The 1937 smackdown late tonight. Before each Smackdown Nick Taylor suggests alternates to Oscar's Supporting Actress ballot.
First thing’s first, everyone should run to see It’s Love I’m After, a romantic farce that pulls liberally from the tropes of stage comedies while staying as fleet and entertaining as the best screwball films. If you’re a fan of above-the-title players Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland, relish in their easy camaraderie and shimmering star turns (and look out for Eric Blore’s put-upon, bird-imitating manservant, who steals the film every chance he gets). If you’re not a fan of these three, take heed! It’s Love I’m After gives these famous dramaturgists a ripe outlet for prime Hollywood farce way outside their most famous, legacy-defining role (All About Eve being the big exception). De Havilland in particular shines. I’ve never seen her flex her comedic chops like this, and she excels marvelously as an engaged socialite with a puppy-love celebrity crush that’s got her man increasingly anxious...
Our great heroes in this tale are Basil Underwood (Leslie Howard) and Joyce Arden (Bette Davis), celebrated Broadway actors who are as famous for their romantic chemistry onstage as their nightly quarreling offstage. They’re competitive, sophisticated egoists who have nearly been married a dozen times in the past year and torn those plans to shreds each time. Basil’s numerous liaisons aren’t the main reason for this volatile setup, but they aren’t helping. We meet the couple on New Year’s Eve, at the end of a performance of Romeo & Juliet, where they whisper barbs under their breaths and covertly elbow each other between impassioned, tear-jerking monologues. While all this happens, a wealthy, poised young woman named Marcia West (Olivia de Havilland) stares enraptured at Basil from the audience, leaning practically in awestruck wonder out of her box as he praises the apothecary’s poison. She flees the theatre in tears when Romeo dies, leaving behind her parents and a very chuffed fiancé.
After the show ends Marcia sneaks into Basil’s dressing room and confesses her love to him, a confession she begins by stating he’s her ideal. She admits it took a good deal of courage for her to face him, but she believes it’s important for one to act on their beliefs and convictions. Marcia knows she’ll be able to look back on this moment and be proud of her actions, and she hopes with all her heart that when Basil is old and forgotten, he’ll be able to remember this and draw the same strength from it that she will. De Havilland plays all of this with real sincerity and a smart knack for comedy that doesn’t denigrate her character. She gets great laughs every time she looks askance at the sound of Joyce screams some abuse at Basil through the mirror. The degree of her devotion is alarming, but she avoids pitching it like she's Sandra Bernhard. Aside from being a bit shaken by the “forgotten” bit, he’s deeply touched by her honesty. She names herself the spirit of all his female fans and flits out of the building, self-consciously shaping this moment as an impassioned encounter between two people who will never see each other again.
Joyce sees this well-dressed woman exiting Basil’s company and starts a massive fight with him in her room, which simmers down into real, joyful talk of finally getting married. Basil leaves Joyce’s room with a spring in his step to get married, but before he can start packing he’s confronted by a well-dressed man named Henry Grant Jr (Patric Knowles) who’s incensed that his girlfriend has fallen in love with the actor. He’s even more troubled that she loves him without having even met him. The two men discuss Henry’s troubles, and they hatch a plan inspired by a play Basil performed in: Basil will arrive at Henry’s place unannounced and make an ass of himself in front of the girl and their visiting families, smashing her rose-tinted image of him through his caddish, abrasive behavior. This means dodging marriage a little longer, but Basil sees this as an avenue to flex that he’s actually a good person and nobly sets off with his manservant Diggs (Eric Blore) and abandoning his almost-wife yet again. He stomps into Henry’s mansion in the dead of night, makes a great racket, and is astonished to realize that the mystery fiancé is . . . .
The young woman from earlier! Basil gasps out “Angel!” when he sees her swooning at him from the top of the mansion’s main staircase. As thrilled as they both are, Basil’s on a mission, and he expects his rude midnight arrival will change her tune. But Marcia is so overjoyed that she lies and tells her family she invited him over. Her infatuation is stronger than Basil, Henry, or Diggs could have predicted, and will continue to be caught off guard by its scale and purity. The next morning Basil stomps down the stairs and demands kippers for breakfast, and when they can’t produce any he insults everyone in the room. Then they make kippers, and Basil sneers at it. Yet Marcia defends his behavior, arguing for his right to being comfortable and admiring his honesty. If they were served a poorly cooked meal, who would it serve to lie about it? Why should such a cultured man sand down his edges, and why shouldn’t he share his viewpoint with those who can’t do the things he can?
De Havilland has made Marcia’s admiration of those who act as they feel a cornerstone of her performance. Divorced from the theatrical deceptions and snark that define so much of the plot, de Havilland goes all in on stylized sincerity. She rescues Marcia from the jaws of dogged, inconsiderate standom and endows her reactions with a kind of sideways thoughtfulness. Yes, she’s eager to cast her crush’s blatantly unpleasant behavior as commendable traits, but she’s also really thinking about what Basil and Henry are saying to her, instead of mindlessly parroting whoever has her heart at the moment. As with Margaret Rutherford in Blithe Spirit, de Havilland reaps so much audience goodwill by letting Marcia simply mean everything she says and does, even as she matches It’s Love I’m After’s heightened silliness and leaps headlong into clearly regrettable decisions. You can see the gears turning in her head as she falls deeper in love with Basil, taking his theatrical self-caricature at face value and still coming up with a fairly accurate version of the man. Just as important, you can see why he might be besotted with her uncritical yet perceptive idolatry, without quite glossing over all the reasons he should snap her out of it.
She also achieves this sublime connection to her character while being an absolute scream, poking fun at the startlingly muscular conviction behind Marcia’s puppy love without lunging for easy laughs. Basil diagnoses her with having a “slap me, I like it” personality, and de Havilland incorporates that sense of masochism alongside her other dignified, misguided, and earnest aspects. She comes across as a juvenile flibbertigibbet, hurling out her lines with gusts of girlish enthusiasm. Her body language is just as funny, maybe even funnier. I’ve never seen her move this much on screen, and she modulates her posture at different levels of giddiness, anxiety, and relaxation while still holding onto the rarefied poise of a high society girl. Her face is always active, whether she’s listening in on a conversation or with all of the camera’s attention lavished onto her gorgeous face. Her reaction shots are priceless, my favorite being an over-the-shoulder double take at an unexpected guest, nearly spiking the camera, while she and Basil are wrapped in each other’s arms.
My lasting impression of de Havilland and It’s Love I’m After aren’t of so many specific, indelible moments but of a whole film accomplishing a tone and tempo that’s far more rewarding and dexterous than a baker’s dozen of less successful features with similar goals. And yet, rewatching the film for this article has only etched it further into my brain. It’d be silly to pitch it only for de Havilland’s star turn when everyone involved is doing top-notch work. Even so, I love what a luminous, tangible impression she makes, despite having a good deal less screen time than Howard and Davis. The saving graces of de Havilland’s performance are deceptively challenging and deliciously executed. Her final choice about which man she picks and her justifications for it is a sublime payoff for the bizarre yet thoughtful creation she's dished up so beautifully. I'm so excited to watch more of her filmography, and I look forward to finding anythis this comedically dazzling down the line.
