After she tried numerous times to curb their extravagance (she was spending more on them than on her own family), the case ended up in court, where the judge took Mary's side. After her parents' death, Mary discovered diaries in which her mother had written viciously about how much she hated her.

Given that the court case took place four years before this movie appeared, and that portraying parents as evil is highly unusual for Hollywood, especially in a musical comedy, it seems that this element of the movie was inspired by Astor's troubles, but does anyone know for sure?

This ecstatic little musical comedy pageant must sport the highest level of springy, rambunctious, impromptu optimism of any film, right down to the lighthearded silliness of the whole movie which, at the same time one can feel underwhelmed by it, the filmmakers are holding true to the spirit of its characters, allowing no room for ardor of any kind.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s supposedly self-styled sprawlingly open and adaptable stream-of- consciousness maverick is not a very good person. In spite of guiding the always outstanding maven of feminine supremacy Irene Dunne to break free of her oppressive, controlling family, he is oppressive and controlling, too. He is essentially a stalker whose influence on his object of fondness (no description of anything regarding this film could get more passionate than that) causes her to reciprocate. This, however, is no matter, because by means of the movie's completely detached, carefree spirit, it doesn't matter what he's like.

Joy of Living's philosophy seems to border on reckless, Fairbanks and gradually Dunne feeling overly optimistic and expansive, disregarding the resulting difficulty with commitment and trustworthiness as the itch for fun and free-flowing unpredictability of events call the shots. But it's a perfectly cast film with hilarious scenes featuring a fat German man dancing.

The script is what prevents Joy of Living from being the fabulous movie it could have been. Did the audience of 1938 find Fairbanks character -a stalker, controller, manipulator - appealing? Did the audience cheer when Dunne dumped her grasping family and abandoned her Broadway career for Fairbanks and an island in the South Seas? An island escape is fine for a 2-week vacation, but will forsaking all one has worked for and achieved, and abandoning stardom for fun and sublimating herself to her husband's goals of having a good time be satisfying? Also, Fairbanks is not stellar. He's an OK actor but not equivalent to Cooper, Gable, or even Scott or McCrea, not that any of these talents could have made a silk purse out of this sows ear of a character.

Fairbanks introduces the career-oriented Dunne to the Joy of Living, which is accessed via getting intoxicated on pitchers of beer. She cuts loose, has a barrel of fun, and in her inebriated state finds him so appealing that she marries him. And then runs away with him. He's besotted with the Great Star, but she's spent so little time with him that she doesn't know him or have any realistic idea of what life with him on his island will be like. Had the film ended 6 months after their marriage, we would have seen a very unhappy Dunne back in New York filing for divorce and returning to the Broadway stage.

What Dunne deserved is a husband of substance and merit who would have loved her - not just her public persona - and supported her in her career while pursuing his own career goals. Instead, as there were no other suitors, she tumbled to Fairbanks, who made noises like Donald Duck to show his displeasure and demonstrated his joie de vivre by whooping it up like an Indian brave going into battle.

Yes, I do understand that this is screwball comedy, but it falls far short of the great classics such as My Man Godfrey and Dunne's The Awful Truth. Still, despite the poor script, Dunne's performance makes this film worth watching.

Comedy about a famous singing sensation Maggie Garret (Irene Dunne) who is constantly hounded by the press and rabid autograph hounds, and that's not all - a man (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) who is crazy in love with her from afar is busy chasing after her too, but she doesn't seem to care for him and sees to it he is arrested for "mashing". But when he is sentenced to six months in jail (and based on the fact that he is rather handsome and charming, I surmise) she agrees to become his "probation officer" so that he can be released. Next thing you know he's advising her that she needs to live for herself and have some "fun". Soon they out on the town boozing it up on gigantic mugs full of beer, becoming very, very drunk to the point where they are playing face slapping games with other and end up stealing a bunch of signs from local businesses - h'm, at this point she actually begins to really like him for the first time, I guess all it took was the drink.

Nothing great here - but still entertaining, silly, and fun to watch. I didn't find this film particularly laugh-out-loud funny (except for the scenes with Billy Gilbert which ARE quite funny) - but it is amusing and has a number of scenes featuring favorite comic actors from the thirties including not just Billy Gilbert, but Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore, even Lucille Ball - all seen in very small parts. The film also features a number of catchy songs performed by Irene Dunne, especially "You Couldn't Be Cuter" - so catchy, in fact, I am still singing it aloud as I type. Worth seeing.