ARISE MY LOVE (1940)

The interregnum between the start of WWII in Europe and America’s post-Pearl Harbor entry begat just about the oddest genre subset in Hollywood history: Prelude-to-War Romantic Comedy.   A queasy combination, it outlasted its moment, but initially did allow the studios to take sides in the conflict.  (In Congress, D.C. isolationists were denouncing anti-German Hollywood sentiment right up to December 7th.)  Many top female stars took up the call*, but this one (dir-Mitchell Leisen; script Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett), awkward & confused as it is, was almost certainly the best.  Claudette Colbert is the news reporter scheming to get out of Women’s Features flying into the Spanish Civil War to save Flyboy Ray Milland from execution by posing as the loyal little wife.  (The wild tonal shift from  death by firing squad to romantic patter & flight to freedom anticipating Wilder using the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre to set up comedy in SOME LIKE IT HOT/’59.)  Romance blooms (how could it not with Colbert looking indescribably lovely in a Paris hack under Charles Lang’s lensing), though Milland still hopes to fly for Poland and Claudette has a new assignment in Berlin.  But when war suddenly breaks out, they ditch Freedom Fighting for safety in America till a torpedo torpedoes those plans.  Love will have to wait; there’s a war to be won!  Fascinating to imagine how this must have played to nervous audiences at the time.  (You can feel how personal it was to French-born Colbert and Welsh-born Milland.)  And just as fascinating to see how studio artifice in sets & effects (those toy planes!), helps rather than hurts the conceit & conflicting dramatic angles.  Imagine this working at all with more realistic production values.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *With cachet borrowed from The Lunts on B’way, Norma Shearer started the Prelude-to-War/Rom-Com cycle in IDIOT’S DELIGHT/’39; Joan Bennet took it to a dark place in THE MAN I MARRIED/’40 (while sister Constance answered on PARIS UNDERGROUND/’45); Joan Crawford came late via REUNION IN FRANCE/’42; and Ginger Rogers took the Booby Prize for ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON/’42; many more. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/02/idiots-delight-1939.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-man-i-married-1940.html     https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/madame-pimpernelaka-paris-underground.html      https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/reunion-in-france-1942.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/05/once-upon-honeymoon-1942.html