Why aren't you married, Miss Milliken?

Well, really?

Some high tight, clean cut, nice young fellow.

If you don't mind, Mr.

Dingle.

Of course, there's not many men about nowadays, but there's always one if you're out to get one.

Maybe I don't want to get married.

Well, don't you?

Or maybe you do.

Well, come, come, Miss Milliken.

Make up your mind.

Make up my mind.

You know.

Damn the torpedoes.

Full steam ahead.

That's what Admiral Farragut said.

Of all times, Miss Millican, this is no time to be indecisive.

In.

If you expect to get along here, Mr.

Dingle, you'll have to learn to mind your own business.

These days, Miss Milliken, everybody's business is everybody's business.

War brings people closer together, you know.

Not you and me, Mr.

Dingle.

Good night.

Hello.

I'm film historian Tony Maeta.

And I'm Brad Schreib, who's just the guy who likes movies.

We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age.

We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

As does your self-delusion.

Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Hey everybody, I'm back.

It's so great to be back.

Where was I going?

I wasn't going to go anywhere anyway.

It's great to be back, but I'm really excited not to be all by myself this week again because for the second week in a row, I'm so excited to welcome back my fabulous guest co-host of Going Hollywood, Mr.

Brandon Davis.

Brandon, thank you so much for joining me again on the podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah, no problem.

No problem, Tony.

Thanks so much.

And you did you did a commendable job going solo on uh part two of Valley of the Doll.

That's not a that's not one that I was brave enough to do solo.

It was pretty interesting.

And then I kind of thought, hmm, I kind of like this.

I don't have Brad talking back to me in some of this stuff.

So I just had, but I heard it in my head.

I would hear his comments in my head, and I would just say, okay, fine, shut up, shut up.

Um, for those of you who weren't, Brandon was with us last week.

We we had kind of like a getting to know you uh episode with Brandon because I was a guest on Brandon's fabulous podcast, Front Row Classics, through NPR Illinois.

And Brandon graciously agreed to come on and help me out.

And we had a really fun chat last week.

We just talked about anything.

Anything, mostly what ifs, but we just talked about everything and anything.

Yeah, we talked everything from Betty Davis to Judy Garland to yeah, everything, everything in between.

The usual suspects, the usual suspects on this podcast.

Um, so yeah, it was a lot of fun.

I'm I'm just so excited to have you and to talk about this with you because another reason why I'm very excited, besides having Brandon here, is because we're going to talk about one of my absolute favorite, favorite, favorite movies ever.

And you know, when Brandon and I were talking last week, uh, we always find we have more and more things in common.

And so I'm curious about this obvious with you, because today we are talking about The More the Merrier from Columbia in 1943, directed by George Stevens and starring Joel McRae, Charles Coburn, and the incandescent, evervescent velvet foghorn herself, Jean Arthur.

So thank you for talking about this with me.

I so appreciate it.

I didn't want to expose Brad to it.

I just didn't want I didn't want to risk it.

Yeah, let's let's let's do a pot, let's have a positive George Stevens uh George Stevens tribute here.

In all fairness, in all fairness to Brad, he did like Giant, but he didn't realize that George Stevens directed Giant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think had he known, maybe not.

And you know, I will give him I've I've shown people Alice Adams, and uh some people are meh on Alice Adams, so he's not alone.

I remember Mama, though, I've never heard somebody be I remember Mama.

I don't either.

I find that's uh it's a little long, but you know what?

It's it's not.

Um, and I really do think, and we talked about this too.

I think he would love this.

I think he would love this movie.

Um I do.

I don't think it, I don't think it's I don't think it's problematic.

I don't know anyone who doesn't love this movie, so except I should ask you.

You like this movie, don't you, Brian?

Oh, I love this movie, yeah.

Yeah, I love George.

Well, yeah, I don't think I don't think there's a George Stevens movie I dislike um of the ones that I've seen, but no, this is one of my this is one of my absolute favorites because it's kind of got everything that I love.

I love I love this era of filmmaking.

I love any movie that has to do with with uh World War II.

I just find that era fascinating.

So any movie made between you know 42 and 46, um, I just really, really adore.

And this is such a wonderful time capsule, but I love I love these screwball romantic comedies from this period.

Yeah, you know what what I find fascinating about this film and and George Stevens always is the fact that even in his comedies, there's a serious undertone.

You know, there's always there's it's he's not always making a social comment, but there's frequently a social comment, say Alice Adams comedy with very dramatic, serious undertones about class systems and about social issues.

And this, and the more the merrier, as I said in 1943, and and Brenda just said wartime, there's a war going on.

And that the fact that there's a war going on in this air quotes comedy colors every single frame of this film, and I find that so fascinating because there's an undercurrent in this film that you don't have in the the movie before this talk of the town that he did with Gene Arthur, George Stevens did with Gene Arthur.

There's other social things going on.

There's no other social messages than that, and it's it's fascinating to me for that reason.

It's fascinating to me because of the star, because I just feel like when when people ask me who's an actress that you don't think people know enough about or people you want people to know about, I immediately think of Gene Arthur.

I don't understand why more people don't know Gene Arthur.

She has been in some of the most iconic films in Hollywood history.

Mr.

Smith goes to Washington, for God's sake, and people don't know her.

Mr.

Smith goes to Washington, Shane talk of the town.

Yeah, I mean, she has such an incredible, wonderful um filmography.

And yeah, I don't know what it is, why she's not listed among you know nobody my age, really, unless you're a classic film fan.

Exactly.

I don't get that.

I mean, I mean, in some, and even if they haven't seen their movies, I could say Betty Davis or Catherine Hepburn or Joan Crawford, and I would say a good three-quarters of people my age would probably at least recognize the name, but Gene Arthur, probably not.

I mean, yeah, Mr.

Smith goes to Washington, Mr.

Deeds goes to town.

I mean, these are these, um, you can't take it with you.

These are iconic films, not to even mention the screwballs that she does.

You know, uh, The Devil and Miss Jones, Easy Living.

I mean, it's it's it's always a very astounding me.

And then once people see Gene Arthur, they I think her.

You can't forget Gene Arthur.

She's she's memorable is not even the right word for her.

And I remember the first time I saw this film, I was I guess I was familiar with Gene Arthur in a way from Mr.

Smith Goes to Washington, from Only Angels Have Wings, another one she's in with Cary Grant.

A foreign affair.

I love a foreign affair.

Oh, I love a foreign affair too, one of my favorites.

And then I'm like, well, wait a minute.

This is that actress?

Because I feel like the reason maybe people people don't know so much about her is because of the fact that she's kind of overshadowed by the Jimmy Stewart, by the Cary Grants.

And one of the reasons I love her in this film is that she I don't feel she's overshadowed by Joel McRae.

I feel like they're perfect together.

I just love them as a couple, and I think that's the reason why she stands out to me in this film.

And also, hello, this woman's career went from 1925 way up into the 50s, and only because she retired from film, and then she kept working on Broadway and TV.

One Oscar nomination in the entire career for this movie.

It's astounding.

Yeah.

She and I th you know, I was thinking about this, and I thought, you know, she and Irene Dunn both are kind of in the same boat where they were both huge stars.

