THE HEAVENLY BODY (1944)

Why bother using top M-G-M producer Arthur Hornblow Jr, and director Alexander Hall, on loan-out from Columbia, still hot from HERE COMES MR. JORDAN/’41, for such a throwaway comedy?  (Plus the great Al Hirschfield on this trade poster!)  Granted, just about anything made money during the war years, but this is some kind of lame.  Our main gag: World-famous astronomer William Powell, in the headlines for discovering a comet on track to crash the moon, is exasperated when wife Hedy Lamarr keeps mixing up ASTRONOMY and ASTROLOGY.*  And now, thanks to busybody neighbor Spring Byington, in thrall to a new horoscope reading from Fay Bainter predicting a warm-blooded man (Clark Gable fill-in for the duration James Craig) is coming to sweep her off her feet.  Not a lot to get out of this set-up, yet the film is all but essential viewing just to see William Powell lose his comic mojo for the only time in his long career.  Largely in the first act, when he has most of his solo scenes against Lamarr.  Always gorgeous, always dramatically inert, her line readings flat enough to discombobulate the usually unflappable Powell technique.  She’s like a tennis ball that won’t bounce back.  Mind you, Powell’s timing plus-perfect with everyone else; even with Lamarr when there’s a third-party involved; or working on his own in reaction shots while taste-testing flavored vodkas with some new Russian pals.  (1944 - a very Hands Across the River Neva year.)  But Powell’s face plants with Hedy are unique, like watching the Statue of Liberty sit down to rest her torch.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Kinda ironic when Lamarr may have been the smartest actor in Hollywood.  Her experiments with avant-garde composer George Atheil in electronics & physics picked up by the Army Air Force for use in bombing runs, and currently part of that ‘smartphone’ you may be reading this on!

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Powell’s next had him running for cover with another THIN MAN pic, THE THIN MAN GOES HOME/’44.  And if it hardly covers him (or anyone else) in glory, at least he’s back to form in what elsewise is the weakest of the beloved series,    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/thin-man-goes-home-1944.html