The wonderful "truth".

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: Reel World - Movie, "The Awful Truth"

THIS YEAR MARKS the 70th anniversary of the classic screw-ball comedy "The Awful Truth." Unlike romantic comedy, which accents love, the screwball genre affectionately spoofs it. Put another way, films like "The Awful Truth" represent America's distinct take on farce--emphasizing ludicrous events and broad physical comedy. "The Awful Truth" plotline is predicated upon a well-to-do young couple (Irene Dunne and Cary Grant) divorcing over mutual questions of infidelity. Yet, a funny thing happens on the way to the divorce--they decide to get back together. This pattern occurs so frequently in screwball comedy that many of its films are categorized as "comedies of remarriage."

The secret to the success of "The Awful Truth" was director Leo McCarey. A master of various forms of comedy, he already had created the team of Laurel and Hardy and directed the Marx Brothers in perhaps their greatest movie, "Duck Soup" (1933). McCarey would win his first Oscar for "The Awful Truth" (director), with his other two statuettes being awarded for the later populist comedy "Going My Way" (1944, original story and director). It was no wonder that actor Charles Laughton, after being directed by McCarey in the populist parody "Ruggles of Red Gap" (1937) called him "the greatest comic mind now living."

At the heart of McCarey's genius was his skill as a comedy "doctor." For instance, when "The Awful Truth" first was sneak-previewed, audience response was disappointing. McCarey decided the problem was that the movie opened on too somber a note--questions of infidelity and a divorce court appearance. Period viewers were not sure it was a comedy. Thus, the director went back and shot the most inventive of solutions. He had Dunne's character call the family lawyer about her plans for divorce. This older, fatherly figure attempts to counsel her about staying the marital course, but each time he starts to say, "Marriage is a beautiful thing," his wife interrupts by telling him that supper is ready and getting cold--a la the henpecking wives McCarey created for Laurel and Hardy. These interruptions cause the lawyer briefly to curb his politely parental phone conversation with Dunne and speak sharply to his wife about not bothering him.

McCarey then follows an old comedy axiom that suggests maximum laughs are generated by repeating a scene (with embellishments) three times. Consequently, with each interruption, the lawyer is amusingly harsher to his wife. The comedy...