When you see them in movies, you can't forget them, but I think probably because they retired from the screen somewhat early-ish and didn't go on the way that some of their contemporaries did.

Some to some to their detriment.

Um the way that some of their that they kind of just it was kind of out of sight, out of mind.

Yeah.

And so maybe because they didn't do television in the 60s, 70s, 80s the way that a lot of their contemporaries did, they just were never thought of in that same way.

And they weren't as they weren't as enigmatic as Hepburn or Garbo.

So yeah, it just for some reason Dunn and Arthur are kind of the two, and yet they're so good.

I that's a great point.

You know, there was never a lady in a cage for Irene Dunn or Gene Arthur.

There wasn't going to be a die, die, my darling, for Gene Arthur.

Gene Arthur they never showed up on the love boat, they never showed up on hotel.

No, exactly, exactly.

They weren't doing, they weren't doing guest bots on the Colby's.

Um, you know, it just was not in there.

I mean, Gene Arthur barely wanted to work when she was in her prime.

You know what I mean?

She just she was not a always a happy woman, a happy woman.

But but we're we're getting ahead of ourselves.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about um we'll also obviously we'll give a little plot plot synopsis of of this movie, but it's kind of funny because with when I'm with Brad, since the whole you know theme of this podcast is air quotes film historian, air quotes normal guy.

Um so I always feel like I have to give all this information, but hey, I have a film historian on with me right now.

So I don't have to do that.

I don't have to do that.

I don't have to do good doing this long background because you know, Brandon knows too, and we'll tell you together.

But I think what I want to say, first of all, about uh The More the Merrier as a wartime comedy is it is also George Stevens' last film he completed before he entered World War II.

And when we were talking about I Remember Mama, I mentioned that this was also his last comedy completely, totally.

His last lighthearted movie.

Yes, because when he went into World War II, he joined the Army's combat photography unit, and he recorded the only color film of the war in Europe that was known at that time.

And he was also part of the first film unit to arrive at Dachau two days after the camps were the camp was liberated by the Allies, and that changed his perspective on everything after that, after life after that.

He couldn't, the horrors he just saw, he couldn't imagine creating a lighthearted comedy again.

And that's why his films all shifted, don't you think?

Oh, I think so, yeah.

Yeah, because every movie that he makes after the war, even something like I remember mama, which does have some lighthearted moments, but there's they they all have some kind of deep, deep message to them.

And they get, you know, a place to the sun is very it's romantic, but it's dark.

Um, and then and then you go into stuff like Shane and stuff like Giant and the Diary of Anne Frank.

Diary of Anne Frank.

I mean, and then he even does, you know, in the 60s, he even does a biblical epoch.

He does uh the greatest story ever told, right?

So they all have some kind of really big, meaningful message to them, and all have very, very big dramatic weight.

I feel like he flipped the script.

You know, I feel like before the war he was doing comedies with serious undertones, and then after the war, he was doing serious films with comedic undertones, slight comedic undertones.

I mean, there's because giant has moments of levity, Shane has moments of levity, yeah.

Diary Van Frank has moments of levity.

I mean it does, you know, it's based on the play, of course, but it's so yeah, it's it's just it's really interesting to see how he developed as a filmmaker.

And as I've said, one of the things I love most about Stevens, and one of the things Stevens is most famous for are his close-ups.

He does legendary close-ups in so many films, in Alice Adams, in most famously in The Place in the Sun.

You know, his his close-ups of Elizabeth Montgomery.

Elizabeth Montgomery.

I wish he would have directed some bewitched.

His close-ups of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift are legendary.

And he has beautiful close-ups in this film, too.

Oh, yeah.

Gene Arthur was 42 when she made this film.

42.

Think about that.

Most actresses at that time were over the hill at 32.

She's 42 making this film, and she looks luminous.

Now, a lot of that has to do with the cinematographer, Ted Tetzlav.

But again, George Stevens, that's his eye, and that's what he's he's presenting.

This beautiful, beautiful version of her.

I find her intoxicating in this movie.

Yeah, I think I think this is the most beautiful she ever uh she's ever been in a movie, I think.

Uh trying to think back to her filmography, but yeah, I just think her wardrobe is very chic and stylish in this.

The way she carries herself is very sexy.

Um, yeah, this is just this is peak Gene Arthur for me.

And yeah, it's it really is amazing.

And there's there's there's some specific, and I know what you're referring to too, but some really specific close-ups with her and Joel McRae, especially toward the end, um, that are just luminous that you can just frame and hang on your wall.

They're so beautiful.

But uh she has got this effervescence in this while playing a character at the beginning who's very sort of tries to be buttoned up, but there is a little leaf there that she's trying to let out.

And uh, you know, Joel McCrae brings that in.

Hey, Joel McCray can bring that in at anybody.

Well, she worked for the Office of Facts and Figures.

I mean, she's very rigid, she's very regimented, is the word.

And what I love about what Stevens does in this, and uh might be a little bit ahead of ourselves here, but uh, as far as the close-ups, as far as the filming, you know, I uh in the beginning of the film, most of the film, for the premise, it has to be shot this way, but Stevens is also talking about uh Gene Arthur's character's name is Connie, Connie Milligan.

Um, so many shots are through doorways, are through windows, are around corners, because Connie's life is very regimented.

And that's what Stevens is showing us that she's she lives in this structure like an apartment.

Everything's very structured.

And then when she starts to loosen up and when love starts to come, and in the end, of course, those walls are literally taken down.

There's less and less of that until they're gone.

And I love that.

And the same thing with the close-ups, you know, he's he doesn't do close-ups until they start to fall in love.

And and you know, that's that's the lovely thing about what Stevens does with his close-ups.

He's very he doesn't overdo them, he gives you just enough and to make his point and to tell you something about the character and to tell you something about the story and where we're at, and they just then he lets go.

It's it's sty I love Stevens.

I love Stevens.

Oh, yeah, it's incredible.

It's incredible, and also and also going back to Gene Arthur, I love uh George Stevens to me brings out uh you know, and and Capra does a little bit, but uh Stevens especially brings out the wonderful kooky side of it that is so wonderful.

I mean, she'll do line readings or like some of the noises she makes.

He's gonna talk about the noises.

I was thinking, I just I just watched Talk in the Town recently because I did an episode on it, but um, the scene where Ronald Coleman is about to uh find out that Cary Graham is an ex-convict in the paper, and she throws the egg on it, friend, and the little and the little noise she makes, and the little fits she throws, and she throws the and she makes some wonderful, especially toward the end after the walls come down.

Um, an incredible noise comes out of her.

The grunts and harumfs and screams and gurgles that come out of Gene Arthur are priceless.

Pretty amazing considering she started in silent film.

This is a woman and didn't even like her own voice.

She didn't like her voice.

I think her earliest talk is she doesn't even have this voice.

I mean, I think she just kind of like she either developed it or she was suppressing it, you know.

So someone who started in silent film who who really is like uh another actress I think of with a voice like this, like Margaret Sullivan, that a voice which is so distinct and so her own.

You hear Gene Arthur, you know that's Gene Arthur.

