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Colombina in the Depression—Preston Sturges provides the choleric treatment, Mitchell Leisen wraps it in velvet. The pricey sable coat (from Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, say) is the last straw in the plutocrat's (Edward Arnold) morning of pratfalling indignities, out of the Manhattan penthouse it is hurled to land on Jean Arthur's plebeian head. ("Kismet," declares the turban-wearer behind her on the double-decker bus.) The abrupt gift goes against the "ethical requirements" of her workplace, she finds herself squeamishly executing her piggy bank, blindfold and all, for the coin rattling inside it. Rumors and mixed signals spread, to all appearances the starving gal is the mistress of "the Bull of Broad Street," the English-mangling hotelier (Luis Alberni) is ecstatic to have her in his imperial suite. The fetchingly befuddled heroine is shown her new lair, the camera caresses every silk sheet, Art Deco atrium and marble bathtub. "It's like Arabian Nights, or something." The slip 'n' slide at the automat cafeteria that introduces Arthur to Arnold's slumming son (Ray Milland) is a fabulous acquisition of silent-movie comedy, later reflected across class lines in the Wall Street tumult precipitated by an ingénue's innocuous remark. Light for the vacant skyscraper, the longtime dream of purchasing a pair of woolly sheepdogs. "Go and fry yourself in lard, you dirty capitalist!" Sturges' caustic vision of a fickle economy (out of Capra and Pudovkin, and positioned toward Albee's Everything in the Garden) is certainly softened, though without Leisen's chic enchantment there wouldn't such grace notes as the half-asleep Arthur's delayed reaction ("Saaay!") to Milland's stolen kiss. With Mary Nash, Franklin Pangborn, Barlowe Borland, William Demarest, Andrew Tombes, and Esther Dale. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |