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Wednesday, July 3, 2019

THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941)

Another Populist-leaning/labor vs. management romantic-comedy, this one blessed with a sharp, funny, beautifully structured script by Norman Krasna that earns its happy ending without having to cheat too much. Charles Coburn is a sort of J. P. Morgan/Richest Man in the World who goes undercover at the Manhattan department store he barely knows he owns to investigate labor organizing. (At 38th St., which makes it the recently shuttered Lord & Taylor’s.) Assigned to ‘Shoes,’ he meets fellow workers Jean Arthur, Spring Byington & Robert Cummings (all nice, even Bob who’s something of a union radical), as well as petty tyrant section manager Edmund Gwenn. Everyone assumes he’s some down-on-his-luck nobody, and Coburn plays along to learn what he can about the agitators, only to wind up sympathizing with labor against his policies, his execs & himself. But while the general thrust of the story is a given, everyone plays so well (Gwenn & Coburn adversarial delights, even bland Cummings a treat) and the situations so cleverly handled, the film is about as good as these things get. Sam Wood could be a nondescript director, but not when Production Designer William Cameron Menzies was on hand to lend compositional flair. This thing is really built. (And note how much of the film gets along without any background score to lean on.) A particular triumph for Jean Arthur in her first film after her long run at Columbia, now with husband Frank Ross as producer.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Made at R.K.O., there’s unusually strong support even in the smallest roles (S.Z. Sakall, William Demarest, Montagu Love, Regis Toomey, Florence Bates). No doubt, producer Ross calling in favors.

DOUBLE-BILL: Arthur & Coburn reunited for George Stevens’ even more popular THE MORE THE MERRIER/’43. It has the better rep (and Arthur makes magic with Joel McCrea), but often feels uncomfortably forced compared to DEVIL. (see below)

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