You're not gonna think that ain't Barbara Stanwick, that's certainly not Catherine Hepburn, that's Gene Arthur, I think, is what you think.

Absolutely.

Well, and Margaret Sullivan, you mentioned another woman who wasn't particularly pleasant to work with all the time.

But yeah, no, but yeah, every yeah, yeah, such a distinct voice, and I think it's just man, I find it so charming uh when she talks.

There's something so there's a childlike quality to it, but there's also this sort of world weary cynicism in it.

It's got sort of everything, uh yeah, yeah.

Playfulness, playfulness, an orderiness, uh, even even a sexiness to the to the timber.

And yeah, you know, because she works so much with because her films with Capra are so iconic.

Mr.

Smith goes to Washington, Mr.

Deeds goes to town.

I but I really honestly prefer her with Stevens.

I think there are some actors and actress who's just who just click with each other.

I think I feel that way about Davis and Weiler, I feel that way about Hepburn and Qcor, and I feel that way about Arthur and Stevens.

I think he brought something out in her that nobody else did, and it's individual and it's unique and it's perfection, in my opinion.

Oh, I agree.

I agree, absolutely.

There is just a spark that he brings out of her and just this sort of effervescence.

I mean, she's she's able to it in the Catherine movie, she's a little more tailored, which I think fits some of those characters, right?

But she she is able to really just let out and be almost almost method in her performances in these movies.

It's got this kind of um, she just she she knows these characters and she can dig in a little bit more and not have any inhibitions about her whatsoever.

That's wonderful.

So let's tell you a little bit about what this movie's about.

Now, we're not gonna do plot point by plot point.

We know we don't do that here.

Um, but we should I do want to give you an overview of this film.

You know, as we said, it takes place during World War II at the height of the war in Washington, D.C.

And because it's wartime, there is an extreme housing shortage, and everyone is being um not persuaded, but everybody's being encouraged to help ease the houting shortage by renting out spaces they may have.

And Gene Arthur plays Connie Milligan, who very, very patriotically decides to rent out half a room in her apartment in Washington, D.C.

And she puts an ad in the paper for a room.

And at that time, now I don't know if he's a millionaire or not.

I've heard he's a millionaire, I heard he's not a millionaire, I don't know, but anyway, Charles Coburn, who plays Mr.

Dingle, I love that name, Benjamin Dingle answers the ad and through machinations ends up her roommate.

She's not too happy about having a man live there, but it's the wartime and she needs to do her part.

And while the next day, after she rents it, the next day he sees Joel McCrae on the street carrying a propeller, walking down the street in Washington, D.C.

carrying a propeller.

And he gets the patriotic urge too, because Joel McCrae's looking for a place to stay for a few days.

So he rents his half of his room to Joel McCrae.

So it's a half of a half of an apartment which is rented by Gene Arthur, Gene Arthur's apartment.

And as you can imagine, mishaps, comedy, and romance ensue.

So that's my like five five cent uh synopses of it.

Is there anything you want to add to that?

No, I think you know, I would, and that plot synopsis alone would make me want to go see it because it is it's three incredibly likable people just uh in in in a movie.

And all you have to do really is just throw them together and let the situation happen from the characters.

And it just works so well.

But what I love so much, and I was talking earlier about this, I just love movies that give you kind of a time capsule into what life was like because you know it's like why it's why I love movies like Since You Went Away or uh Tinder Comrades or something like that, where where you see what life was like, you know, going to the grocery store or free you know, doing uh you know Freedom Gardens or you know, tire drives or things like that, rubber drives and for tire, you know, it's it was how everyone kind of banded together, but also told you like some of the um some of the issues that we were having on the home front and the housing shortage was one of them.

Yeah.

And so this is one of those movies that sort of just jumps you right into the action of that time.

And it's just, I mean, from from the get-go, it's so as Charles Coburn walks on screen and you just you fall in love with this movie.

Charles Coburn.

He he is remarkable.

And I think I I I'm what I texted you was for some reason, Charles Coburn, Klon Reigns, and Sydney Green Street could play equally lovable and equally despicable at the same time.

Yeah, the thing I love about Charles Coburn, yes, yes, and the thing you're absolutely right about that.

And one of my Charles Coburn's favorite, one of my favorite performances of Charles Coburn, I have a very favorite, which I'm gonna quiz you and see if you can guess what it is.

Yeah, but I love him in In This Our Life with Betty a very under, in my opinion, a very underrated Betty Davis, Olivia De Havilland film film directed by John Houston.

Probably her most evil.

Her most evil, probably her most evil.

She runs over a kid and then tries to blame it on you.

I mean, it's crazy.

And he plays her incestuous uncle, you know, who's who's definitely got designs on her.

And he's it is very uncomfortable, the scenes between the two of them.

It's very uncomfortable.

And you're like, this is that adorable Mr.

Dingle from the more the merrier, the guy, the cupid.

And here he is, kind of this lecherous old man putting the moves on his niece, Betty Davis.

It's a highly underrated movie directed by John Houston.

I love In This Our Life.

I think it is such great trash.

One of my favorites.

I love him in the Lady Eve.

I love him in The Devil and Miss Jones, The Devil and Miss Jones.

That's a different movie, The Devil and Miss Jones.

Hello.

The Devil and Miss Jones.

Again with Gene Arthur.

But you know what my very very can you guess what my very, very favorite performance of his is?

Oh man.

This is one of your favorite musicals.

I mean, I don't know you that well, and I already know this is one of your favorite musicals.

Well, are you are you him as Piggy and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?

Yes!

Piggy!

I love him and Gentlemen Prefer Blonde.

He's like almost 80 years old.

Yeah, this guy.

Oh, but he steals the movie almost.

And he steals he's flirting with Marilyn Monroe and with the Tiara, and oh Piggy.

But he and yet he's not, and yet he's more interested in the diamonds than he, you know, and that's he is.

He's it's such a sweet, endearing performance.

Yeah, he's you know, and the only Oscar winner in this movie.

And he's also movie.

Well, and then he's he's despicable in uh King's Row.

Um yeah, oh yeah.

I mean he could just go back and forth, but no, he and then I also love I I mentioned to you my favorite though is um uh David Niven's father and uh Bachelor Mother with Ginger Rogers, where you know he just he wants to be a grandfather more than anything, and he doesn't care that it's not his son, so he just still wants to be the grandfather.

He's so delightful, and he steal he he I don't want to say he steals this movie because I love Gene Arthur so much in this movie, but he comes about as close as you can get to stealing this movie because he's just his character, uh he's just such a delight.

The minute you're right, the minute he walks on screen, the minute he walks on screen, he's just a delight.

And I I feel like we were talking about the fact that this is set in wartime, and that's what I love about this is that you're right, life is different.

The stakes during wartime are so much higher than they are in real life because these people don't know what the next day will bring.

No, I don't necessarily know what the next day is gonna bring here either in this world, but anyway, but they really didn't know it then, and I love the fact that this film could not be set in another time because of the fact that's the justification.

The justification of renting out half of my apartment to this old man and being okay with it is because we're in a war, the stakes are high, we the situations are different, so it's also like a justification.

