FUTURO ESTÁ EN LA COMEDIA ROMÁNTICA DE HOLLYWOOD: LAS CHICAS MODERNAS DE MANUEL ROMERO

En este artículo estudio un grupo de películas realizadas por Manuel Romero entre 1938 y 1942, donde se apropió de la comedia romántica hollywoodense para incorporar al cine argentino la figura de la chica moderna. Cercana a la heroína indisciplinada de la screwball comedy (un género que, justamente, se destaca por tener a mujeres independientes como protagonistas), la chica moderna romeriana posee un carácter desestabilizador que le permite alterar las lógicas de clase, género e identidad nacional prefijadas, moviéndose con libertad entre ricos y pobres, hombres y mujeres, costumbres argentinas y cosmopolitas.

Chapter 27

By the time Cary Grant and Betsy Drake announced their separation in 1958, Grant had followed Drake’s lead by embarking on an intensive form of psychotherapy using the hallucinogenic drug LSD. In clinically supervised sessions, he took the drug, which was not yet illegal, and explored his unconscious mind. This, he maintained, allowed him to peer into his past and overcome the childhood memories and experiences that haunted him. He revealed this to a prominent journalist, Joe Hyams, and then vehemently denied the story when it made headlines across the country. Yet the story did not dent his popularity with audiences. Operation Petticoat (1959), directed by Blake Edwards, became his biggest box-office success. Its humour is dated now, but it is still notable as the film that paired Grant with Tony Curtis, the actor who imitated him so memorably in Some Like It Hot (1959). The Grass is Greener (1960), directed by Stanley Donen, tried to repeat the success of the sophisticated comedy-romance Indiscreet (1958), but fell short of that mark. The screwball comedy A Touch of Mink (1962) paired Grant with Doris Day, the most popular screen actress of the period. They did not enjoy working together, but the film’s star power ensured that it was a hit. These successes, together with Grant’s lucrative contract with Universal-International Pictures, led the trade weekly Variety to declare that he was the “richest actor” and “most astute businessman” working in Hollywood.

Chapter 23

To help Betsy Drake’s flagging career, Grant agreed to do a radio series with her. Mr and Mrs Blandings (1951) continued the comical adventures that began in Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), but the series was not well received. On screen, he took some risks in this period, playing an outspoken doctor in the politically charged People Will Talk (1952), and an ordinary family man in the gentle comedy Room for One More (1952). He also returned to the more familiar terrain of screwball comedy. Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business (1952), co-starring Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, allowed him some fine comic moments, but Dream Wife (1953), co-starring Deborah Kerr, seemed tired and old-fashioned. None of these films scored with audiences. Seeing the rising popularity of young method actors such as Marlon Brando, Grant began to wonder if his own debonair image was out of date, and if it was time for him to retire.

Chapter 22

When Cary Grant coaxed Betsy Drake to join him in Hollywood in 1948, he did everything he could to kickstart her career as a film star. He used his own leverage with the powerful gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons to win favourable coverage for Drake, and he agreed to co-star with Drake in her first film, Every Girl Should Be Married (1948). He turned down several other promising films, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), to make this feeble comedy. His next film was Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy I Was a Male War Bride (1949). Filming began on location in Europe, but Grant developed hepatitis and nearly died. It was several months before he could complete filming in Hollywood. The film turned out to be a huge box-office success, but the grim political drama Crisis (1950), was a box-office disaster that marked the beginning of a downturn in his career fortunes. By this time, however, he had married Betsy Drake, in a ceremony arranged by Howard Hughes, and he was looking forward to his new life with her.

Chapter 13

In 1937, Cary Grant’s career as a freelance star began with three screwball comedies that established him as the master of this genre. Topper (1937), made by the independent producer Hal Roach, initiated this sharp upturn in his career. This stylish screwball comedy brought out a new playful, wry, ironic dimension in Grant’s performance style. Improvisation on the set was key to his new screen persona, and he was given even greater reign to improvise in his first Columbia film, Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937). Legend has it that he was uncomfortable working with McCarey, but McCarey helped him to mould the Cary Grant star persona, unique for combining debonair and slapstick qualities. He signed a contract with Columbia Pictures that gave him the power to choose which films he made, and control over both his publicity and his wardrobe, but it was a non-exclusive contract, allowing him to make his next film at RKO Pictures. In Bringing Up Baby (1938), director Howard Hawks encouraged a frenzied edge to his performance. This is perfectly exemplified in the famous scene in which Grant leaps in the air, shouting “I just went gay all of the sudden”—a line he improvised on the set and one that demonstrates the liberated, unconventional mores of screwball comedy. Bringing Up Baby had a mixed reception on first release in 1938, but in later years, through repeated revivals and screenings on television, it became one of his best known and most admired films.

Chapter 20

The immediate post-war years saw Cary Grant’s box-office drawing power stronger than ever before. Jack Warner had bought out his contract with Columbia so that Grant could play the songwriter Cole Porter in the musical biopic Night and Day (1946). His first Technicolor film, Night and Day is bright and breezy, and it is filled with popular songs. The production, however, was troubled. Grant and director Michael Curtiz were in constant conflict. Grant was much happier working with Alfred Hitchcock and co-star Ingrid Bergman on the next film, Notorious (1946). These three became lifelong friends while making this wonderfully dark, gothic, spy story. Hitchcock was so keen on the darker side of the Cary Grant star persona that he proposed making a film of Hamlet with him, but legal complications prevented this. Grant then had a hiatus from filmmaking that allowed him to travel to Bristol for the first time since 1939. There, he saw his mother and also the terrible damage the city suffered during the blitz. He returned to make one of his most frivolous films, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), with Myrna Loy and the child-star turned teenager Shirley Temple. This light-as-a-feather screwball comedy continued his box-office winning streak.

Chapter 16

In September 1939, the outbreak of war between Britain and Germany placed Cary Grant in a difficult position. He had been living in the USA for all of his adult life, but because he was known to be British, the British press put pressure on him to return and serve in the military. He resisted this, and instead threw himself into his work. Two of his finest comedies were made over the next year. One was My Favourite Wife (1940), which reunited the principal talents behind The Awful Truth. Irene Dunne co-starred, and Leo McCarey produced and co-wrote the film. The result was a very similar yet also very entertaining screwball comedy. The other was The Philadelphia Story (1940), Grant’s third film with director George Cukor and his fourth film with co-star Katharine Hepburn. A marvellously sophisticated screwball comedy, the film also benefits from a third co-star, James Stewart. The Howards of Virginia (1940), a historical film set during the American Revolutionary period, was much less successful, and Grant’s attempt to play a backwoods pioneer was not well received. In his personal life, meanwhile, he began seeing the Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton, who was well known as the richest woman in the world. Despite their very different backgrounds, they fell in love very quickly, and she established a home in Hollywood in order to be near him.

Chapter 15

In 1938 and 1939, Cary Grant enjoyed a close, romantic relationship with the actress Phyllis Brooks. They travelled together through Europe in the summer of 1939 and they very nearly married on their return to the USA. Brooks’ mother, however, disliked Grant, and this proved fatal to their relationship. Professionally, Grant continued to branch out as an actor, making the tough aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Howard Hawks directed Grant alongside co-stars Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth, both of whom found the director difficult to work with. Grant branched out further by making the melodramatic “woman’s film” In Name Only (1939) with co-star Carole Lombard. These films were well received by critics and the public, but his next film, His Girl Friday (1940), was a much more significant hit. In this quintessential screwball comedy, director Howard Hawks encouraged Grant and co-star Rosalind Russell to adlib lines, speaking over one another to build a frenzied comic atmosphere. Although critical reviews were mixed in 1940, the film’s reputation has grown over the years, and His Girl Friday now stands among his very best films.