Fifteen years ago (!) when I started this blog, I roughed out a number of posts I intended to get to ... some day. Here's one for a movie no one saw, then or since, that I really enjoyed in the moment.
When back in the day my mother would complain, "They don't make movies like they used to," I think she meant they don't make witty, light-on-their-feet screwball comedies anymore, those dizzy fast-paced farces they cranked out in the '30s starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, or Cary Grant and a music-loving leopard.
Except every once in a while, they do — a film like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, for example, a clever Cinderella comedy directed by Bharat Nalluri and starring three-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand and six-time nominee Amy Adams. Released in 2008, it was fun, frothy and funny, exactly what you want when you're in the mood for laughs, a little romance and a glass of ice-cold champagne.
Too bad nobody saw it.
The title character, Miss Pettigrew (McDormand) is the world's worst nanny who, thanks to a mix up at an employment agency, finds herself working as a social secretary to a high society flibbertigibbet, Delysia LeFosse (the always enchanting Adams).
It's not that Miss Pettigrew is incompetent, exactly — she's just a tad too opinionated for the rest of the world. But she can wrangle a boy who doesn't want to get out of bed, even if the boy ia much bigger than the ones she's used to.
"You noticed," giggles Delysia.
As the story opens, Delysia and Miss Pettigrew meet on the thin margin between having and having not — one wrong move and they're both on the street — and what plays out is not so much a story about living it up as about discovering what living is for.
Frances McDormand as Miss Pettigrew is neither glam'ed up nor glamorously made plain in the fashion of Hollywood — she's simply allowed to inhabit that long face and those impossible cheekbones, looking at times like the saddest bloodhound who ever lived, at others like that stern third grade teacher who didn't approve of your youthful shenanigans.
Amy Adams, meanwhile, plays Delysia like an Egyptian embalmer has sucked her brain out with a straw — and I mean that as a compliment. It's the sort of role Carole Lombard made her bread and butter.
On the face of it, Delysia is what was known in the parlance of the times as a gold digger, sleeping with three different men, sometimes within minutes of each other, mostly for what they can give her. But don't judge her too harshly — there are very few career opportunities for a woman in 1939 — and anyway, her scheming is so transparent, it has a sort of integrity all its own.
That she also readily accepts the odd, gawky Miss Pettigrew into her inner circle, seeing her not as an inferior but as a soul mate, well, you can't help but like her.
This is a performance that could have easily gone wrong and just the sort that when done right, escapes everyone's notice.
The movie is set in London the day before World War II begins, and both Miss Pettigrew and her low-key love interest, perfectly underplayed by Ciarán Hinds, are old enough to have lost someone to the horror of the last war. With the trivial pursuits of youth in their rearview mirror and with another war coming, they know that everything from now on will be played for keeps.
Their ever-present past adds an undercurrent of wise melancholy to the daffy proceedings.
Miss Pettigrew is a rarity now, a romantic comedy for adults about adults — and more to the point — about adults behaving like adults. It's the sort of thing that studios turned out by the basketful once upon a time but which Hollywood has largely forgotten how to make.
Worse still, audiences have forgotten how to watch them.
Based on a novel published in 1938, I get the impression the book's author, Winifred Watson, spent a lot of time at the movies — shake two parts Lady For A Day with one part My Man Godfrey, add a dash of Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler, garnish with a twist of Frank Capra, and viola! you have a delightful comedy in the style of the old masters.
Serve in a Nick and Nora glass. Cheers!
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. Best animated feature winners are noted with an @. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
A two-fer Tuesday: the best actor of 2008 and 2009. (And yes, I'm listening to Two-fer Tuesday on Breakfast with the Beatles ...)
For those keeping score at home, The Dark Knight did well in my 2008 polls, winning best picture, director (Christopher Nolan) and best supporting actor (Heath Ledger as the Joker in the last performance of his career). Sally Hawkins won best actress (Happy-Go-Lucky) and Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) was the best supporting actress.
As for 2009, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds won best picture, director and supporting actor (Christoph Waltz). Carey Mulligan won best actress for her terrific work in An Education, and Mo'Nique won best supporting actress for the most oddly named film of that or any other year, Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' by Sapphire.
Have at it.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. Best animated feature winners are noted with an @. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best animated feature winners are noted with an @.
In retrospect, the failure to nominate The Dark Knight for best picture helped open what is now a yawning chasm between the Academy and the ticket-buying public, where every year the top prize goes to some grim little art film nobody has seen and then the powers-that-be scratch their collective heads and wonder why no one watches the Oscars anymore.
Sometimes the answer is so obvious you only have to look in the mirror to find it.
"That's Typing" Tuesday, in which I share unpolished, unpublished writings from my vast store of unpolished, unpublished writings. On Tuesdays.
From my notes about Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a 2008 screwball comedy starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams.
a rarity now, a romantic comedy for adults about adults—and more to the point—about adults behaving like adults ... the sort of thing that studios cranked out by the basketful in the 1930s to great effect ... Hollywood has largely forgotten how to make movies like this; worse still, audiences have forgotten how to watch them.
Frances McDormand as Miss Pettigrew ... neither glam'ed up nor glamorously made plain in the fashion of Hollywood ... simply allowed to inhabit that long face and those impossible cheekbones.
... Amy Adams plays Delysia LeFosse like an Egyptian embalmer has sucked her brain out with a straw—I mean that as a compliment—the sort of role Carole Lombard could have played in her sleep. On the face of it, she's a golddigger, sleeping with three different men, sometimes within minutes of each other, mostly for what they can give her; she's has the attention span of a three year old—"There is something so sensual about fur next to the skin, don't you think?"—and she's the sort of housekeeper who disposes of oyster shells in a kitchen drawer. But her scheming is so transparent, there's a sort of honesty in it, and she's so accepting of the odd, gawky Miss Pettigrew, seeing her not as an inferior but as a soul mate, that you can't help but like her.
This is a performance that could have easily gone wrong ...
As the story opens, Delysia and Miss Pettigrew meet on the thin margin between having and having not ... a major theme of the movie, how precarious it is being a woman in what, in 1939, was very much a man's world ... so that even your enemies are kindred spirits when you're jostling for a spot in the same boat ...
... not so much a love story as a story about figuring out what's worth loving ...
Both McDormand and her unexpected, rather low-key love interest, perfectly underplayed by Ciarán Hinds (Persuasion, Munich), were in their early fifties when this was filmed. ... The trivial pursuits of youth are in their rearview mirror, and with World War II coming on, they know that everything from now on is played for keeps ... adds an undercurrent of melancholy to the daffy proceedings. ... reminds me very much of My Man Godfrey in that regard ...
Based on a novel published in 1938, I get the impression the book's author, Winifred Watson, spent a lot of time at the movies—Miss Pettigrew would fit nicely on a bill with Stage Door and Gold Diggers of 1933 or, for that matter, Pygmalion and Lady For A Day.
Question for my readers: If you were casting this movie in the 1930s, who would you cast as the two leads?
Note: I've now finished watching movies for my essay about 1916. I should have that up in the next few days.
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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