So you see why, and it's also why these two people eventually fall in love so fast because that's it's like the clock.

Have you you know the clock with Judy Garland and Robert Walker?

Yes, I love that one.

You know, 48 hours, uh, a romance in 48.

That's what this is.

They they they have such a limited amount of time before he's gone, and so everything's heightened, and you get that from this movie, you get that from the way Stevens films it, you you get that from the performances.

Everybody is living at a higher level of intensity because of when it's set and because of what's going on.

And I think Stevens illustrates that beautifully in this film.

Yeah, because you know that he has to uh leave for Africa soon, Joel McRae's character, and uh, you know, and uh you it's always in the back of your mind about what could happen when some when a when a you know soldier gets shipped off at that point, and so who knows that they're gonna come back?

And so um, you know, everything kind of changes once Gene Arthur realized, you know, she's about to kick him and Charles Coburn.

Well, she's already kicked Charles Coburn out for reading her diary.

She's about to kick him out, too.

And then she goes, Oh, well, it's just two more days, you know, you know, and so and then once she realizes sort of the weight of that, that's when everything kind of starts to turn.

But you're right, everything is so heightened, even in these comedies, and that really that really drives it home.

But that sometimes heightens the comedy too, because everything is so big and so grand and just immediate.

Oh, yeah, it is.

No, it's totally it the stakes are so much higher in wartime than they are during peacetime, if you will.

Absolutely.

But I love the fact that this movie came about just because Gene Arthur wanted to get the hell out of our Columbia contract.

She's like, I am so done with you, Harry Cohn.

I am so over you.

Now, for you know, I know you know, Harry Cone ran Columbia Pictures, which was uh one of the poverty row studios.

You know, he wasn't one of the big ones, he wasn't an MGM, it wasn't an MGM, it wasn't a Warner Brothers, it wasn't um a Paramount.

Exactly, exactly.

It was poverty row, but they had one amazing asset, they had Frank Capra.

And Frank Capra kept that studio running.

Columbia never had stars, that was the thing.

That's why Gene Arthur was their only star, really, in the 30s and early 40s, and then when Rita Hayworth came in, and then they kind of picked up.

But so she but Harry Cohn was famously.

I mean, if we're gonna talk about despicable moguls, Harry Cohn was the despicable of the despicable.

I mean, the moguls hated Harry Cohn.

You know what I mean?

He was a reprehensible character, a reprehensible character.

But he also, because he had so little, um, so few stars and so few names under contract, the ones he did have, he usually treated pretty well or at least gave them their head, gave them a little bit of a lead.

But actresses, not so much.

So I think Gene Arthur had been working with him now for I can't remember how her original contract I think started in 35 with him, and she was just ready to go.

And she was put on suspension yet again.

She was always being put on suspension because she refused to do a film because the woman basically was not crazy about working, to be perfectly honest.

And she found this story.

Do you know who the story is by the original story of uh The More Than Marrier, the story by called Tuce Company?

Or Toos Toose a Crowd.

Oh, it's Garson Canaan.

Yeah, Garson Kane.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

Gars and Canaan.

It's it's got a lot of yeah.

Every great screwball comedy is by Garson Canaan.

I know, right?

That's what I'm thinking.

And then you have the whole born uh the whole born yesterday thing that would happen with Gene Arthur later, which we'll get to.

So yeah, the story is called To's a Crowd.

Gene Arthur and her husband bought it, and he brought it to Harry Cohn as her next project to get her closer to I think her contract was up in 44, so the next year, and then she was gonna retire.

And she actually did retire.

I mean, she came back to do a couple movies, but she was pretty much done.

So this is very near the end of her career, and she wanted, you know, as you know, she wanted to reunite with uh they wanted her to put her with Grant again because they just didn't talk of the town, but he wasn't available, so she suggested who did she suggest, Brandon.

Oh, you got me stumped.

Wait a second.

No, the the who's who's that who's in this movie with her.

Oh, Joel McRae.

I'm sorry, I thought for a second.

I thought I'm sorry, I'm gonna pull a brat.

I'm pulling a brat on you here.

Like, who is a brad?

Tell me.

He's like, What?

You're the film historian, buddy.

Joel McCray.

Joel McCrae, the fabulous Joel McCrae.

And you said to me the underrated Joel McCrae.

Absolutely, absolutely.

He, you know, and for someone else who's been in some iconic films, Sullivan's Travels.

I mean, you know, he's the Palm Beach story.

The Palm Beach story, Preston Sturge's go-to man, and yet he loved making those westerns.

And everyone just pretty much knows him as the Western guy.

But I love his chemistry with her in this.

I think it's fabulous.

It's what well, he always has great chemistry with, you know, no matter who it is, whether it's Veronica Lake or Clint Colbert or you know, her.

He always because he doesn't, it's like you said, he doesn't overpower his leading lady.

But he always but he doesn't let them sort of emasculate him either, the way that you know some of the uh Davis Crawford leading men could be emasculating.

Exactly, exactly.

He always he always has his power, but never diminishes the power of his leading ladies, which is what's great.

And I think that he's so wonderful because there is just this sort of human quality to the two of them, which is fabulous.

And and they both um, you know, once again, Joel McCrae, I think you and I talked about the last time.

I talked about certain people who you could pull from a movie of any time and put them in a movie today, and they would work.

Joel McCray's one of those actors.

You could pull a 1943 movie, put him in a movie today, his performance wouldn't feel out of date.

He's got a very contemporary quality, and he's a very laconic quality.

And what I love about him with her is he grounds her.

He grounds her.

I love her with Cary Grant.

I think she's wonderful in Cary Grant, but Cary Grant has a bit can have a bit of a manic energy too.

And so does Gene Arthur.

But Joel McCrae grounds Gene Arthur, kind of kind of brings her down where she's a little calmer and a little sweeter.

Um, and I love that chemistry between them.

I feel like the three of them together, Coburn, they're like they're like the three Stooges in a way.

Coburn and Arthur and McRae, they just bounce off each other and play off each other so brilliantly, independently, and together.

And that's what makes this film work.

You know, the chemistry between them.

And, you know, we didn't mention that, you know, Gene Arthur's character, Connie Milligan, who rents out her apartment to these two men, is also engaged to Charles Pendergast, who's that Ralph Bellamy character who just never seems to get the girl in the end.

But you don't want him to get it, you want Joe McRae to get the girl in the end.

Um, so what happens in the movie is that they find themselves for a time all living together in this house for a very short time, a couple days, and they're out sunbathing on the roof, which I love that they're, you know, Washington, D.C.

in the summertime, sunbathing on the roof, and Mr.

Dingle, Connie goes downstairs, and Mr.

Dingle starts to read her diary, which she has left there, which you just don't do, people, to anybody, let alone Gene Arthur in this film.

So the the trio are broken up, but Dingle had a hotel room ready for him anyway, so it didn't really matter.

The only person who's in trouble is Joel McRae, because he really doesn't have any place to stay, and he's being shipped off to Africa.

Yeah.

So he she comes home and he's still there.

And I love the fact when she comes home, did you notice when she's walking up the stairs knowing that she kicked them out, how slowly and sad she is when she's walking up the stairs because she knows they're not there?

