Apr 7, 2023
For this week's Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we watched two romantic comedies (sort of), Mister 880 (1950) and Callaway Went Thataway (1951), in which Dorothy McGuire assumes a role we haven't seen from her before: the character through whom we register the pathos that the movies explore via the respective plights of Edmund Gwenn's elderly counterfeiter and Howard Keel's TV cowboy impersonator. We focus particularly on Mister 880, a very unusual comedic drama directed by the great Edmund Goulding, with a screenplay by Robert Riskin, that in certain ways anticipates Umberto D., and try to grasp the essence of its elusive moral. In just what way does Gwenn's character embody an admirable form of life?
Time Codes:
0h 0m 45s: MISTER 880 (1950) [dir. Edmund Goulding]
0h 35m 50s: CALLAWAY WENT THATAWAY (1951) [dirs. Melvin Frank & Norman Panama]
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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring
* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”
* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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