Almost There: Cary Grant in "The Awful Truth"

by Cláudio Alves

Since last month, the Criterion Channel has hosted a curated collection of screwball comedies, spanning the subgenre's pre-Code genesis to its postwar decline. Among the many screwy delights, you'll find The Awful Truth, Leo McCarey's 1937 classic, and a Best Director Oscar winner to boot. Indeed, the movie was most beloved by the Academy, scoring five additional nominations, including for Picture, Actress, and Supporting Actor. According to contemporary publications, that last honor was a relative surprise, especially since the movie's leading man was left off the ballot altogether.

You would think a major star associated with such an awards juggernaut would have an easy time nabbing themselves a coattails nomination, but Cary Grant was out of luck in 1937. Well, when it comes to the AMPAS, he was often unfortunate, only ever getting their seal of approval in the early 40s with a couple of dips into melodrama-land. Though much of the star's legacy relies on comedies, Old Hollywood voters seemed perpetually unimpressed by Grant's funny business. In that regard, The Awful Truth stands out as his most egregious snub…

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Ranking the Woodward/Newman Collaborations

by Cláudio Alves

Last month, Ethan Hawke's documentary series The Last Movie Stars premiered on HBO. Chronicling the lives of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, the show is a precious consideration of the couples' legacy as artists, celebrities, teachers, and private people whose love endures beyond the threshold of death. Rather than being an idealized portrait, it's a program that acknowledges its subjects' thorny complexities, emerging as a humanistic jewel that's essential viewing whether or not you're a fan of its starry duo. Inspired by The Last Movie Stars, I spent a good part of August exploring many of the movies mentioned in the doc.

Specifically, I watched every single project Woodward and Newman made together, including those where one was working behind the camera. Here's a personal ranking of those 17 titles… 

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1937: Fay Bainter in "Make Way for Tomorrow"

We're revisiting 1937 this month leading up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternates to Oscar's ballot.

We begin 1937 with Fay Bainter, the third-ever winner of the Supporting Actress Oscar for Jezebel in 1938 (you may have heard about it last year!) in Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow. McCarey viewed the film as his greatest achievement, to the point that when he received his Best Director Oscar for The Awful Truth the same year Make Way for Tomorrow earned no nominations, he opened his acceptance speech by saying he won for the wrong movie. We can discuss the considerable merits of both films about couples splitting up and staying together, along with how brilliantly they showcase McCarey’s skills with tone, blocking, performance shaping, scene construction, as well as its enduring legacy in films like Tokyo Story and Love is Strange. Bainter distinguishing herself with the best supporting turn in either McCarey film, taking on what might have been the film's most unsympathetic role and turning her into a thoughtful, utterly human figure...

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"Make Way for Tomorrow" across film history

by Cláudio Alves

"Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." 

Those were Leo McCarey's words upon winning the Best Director Oscar of 1937. His victory was for the screwball classic The Awful Truth, though the filmmaker would have preferred if the honor had been bestowed upon another of his films. In 1937, McCarey not only directed one of Old Hollywood's most beloved comedies, but he also helmed one of its most devastating tearjerkers. According to Orson Welles, Make Way for Tomorrow could make a stone cry…

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1957: Cathleen Nesbitt in "An Affair to Remember"

Before each Smackdown, we look at alternate possibilities to the actual Oscar ballot...

by Nick Taylor

Camila Henriques wrote a great article last week on Deborah Kerr’s performance in An Affair to Remember, a film whose cultural resonance feels like a tribute to the star power of its lead couple. A remake of the romantic drama Love Affair (1939) from its original director Leo McCarey, the film follows wealthy socialites Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) and Nick Ferrante (Cary Grant), who fall in love over the course of an eight-day transatlantic cruise to New York despite being engaged to other people. The relaxed pacing, resplendent colors, high production values, picturesque photography, and appealing slow-burn chemistry between Kerr and Grant reads like an open invitation from McCarey to luxuriate in the sheer handsomeness of what he’s put together. The economy of Love Affair is missed, though for my money the film’s besottedness with itself keeps An Affair to Remember from fully matching the emotional complexity of its predecessor. Especially in the early going, McCarey seems content to let his leads luxuriate in their own charisma without asking them to do all that much. But nonetheless the film is able to evince real moments of depth that linger long after the credits have rolled. And wouldn’t you know that the first such moment arrives when Terry and Nick make a surprise visit to his Grandmother Janou, played in this iteration by Cathleen Nesbitt. 

In both films, Terry and Nick’s time with Janou is the catalyzing event that leads them to acknowledge their love for each other...

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