Yeah.

I I I love that.

I love that.

You see, you read that in her in her body language.

Yeah, absolutely, because it's like you don't even have to read her diary because you can tell through her body language how she feels about these two men.

Yeah, exactly.

And then she goes up to the house and she finds he's still there.

And and that's when he gives her that traveling case.

God bless him, he's such a heterosexual man.

It reminds me of those things you you don't remember these, but back in the 70s, there was this thing called the everything bag that women would get, and it like was had all these compartments, and then you could unzip the middle and it could flip it around, and it would be a whole new thing, it's crazy stuff.

And that's what this is.

This, I think you could probably has a writing desk in it, has a makeup mirror, and she's being so magnanimous, but you see how genuinely moved she is by this gift, and that's the first clo that's the first close-up.

When they're looking at the um when they're looking at the makeup case, it's the first time Stevens goes in for a full close-up, and you see you see it in their eyes.

You see how they feel about each other in their eyes, and that's where the romance starts.

And for me, that's I mean, I get goosebumps talking about it.

So it's such a beautifully felt scene.

Yeah, and you're just rooting for them the whole time.

Oh, you are, you are just want them because they're both really just good people, and they're just, you know, the circumstances of the war and the circumstances of her past are just you know trying to keep them apart, and you're rooting for them, and then you know, and then they have that you know thing about Pendergast is gonna call for her at eight o'clock.

And so she's she said she said, Well, if we wait another 30 minutes that he has a call, then it's fine for me to go out with you.

And then they have all those little stumbling blocks of you know, the her neighbor, your little kid neighbor coming at asking for advice, and then and then he Pendergast shows up.

Yeah, it's just all these little stumbling blocks, and you're just like, How much longer is it gonna take for them to get together?

And it's man, it's but it's wonderfully set up by George Stevens.

It is wonderfully set up.

I and you you just you get from Gene Arthur she does not want that phone to ring.

No, she knows if that phone rings, she can't go out with Joel McCray, you know, and she they're just praying for 80802, you know, because he calls at eight.

And if he doesn't call by eight, then it's safe because sometimes he gets caught in meetings, it's safe to go out.

And then the phone rings because that kid put it back on the receiver back because she took it off the hook.

She took the receiver off the hook so it wouldn't ring.

And then that kid, her neighbor comes in and then puts it back on the hook, thinks he's thinking he'd help her, he's helping her out, and of course, that pendergast calls and they have to go out on a date.

But what I what I think is so you know, pendergast is is just the obstacle that's thrown in there.

Obviously, she's not gonna end up with this guy.

They've been engaged for 22 months, and she still calls him Mr.

Pendergast.

I mean, it's just so funny.

Um, but what I always thought about Connie is is that like I had I have envisioned this backstory of Connie that she had a very she had a tragedy, a young tragedy, perhaps.

She lost a boyfriend or she lost someone she was very close to, maybe at the beginning of the war.

And so she's kind of put herself into this safe relationship that's secure and she's not going to get hurt as badly as she was.

I always thought of someone who was hurt very badly, and she's just and um Joel McCrae, Joe Carter, his character, brings her back to life with the help of this cupid, this cherubic cupid named Mr.

Dingle, um, and who brings them together.

But what I always find fascinating about this is so what happens is really quickly, um, so they she goes out uh with Mr.

Pendergast, but wouldn't you know it?

Mr.

Dingle and Joe end up at the same restaurant.

Dingle realizes who Pendergast is.

They know each other through their work.

He takes him off to bring Connie and Joe together, and that's where the romance really kicks in.

They have one of the sexiest uh love scenes on the stoop of her apartment building where he just keeps nuzzling her neck and kissing her, and she keeps pushing him away.

But as she pushes him away, she holds on to his hands.

Everything she pushes away, she holds on to, which I think is an incredible.

That's that's that's that's a great little choice there.

You know what I mean?

It's like I'm not pushing, she's not pushing him away because if he was gonna push him away, she pushed him away and take her hands back.

She pushes them away, but she holds on to him.

And then they have that kiss in the middle of her phrase.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

She's she's she's talking talking nonsense because she's trying to distract herself from the fact that she's so turned on.

And he grabs her and kisses her, and when they they un um when they stop kissing the clinch elements, she finishes the sentence she was saying.

And then she grabs him and kisses him.

I love that.

It's so sexy.

Don't you love that scene?

Oh, it's a fantastic scene, and it's what it's what I was talking about in terms of how George Stevens even his love scenes, I love, because they're not typical to what you would think.

And the way that, like you said, she stops mid-sentence and then she grabs him.

It's all, you know, the the the blocking, the staging, everything is just not something you would expect in a 1943 movie, and it just works.

And it is, I mean, it's like life, it's what happens in life.

And George Steele's films are always sort of like life in that way.

And so, yeah, every yeah, every little bit of it is just fabulous.

And it's just um, it just absolutely works, and it feels human.

It does feel human, it does feel human because this whole time when he, you know, I was thinking about this too.

I'm like, is this you know, from our from our whatever our 2025 perspective, is he being a little too aggressive here with her because she's kind of dancing around him and putting away, she is engaged after all, yeah, and she's trying to be respectable, but she's fighting herself at the same time so much.

And when he when she's talking this nonsense, he's not paying any attention to her, and she keeps asking him about his background, about the girls he dated, she doesn't really care, she's not really listening, she's just trying to stave off the inevitable, which is that they will kiss.

Yeah, and then when you know she says she's talking about a mature viewpoint, and that's what gets broken up.

She goes, if you had a more mature, and then he kisses, he grabs her and kisses her and pulls away and she goes, Viewpoint.

And then she grabs him by the head and kisses him, and it's it's so beautiful.

It's beautiful as it is so sexy, and they say goodnight, except they realize they live in the same house, you know.

They can't really say goodnight to each other, but they're so respectful of each other, they do not cross that line.

They realize he's being shipped off very shortly, but they will not, they are going, she's they're not gonna do it, they're not gonna sleep together, they're not gonna do it, it's not gonna happen.

Um, and then ridiculous things happen and they end up being exposed, and there's a possibility of a scandal, so they have to get married to prevent a scandal, and that's how they end up together having to be married.

But I did want to talk to you about another scene.

And if you have a scene you want to talk about, please jump in.

Absolutely.

But but probably my favorite scene um in the entire film is the morning schedule.

I think it's one of the most brilliant, brilliant scenes.

Do you want to tell the people a little bit about what the schedule is?

Uh, you go ahead.

Okay.

So Connie worked at the Office of Facts and Figures.

Yeah.

So she has everything, she that's how she lives her life.

That's how contained she is, that's how regulated she is.

And um Mr.

Dingle's first night in the apartment, she says, here's the morning schedule.

And she's like, he says, the morning schedule?

She goes, for the morning when we're in, you know, when we get up.

Yeah, it goes from 7 a.m.

to 7:30, and every single minute is taken care of.

You put on your shoes and take off my eggs, and then 7.02, I go in the bathroom and you can go out and get the paper.

And 7.03, you I mean, she has it down, it's hysterical.

And to see to see Charles Coburn's face as she's telling him this, and she just, I was thinking, that is a long monologue that Gene Arthur had to learn.

Yeah, and it's so intricate and it's so detailed.

And then, of course, when the alarm goes off at 7 a.m., it's pandemonium.

Because Charles Coburn can't remember what he's supposed to do and when he's supposed to do it, and she keeps saying, the schedule, Mr.

Dingle, the schedule, the schedule.

It's such a fun, fun scene.

It's I think it's my favorite.

Because, and if you notice too, and I don't know if you notice this, so much of that scene when they're actually doing what they need to do is silent.

It's all it's silent.

Yeah, that's George Stevens.

Oh, absolutely.

George Stevens' silent film training.

You know, it's like um in Woman of the Year, the last the breakfast scene in Woman of the Year.

He he doesn't he likes to use those silences because that's comedy gold to him.

That's comedy gold to him.

Yeah, well, and his use of his use of character too.

I mean, I love the way that the the you know the body language and the sounds and the way that uh Charles Coburn and Joel McCrae bond in the movie, and just their little uh the just the little um um signs that they do to each other.

And then also I love, you know, you talked about the sunbathing scene, and that is one of my favorite scenes because uh just to see everybody else out doing it and how communal everything was at that time.

It's a totally different time.

We don't live in that time anymore.

And how um you know, I think about when he's going after her after she's read the diary, and you've got the two kids across the way who are making those gun noises, right?

And Charles Coburn does it right back to them, and they pretend to fall over and die, and he falls over.

It's just you feel this movie feels lived in, and that's what I really love.

It does, yeah.

And you feel like you know every edge of that apartment by the end of the movie, too.

You do, and it because yeah, because he shows us so much.

I mean, it it all makes so much sense where everything is.

You can see where her where she usually sleeps and where she's sleeping now because she's renting out her half of her apartment.

And I think that you know, as they slowly start to fall in love, and um and you realize that Charles Coburn he starts to do some questionable things to kind of machinate them together.

Is that a right word?

Machinate.

He does some machinations.

He's full of machinations in this from the very beginning.

He's full of machinations in this.

He is literally cupid bringing them together.

Um, they end up having to fly, they have to get married to avoid a scandal because there was a reporter in the cab who heard this whole story about her living with two men in her apartment.

Yeah, and in order for her fiance, Mr.

Pendergast, not to be made a fool of, she has she and Joel McCray have to get married.

So they fly to South Carolina because you don't need a blood test, apparently, get married, yeah, and they come back, and he's leaving the next day, and you know they are aching to be together.

They're aching to be together.

They have to spend one last night in this apartment.

They said, Look, this marriage is just in name only, in name only.

You know, you can go ahead and get it annulled unless you do something that makes it impossible for it to get annulled.

And they're like, no, no, no, only in name only.

It's only in name, name only, name only.

But you know they want to, you know they want to.

So uh they've been basically the bedrooms are right next to each other, and there's a wall between them.

And the way George Stevens shoots it, you see a lot of scenes through the windows outside the apartment building as they're talking to each other in their separate bedrooms.

And that's what's going on when they finally get upstairs to the bedroom to say goodnight to each other, and they've already told each other they loved each other, and he's worried about her, and she's worried about him, and it's a beautiful, beautiful scene.

And Joel McCrae starts talking to her about the things he wants her to do while he's away in Africa, and he starts opening the windows, and he goes to the window in his room, and he goes to the second window in his room, and then suddenly he's in her room lifting up the window, and this goes on for a few seconds before they stop and they turn and they look and they're looking directly at each other because the wall is gone.

And that's when Jean Arthur makes her wonderful grunt.

Oh my god, she makes the best noises because she knows it's her wedding night.

So, somewhere while they were in South Carolina, Dingle came in and took down the wall between the two bedrooms because he knew that when they came back from South Carolina, they would have to be together.

And if they sleep together, they're not getting an enrollment.

So it's a really I that when I first saw that, what was your reaction when you first saw that?

Do you remember?

Because I was like, oh my god, that's amazing.

That because he goes from one room window to the next to the next.

Oh no, oh no, no.

I thought I thought it's so clear.

Well, the choreography is so wonderful.

Yes, just from going one to from the one to the room, from one room to the other, and then and then yeah, the minute you see the wall down, it's just like oh, it's perfect.

I mean, it's perfection.

And it's perfection.

And then and then when you see that you know, Charles Coburn and Dingle has hired all these guys from below to come and take down that wall, and of course, then it brings it all back, you know, the damn the torpedoes full speed ahead, yes, which has been a constant running theme throughout the movie, constant running gag.

Um, yeah, it's just it's it it really, yeah, it all just falls together.

And uh, you know, and I was I I was I was thinking and I was like, you know, is it in 2025 terms, is it a little bit creaky, maybe, but I I find it charming and I find it believable.

No, I think, yeah, well, we have to, again, like you said earlier, you gotta put yourself in the mindset of not only is it a wartime, but it's World War II.

Yeah, different mores, different values.

And you know, today we'd be like, what's the big deal?

Sleep together, who cares?

Oh, no, there wouldn't there wouldn't be a scandal, but there's got to be some way to bring them together.

I always thought it was a bit contrived that they got the FBI involved because Connie's neighbor thinks that Joe McRae was a Japanese spy, was a Japanese spy.

I was like, that's a bit stressed, but yeah, you have to have a reason to get them out of the apartment and having to get married so Dingle can take the wall down.

I also thought that was pretty ballsy of who the hell does this guy think he is?

I mean, it's it's so funny.

He's like his apartment.

It's not his apartment.

He puts it, he invites this guy to live with this woman he just met who's good enough to share half of her apartment with him, and then he invites a stranger to move in.

Different time, yeah, different era, and this is how this is how these romantic comedies work.

I mean well, and from the very beginning, I love the way that he worms his way into the apartment to begin with.

Everyone is waiting to and everyone is waiting for the empty room, and he just turns them all away saying he's alright and giving it away.

It's just great.

He's like Helen Hayes in the airport.

He is you got you got to beware a senior citizen with an agenda because they will charm you and connive you, and the next thing you know, you're like, hey, what?

You're on this plane?

Wait a minute, how'd this happen?

Where's my wall?

You know, it's just like you just destroyed my apartment.

But what what I love about the way Steven shot that too is is when they're before the wall comes down and they're talking to each other, uh, they're telling each other that they, you know, he asks her if she if she loves him.

And he says, Turn your head, she says, if you turn your head away, I'll tell you.

But there's a wall between them, yeah.

But she still has to know that he's not looking at her when she says, I love you.

And it's it, and he tries to he almost get out of bed, and she's like, Don't do it, don't do it, you know.

And now the wall is gone.

So there's nothing that and they're married, so there's nothing, there's no reason why they can't be together anymore.

And it's such a it's such a satisfying, it's such a satisfying end.

I really think it's I think it's a beautiful it wraps it up beautifully.

It wraps it up beautifully.

It's not perfect, but it wraps it up beautifully.

No, I also love the scene in uh when they're in South Carolina and crying and that and that guy and then and and and the extra, the guy who is uh with his incredible accent.

What's going on?

It's so great.

