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Friday, July 5, 2024

LUCKY PARTNERS (1940)

In spite of a forced setup typical of Hollywood rom-coms at the time (older man randomly wishes good luck to a younger woman he passes in the street . . . and the luck sticks), the star power is terrific; enough to get you over early bumps.  Ronald Colman is charm itself against an obviously delighted Ginger Rogers (brunette here) as the surprised beneficiary.  Taken from an early Sasha Guitry film (BONNE CHANCE/’35 with Guitry and his 22-yrs younger wife, beating the Colman/Rogers age gap by two years*), the gimmick is that Rogers is already engaged to Jack Carson, but agrees to a platonic ‘honeymoon’ with Colman’s eccentric semi-retired artist if they win on the Irish Sweepstakes ticket they’ve bought together . . . what, no chaperone!  Little mystery on why this picks up steam and starts to engage just when you think it’s bound to turn dumb, someone brought in hot B’way writer/director John Van Druten for a rewrite.  On a roll at the time for stage work, he couldn’t do much with the first act, but the film steadily improves as it goes along, ending with a riotous courtroom scene that’s nearly as funny as it thinks it is.  Director Lewis Milestone, though known for serious things, was also the winner of the sole Oscar® for Comedy Direction (TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS/’29*), puts a swell cast thru its paces and gets particular sparks out of Harry Davenport’s sensibly confused judge.  No classic, but better than you might expect.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *The Guitry can be found online, but clips reveal a pretty bumpy piece of work. OR:  Two years on, Colman was in his 50s, but wooing the even younger Susan Peters, just 21, in his biggest hit ever, RANDOM HARVEST/’42.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/random-harvest-1942.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Most Milestone sound films show a bias toward silent technique, especially on cuts to close-ups in agogic rhythms that don’t flow via seamless ‘invisible’ editing.  Not so here.

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