Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Some things I liked some I did not.

Purely Joyful Movie!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I think Screwball Comedies are an acquired taste, and I wish I had acquired one. Here is an example of a highly acclaimed screwball comedy, and I have to say I missed much of the humor. In keeping with the genre within a genre, I found much of the story preposterous (on purpose, I suppose) and the humor was often forced. I always appreciated Irene Dunne in anything she was in, and she doesn't disappoint here. I found Melvyn Douglas' presence irritating and his performance grating, but I guess that's part of the charm of these comedies. The characters that inhabit them are always too accommodating and compliant in the face of outrageous behavior, rendering them less believable to the viewer (me). It's just my opinion, but count me out.Star rating is in the heading. The website no longer prints mine.

Seen today, accustomed as we are to seeing the adorable Irene Dunne in her later comedies slinkily casting those lovely eyes sideways and laughing that distinctive gurgling laugh it's hard to believe that after several years as a celebrated drama queen 'Theodora Goes Wild' represented for her a leap in the dark into the hitherto unaccustomed territory of farce; at which she immediately proved adept.Thomas Mitchell as the town's abrasive newspaper editor figures prominently in the opening and closing scenes, promising a more satirical subject than we actually get. Theodora's 'scandalous' novel 'The Sinner' was by now inevitably required by the proprieties of the Production Code to be wholly a work of her imagination and is largely forgotten as the film progresses; post-Code, the Hays Office would never permit the notion that there could possibly have actually been any men in the life of the demure, unmarried Ms Dunne before she put pen to paper. Five years earlier it would have been a very different story indeed and the escapist fantasy of 'Theodora Goes Wild' - even down to its innocently racy title - recalls a silent film of ten years earlier rather than the earthier fare of the early sound era.Ms Dunne was approaching forty when she made this film, and although the title holds out the promise of her eventually letting her hair down, she never reveals half as much in the film as she does baring her arms and shoulders in the figure-hugging dress she wears on the poster; revealing her inner hussy by instead piling on feathers and sashaying about in expensive bad taste while the plot ties itself into knots attempting to subvert the requirements of The Code while simultaneously observing its constraints and parodying the very rural bluestockings it was introduced to appease.This was the last film completed by the always interesting Richard Boleslawski before his sudden death the following year at the age of 47. Aided by luminous photography by Frank Capra's regular cameraman Joseph Walker and superb performances by a first-rate supporting cast, the end result is a handsome piece of fluff wholly devoid of the bite and contemporary relevance it would have had if made five years earlier. Melvyn Douglas does his best to bestow some charm on the obnoxious Michael Grant, but the two lead characters have absolutely nothing in common, and Theodora deserves much better than this mischief-making jerk who doesn't even let her know that he's married.

. . . says Melvyn Douglas as smug sophisticate Michael Grant, the perfect foil to Irene Dunne's title character, the virginal church organist Theodora Lynn, who lives with her two spinster aunts in her namesake Connecticut village and dashes off to big bad New York City with the seamy best sellers she writes to let off steam. It's as if Julie Andrews was playing a singing nun and an aging topless actress IN THE SAME MOVIE, instead of decades apart in THE SOUND OF MUSIC and S.O.B. The script for THEODORA GOES WILD is consistently clever, and the supporting cast doesn't miss a trick to sell the comedy. There's more than a grain of truth in THEODORA's depiction of New Yorkers as the biggest bumpkins of them all, something which still holds true in today's Weiner\Spitzer Era. The Connecticut Literary Circle Ladies seem dying to break into the chorus of THE MUSIC MAN's "Pick a Little, Peck a Little," if only Meredith Willson had written it in time! But whenever Miss Dunne drops into the husky rich bi*ch contralto of her "Caroline Adams" pseudonym, it's enough to melt the ice cubes in your martini!

I had heard about this movie for years, but only saw it tonight. The wait was my loss.To begin with, it stars two of the undeservedly forgotten luminaries of the movie industry: Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas. But more important is the content of this movie. It is all about small-minded bigotry in small-minded Americans. Given its time - the 1930s - that small-mindedness is linked to living in a small town. Unfortunately, today location has nothing to do with it: there are small-minded Americans in our biggest cities and our suburbs. But the movie has lost none of its relevance. It is very definitely a movie that calls out for a modern remake. Hollywood doesn't make movies like this anymore, and in this case, that is a loss for all of us.