He's an Alice Adams.

He's an Alice Adams, yes, yeah.

He's the one that Catherine Hepburn, the the mama's boy that that Catherine Hepburn dances with.

Yes, yes.

He is he's a George Stevens regular.

Yeah, I think that's I I love that so much.

I love the fact that, yeah, there are you know, there are certain things where you, if you look too closely at it, you're like, that doesn't really make sense.

That doesn't really make sense.

But uh that's the hallmark of these wonderful romantic comedies is you know, you just you you go with it and you go, okay, that kind of makes sense.

I love the fact that that that breakfast scene after they've been married, it happened so fast, suddenly they realize they're married.

When did they change their clothes?

That's what I understand.

They were in the taxi on their way to the airport, and they're in she's in a wedding outfit, and they changed their clothes somewhere online, and all she does is cry on her wedding day.

Yeah, all she does is cry.

And the way Gene Arthur cries is unlike the way anybody else cries in movie history, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

My uh the the only other thing I was thinking of as I was watching at this time was the the one thing that makes it a little bit more of a time capsule and kind of negates that would negate it in 2025 is you know, two two men and a woman living together isn't as scandalous.

So it's not gonna besmirch their reputations anymore in 1925.

That's the one thing that really I think sets even you know, just as much as the World War II stuff.

And I'm just like, yeah, that's the that's the one thing where you've really got to set yourself in that time period because otherwise the the plot doesn't work anymore.

If that if that was the point, no, it doesn't.

It doesn't, it's either it's it's wartime and it's 40s wartime.

I mean, that's the thing.

That's the thing.

So this film was a big hit.

Um, it really was was nominated for six Oscars.

Um, and it was what best picture, best director for George Stevens, best actress.

Gene Arthur's only best actor, I'm gonna say that again.

Her only Oscar nomination is best actress.

Amazing to me.

Her only uh best writing, best writing screenplay, best writing original motion picture story, and Charles Coburn, best supporting actor, and he won Best Supporting Actor.

George Stevens won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Director for this.

And yeah, when it was, and it was a hit, and when they when as soon as George Stevens finished this, he went off, as I said, into the war, and he never, ever, ever made another comedy.

And you know, it's funny, Hepburn.

I remember seeing Hepburn was interviewed one time.

I think it's in the uh his son's documentary, uh Filmmaker's Journey that George Stevens Jr.

made about his father.

And she said, you know, I and Hepburn said something along the lines of, I respect a place in the sun, I respect Giant, I respect the Diary of Anne Frank.

She goes, but I think it's such a shame that your father never made another comedy because nobody could make comedies like your father could.

And I so agree with that.

There, his comedies, as we said, there's always an undercurrent in his comedies of something else going on.

And that's what makes the comedy so funny because of this because of the stakes, but it's also what gives it an extra, it gives it substance, it gives it a grounding that I love screwballs.

I love my man Godfrey, God knows.

We talked about I love bringing up baby, but you don't have the sense of import that you have with these 40s comedies, like Talk of the Town, like The More the Merrier, like the Philadelphia story.

You know, there's a real woman of the year.

Or woman of the year.

I mean, there are there are real issues at play here which ground these comedies.

And I love that.

I love that about this.

Yeah, there's real in this era, as you get into the 40s, there really is a depth there that um I think it well, and then it ended up going by the wayside in the late 40s.

I feel like because if you look at like uh Hepburn and Tracy, um, you know, Woman of the Year has such depth, and then I love Adam's Rib too, but Adam's rib is a little more silly.

And uh Woman of the Year has a little more pathos and gravitas, but it does have issues.

Women women Adam's rib does have some issues.

I love Adam's Rib.

We might have to disagree about that one.

Uh yeah, well, I love Adam's Rib too.

It just shows what I was saying is it shows you the difference between Q Cor and Steven.

Oh, true, true, true, very true, very true.

Yeah, and also shows you the time era, the the change in the era, you know, after the war, realism came in, but also silliness came in.

I mean, you had things like monkey business with Marilyn and Cary Grant.

I mean, Cary Grant was doing notorious, and then he's doing well, that was actually after the film, scratch that.

Cary Grant was doing Penny Serenade, or he was doing um even even Gunga Din has has another George Stevens, has grounded uh motivation or it has a depth to it.

That the things he was doing, like Mr.

Blandings builds his dream house, like uh Bachelor, not Bachelor Mother, uh Every Girl Should Be Married.

It's silious.

This it's gone, you know.

It the the heft that are in these films, the undercurrent.

And maybe that's another reason why Stevens didn't want to go back to comedies.

He's like, they're not making the kind of comedies I like to make.

You know, I like comedies with import that say something.

Maybe that's what that is.

Yeah, well, and I it's interesting because you would think we became more cynical after World War II, which ushered in things like film noir and things like that.

You would think people would want something, but maybe maybe people wanted everything compartmentalized a little bit more and they didn't want their genres mingling anymore, and so they wanted comedies to be silly, and that was it.

They don't want their genres mixing, no mixing of genres here until Billy Wilder came along and Billy Wilder's the exception to everything.

He is the exception to everything, he is the exceptional and the exception to everything.

Um, now have you ever seen the remake of The More the Merrier?

Walk Don't Run with Kerry Grant.

Walk Don't Run.

Have you ever seen it?

Once once, once, yeah, and I thought it was charming, and it was uh I always wish that Kerry Grant had gone out with maybe a different movie.

Um I think but I think it's it's fine.

It's fine.

It's like it's like when you and I were talking about uh how great something's gotta give but a bit of the move over darling, it's fine, it's fine, it's pleasant, yeah.

So, listener, so uh the film The More the Merrier was remade in 1966, a very good year.

Um, and the title of the remake was Walk Don't Run, and it takes place because they had to have the same kind of uh housing shortage, it takes place during the Tokyo Olympics, and there's a housing shortage in Tokyo, and Samantha Eger, I think it's Samantha Eger, yes, she rents out half of her, she rents out a room to uh the Mr.

Dingle character who is Cary Grant.

Now his name wasn't Mr.

Dingle in Log Talk Running.

Carl Coburn, Cary Grant, interchangeables tomato tomato.

He's a knight, he's a sir now.

He's Sir William William Rutland is Cary Grant's name in that.

So, yes, Cary Grant has morphed into Charles Coburn.

And Jim Hutton, uh, an actor that I think uh sadly died way too young, and we talked about him a bit when we talked about ordinary people, he was Timothy Hutton's father, plays the Joel McRae part.

But what I love about Walk Don't Run is the walls because they're those paper walls in the Japanese houses, right?

So it's so it makes so much more sense that those walls would come down as opposed to Cary Grant wasn't gonna get a bunch of guys and tear down a wall in this house.

So I love that twist.

I love the fact that they use that.

I think it's kind of cute.

I like it too.

Yeah, it's pleasant.

It's pleasant.

Look, in my opinion, nothing, nothing can top this.

This is this is pure.

Like I said, it's one of my very, very favorite movies.

Um, for all these reasons that we talked about.

I find it just an intoxicating, wonderful, wonderful time.

