Dulcy

This movie has a great cast of comedians, but even they can't bring much life to a dead script.

Why the script is so dead is the real mystery here. It is based on a Broadway success by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. But if you compare the two works, you see that this movie script was radically altered from the original play.

What we are left with is a lot of slapstick sight-gags, some of which are funny, some not, and a lot of really hairbrained events. No one comes of as even vaguely real.

So, in the end, a fine cast that could have done great things is left high and dry - unlike the characters, who often end up all wet.

like the zany madcap film Merrily We Live, "Dulcy" is a week in the life of a trusting, upperclass family with too much money and not enough hobbies. When they meet up with strangers, they blindly invite them into their lives and into their house. Although mostly scrubbed clean for the production code, their ARE some ethnic jokes and slurs which were prevalent at the time. Billie Burke (best known as Glenda the Good Witch) was also in Merrily We Live, which also had a clever, fast-moving script. Beautiful outdoor photography of Lake Arrowhead, California, back in its hayday. The best part of this film is Reginald Gardiner, who plays one of the "Schuyler van Dykes" (really).... two years later Gardiner will play the hilarious Beverly Carlton in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Viewers will also recognize Dad Forbes (Roland Young) from Topper and Philadelphia Story. The film goes in all directions and moves right along... fun flick as long as you don't look too closely at the plot.

Ann Sothern is terrific as "Dulcy". Ann Sothern is a delight to most men, and she's very funny in this movie. Shocking there is no official studio release. I'm happy to have this terrific film in my 3000 DVD/Blu-ray collection where I know it can never be censored.

This film came at the end of the genre. The script is mirthless,and as a result the actors struggle manfully with their parts. Sotherns part is of a thoroughly obnoxious woman's whose antics border on the insane. She gabbles her part leading to the assumption that she wants to get to the end as soon as possible.

... despite the presence of some wonderful actors. One is hard-pressed to understand why any of these contortions would ever be considered amusing. The production values are high, but the endless succession of predictable sight gags and cruel mishaps descend into near-gibberish. Ann Sothern looks lovely, but embarrassed. Even Roland Young, for me one of the most most dependably skilled comic actors ever, just plows ahead dutifully until the whole thing grinds to a halt.