Twelve Hidden Yuletide Gems
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a semi-loving, semi-skewering look at Alexander Woolcott, a narcissistic but brilliant writer, broadcaster, and critic. Originally a play written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, this Christmas-time film remains startlingly funny and cutting. It offers no great moral lesson, just catty, witty fun for Christmas. No one commentator today holds quite as much power, or is quite as feared as Alexander Woolcott. By all accounts he was difficult… and excruciating to work for. His rapacious, cutting reviews as staff critic for the New York Times, and his crass behavior and insults were legendary — and that’s saying something in the time of Louella Parsons & Walter Winchell! Certainly, more recent movie critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert have never been as deeply hated!
Despite his difficult nature, Woolcott was widely enjoyed in the newspapers and on radio for his witty wordplay. Today, he is best remembered for co-founding the Algonquin Round Table, a sophisticated clique of writers, artists and entertainers in New York. (The Algonquin’s most famous member is Dorothy Parker, but other members included Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, and a revolving crew of guests like Noel Coward and Tallulah Bankhead.)
This sparkling, witty Christmas film would go just dandy with The Thin Man, alcohol optional, as a holiday film double feature. Like The Thin Man, The Man Who Came to Dinner revels in its own sophistication. (Unsurprisingly, there is a link between the two stories, as The Thin Man author Dashiell Hammett’s long-time companion Lillian Hellman was close friends with Dorothy Parker, doyenne of the Round Table and friend of Woolcott’s.)
The film begins when nasty, narcissistic critic Sheridian Whiteside, as a favor to a friend, leaves “civilization” (aka Manhattan), and visits a family in Ohio for dinner. Breaking a leg on the icy sidewalk outside their home, he not only insists on staying with them for several weeks, but invites all kinds of hangers-on (everyone from the police to a troupe of penguins) into their home. Whiteside is beautifully played by Monty Woolley, with a booming, condescending voice that could make your ears bleed. Maggie, his long-suffering and cool-headed assistant, who tries her best to control the situation, is played by Bette Davis in a surprisingly subdued performance. (An uppity Lucille Ball took over in the hilarious radio adaptation, creating a different but equally interesting chemistry with Woolley.) We also have some slight sympathy for the hosts, played by Billie Burke and Grant Mitchell, who discover to their horror that their own teenage children have turned against them, after taking the advice of Whiteside to live the lives they want.
While Whiteside’s over the top, brittle bitchery alone makes the film worth a view, the growing hatred between Maggie and Whiteside’s friend, the sophisticated actress Lorraine Sheldon, is also a sight to see. If there was a “bitch” in a Bette Davis film, it would be usually be Davis herself, a woman on a full-fledged, go-for-the-jugular attack; here she plays a smart working girl with a heart of gold, and has the sense to know when to keep her mouth shut. It’s Ann Sheridian, in a wonderful scenery-chewing performance as Lorraine, who plays the uber-bitch here, with relish. If you ever wondered why she was nicknamed the “Oomph Girl,” wonder no more – although our sympathy turns to Maggie, Sheridian is the most entertaining part of the picture.
While The Man Who Came To Dinner is written primarily to entertain, and secondarily as all-in-fun character assassination (by one friend to another)…. the next comedy has its moments of drollness, too – but still manages to pass along a moral suggestion or two…
