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Rossellini has the joke in Europe '51, sometimes charity does begin at home. "The golden rule" from the pulpit to the compulsive philanthropist's ears, a morning in church that ends with the collection plate dropped with a slapstick clang. The trouble with the husband (Gary Cooper) is "too much faith in people," the neighbors who borrow the family car return it in pieces, the mechanic who brings the bill gets invited to the breakfast table. The sponging brother-in-law (Dick Ross) and the "department-store Magdalene" (Joan Lorring) take refuge under his roof, the wife (Ann Sheridan) copes via sarcasm until she doesn't. "My man loves people, too, but he loves them off the premises." Blurring transcendence and exasperation in a spacious précis, Leo McCarey analyzes Capra and invents Cassavetes. Cinderella garbled for the children, for the adults a crowded bedroom that can't be properly used, so it goes with fickle fortunes throughout. The wife's meeting with the reverend (Ray Collins) is curiously anticipatory of Buñuel's Él, yet the protagonist's impractical generosity is scarcely mocked. Goodwill pays off opulently and backfires just as frequently, all of it is utterly priceless to the director—to see Sheridan's uncontrollable guffaws in the midst of a whirlwind of unemployment and lawsuits is to feel the true breadth of human emotion. The leisurely treatment allows for the flowering of digressions like Ida Moore's sketch of a wizened sly pixie or Dick Wessel's beautiful rendition of Edgar Kennedy's monumental slow-burn at the wheel of a bus. "That's how life is." Irritations and revelations at the saloon counter, the Christmas miracle is served with McCarey's musicality, "Home Sweet Home" into "Hallelujah! I've Been Redeemed" into "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." With Edmund Lowe, Clinton Sundberg, Minerva Urecal, Louise Beavers, Ruth Roman, and William Frawley. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |