LADY IN A JAM (1942)

Starting in early silent animation, but mostly celebrated for two best-of-their-kind mid-‘30s ensemble comedies: ‘screwball’ MY MAN GODFREY and drama-tinged STAGE DOOR; you’ll look in vain to find their equal in other Gregory La Cava directed films.  Not that there aren’t worthwhile candidates, but nothing anywhere near that level.  (Lost silents and hard-to-find sound titles might prove otherwise.)  This, his penultimate release, shows him at half staff, riffing off GODFREY to reasonable effect, especially if you hang around till everyone goes west to reopen a ‘played out’ family gold mine.  Irene Dunne is remarkably committed to her rather unpleasant entitled character, a broke/mentally flighty heiress who can’t adjust to reduced circumstances.  Lucky for her, the sanatarium funded by her family in better times feels they owe her special treatment, so she’s followed by staff psychoanalyst Patric Knowles (charming at his most Errol Flynn-like), convinced he can fix her up in an afternoon; then tagging along to the depleted mine where the rest of the family live a threadbare existence.  Watch for Jane Garland, great in her only film role as a chubby young niece who knows the score.  Ralph Bellamy also there, reimagining the same third-wheel hayseed he’d tried out against Dunne in THE AWFUL TRUTH/’37.  But now, as extroverted as he’d previously been introverted.  Undoubtedly derivative, but La Cava makes it swing in spite of a scrappy script.  The truth is, screwball tropes without the Great Depression to anchor the craziness in real desperation rarely work even as well as they do here.*  Just don’t expect too much.  (Except for Hal Mohr’s lensing which is pretty phenomenal.  Especially out of Universal.)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Book-ended by La Cava to finish his career on two more flawed comedies with Dunne (UNFINISHED BUSINESS/’41; LIVING IN A BIG WAY/’47).  Together, they showed better form with straight drama in  SYMPHONY OF SIX MILLION/’32.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/07/symphony-of-six-million-1932.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *But what about Preston Sturges at the same time, I hear you ask.  Well, that’s one reason Sturges ain’t screwball.  He’s Sturges; a category of one.