I think it's yeah, I think it's absolutely charming, and I think that you know, watching it again, um, it's just remarkable how effortless performers like Gene Arthur and Joel McCrae and Charles Coburn can make that scene.

Because if you put a different cast in this movie, I think it's a different movie.

Um, I think that these three were the right choices.

Um and I think that it just everything about it, just from the from the way that George Stevens choreographs everything, the way that you really feel like you've lived in that apartment, um, the way that you're rooting for Arthur and McCrae to get together, um, and just putting it within the context of the world that was in 1943, it just heightens everything, like you said.

And it makes the comedy even more sweeter, it makes the romance even more sweet.

And you're just you you like these people, and you really are glad that you spent an hour and 40 minutes with them.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I just I find them so charming and so delightful.

And what I also love about it is the fact that these aren't the usual suspects, you know.

Gene Arthur and Joel McRae and Charles Coburn, you know, you don't see them over and over and over again.

Like, God knows I love them more than anything in the world, but like you see, Carrie Grant, like you see Catherine Hepburn, love them, love them, love them.

But I love the fact that we have these actors, these other actors who are maybe not quite so well known for this, or quite well so well known, period.

Yeah, and they they have this incredible opportunity to s to shine.

To me, I think what I love most about this movie is that it was an undiscovered jewel.

Yeah, I was like, oh wow, because it's not because it's not this, it's not woman of the year, it's not the Philadelphia story, it's it's not it happened one night.

It's this little gem of a movie from this little studio that I think is just dazzling, just a brilliant little diamond.

Yeah, that's the way I feel about it.

Columbia, it's amazing for being a poverty roast studio.

They made some incredible work and from from the late 30s through the mid-40s, and some really timeless work that really, you know, compared to some of their contemporaries, holds up even better in some cases.

Oh, I think so.

I think so too.

Yeah, they didn't have the they didn't have the onus that MGM had to be glamorous, or they didn't have the onus that Paramount had to be sophisticated.

You know, they just were churning out the best they could.

Or the Warner Brothers grittiness, which you know, some which I love, but it dates a little bit just like the MGM glamour sometimes.

So it just absolutely.

Yeah, so I if you guys, if you have not, if you're not familiar with Gene Arthur, I mean one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode is because I want to shout the name Gene Arthur, because a fascinating woman, a incredibly complicated, yes, a little crazy, but so so talented and so unique, so unique in the pantheon of actresses of the golden age, and really, really needs to more people need to know Gene Arthur, more more people need to know her work, and not just the Capra stuff, but stuff like this stuff like The Devil and Miss Jones, stuff like Easy Living, A Foreign Affair, which is one of the two movies she made after her retirement, and then she did Shane, which is serious, but anyway, it's still a great movie.

Um, you know, people need to know her because she truly was an original, a true original in a sea full of many, many copies.

And I I feel that way about Joe McCrae, too.

Total original.

Not enough people know him if he's not on a horse.

He did a lot more than being on a horse, yeah.

Yeah, well, and he, I mean, Joel McCrae is someone who continued to work you know longer than Jane Arthur did, but still was just always a relying, you know.

I think he's wonderful, and uh, he and Randolph Scott and Ride the High Country are wonderful together.

Yes.

Um, that's a wonderful like sort of capsule cap on his career.

Um, but but no, just always, man.

I mean, Joel McRae, I could I could watch it anything because he's just real and he doesn't put on any sort of pretense.

It's just it's just he's living life and he is so good.

What's the famous the story about Joe McCrae is when someone asked his occupation, he said rancher, and they said, Do you have any hobbies?

And he said, Yeah, acting.

Yeah.

That tells you everything right there.

That's what he thought about it.

I love that.

I love that.

Yeah, I act a little bit.

Okay.

Over a hundred movies.

So anyway, well, this was so much fun, Brandon.

Thank you so much for sharing this movie with me and for coming on and and and talking with me about it.

Yes, thank you for having me.

Anytime, anytime.

And I will be uh you'll be joining me on my show again before two o'clock.

I am, I am.

I'm excited about that.

We're just going back and forth, people.

We're just sharing there.

It's like it's like two kids who've discovered they lived across the street from each other.

Now they want to go over to each other's LCD.

Exactly.

Let's let's go out and play.

Let's go out and play.

What do you think of this movie?

What do you think of this movie?

Um, for people who who aren't aware who didn't listen last week, please also check out Brandon's podcast, Front Row Classics.

Uh available anywhere you can listen to podcasts like this one.

Uh, it's from M, it's with NPR Illinois, and he has some of the most insane, wonderful guests, besides me.

Yes, as I said, I'm blown away.

He has film historians, he has directors, he has actors and actresses, he's everyone from Lorna Loft to the cast of the Love Boat.

I mean, it's it's insane.

It's insane the people you get on there.

And tell the people a little bit who maybe didn't hear last week, uh, just a little bit about the podcast and how they can find you.

Yeah, so it's a uh I I just celebrated 10 years back in June uh doing this.

So it's uh it's I I started it on my own with a group of friends.

We have a whole network of shows.

Um, but I do the classic film version.

We were um we luckily became part of NBR Illinois in 2019.

Um and then it has just been going strong ever since then.

But uh half of my episodes are usually me and friends discussing movies, and then other times I do interviews, I chat with film historians, we do things about, you know, I interview them about books, about different film topics.

So you never know what you're gonna get, but uh I it's a train that just keeps going, and I'm glad to be on it.

Well, it's a great ride, and I know what you're gonna get.

You're gonna get a damn good time.

That's what you're gonna get.

Thank you.

But just like we can find it, but you can find it anywhere you find your podcast Spotify, Apple, Amazon, anywhere.

And today, right next to us.

So please check that out and follow if you don't subscribe.

Also, hey, how about this podcast?

Do follow, subscribe.

See, Brad always does this, so I'm just like, what does he say?

Because I never really listen to him when he does this.

Um follow, subscribe, rate review.

You guys know the drill.

Thank you so much for staying with me as we continue to traverse through this uncharted territory of uh Tony with guests and on his own sometimes.

I appreciate it.

I also appreciate the really positive feedback I got from my solo uh Valley of the Dolls episode.

That was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun.

I don't know that I want to do it again so soon because it was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun.

So thank everybody, thank you everybody who reached out to me and told me that I appreciate it.

And next week I will be back with another guest.

I'm not gonna tell you who.

You're gonna have to tune in.

Do people tune into podcasts?

You're gonna have to hit download in order to find out, but it's gonna be a lot of fun.

It's gonna be a kind of a change of pace for us.

Um, I'm excited about that.

So, well, Brandon, uh, do you have anything else you want to say to the people before we figure out a sign-off on this thing?

Oh no, just yeah, like you said, uh spread the word about Gene Arthur, about uh George Stevens, too.

I mean, man.

Oh, please, please, yeah.

Don't don't Joel McRae, yeah.

And Joel McCray and Charles Coburn.

Get them all in there, get them all in there, and go watch the More than Merrier, I guarantee you.

And then go watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, Piggy.

Well, then I guess uh there's only one thing left to say.

But Brandon, I've had so much fun with you these past two weeks, I don't want to say it.

So let's not say goodbye.

Let's just say, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

That's stupid.