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THEODORA GOES WILDColumbia, ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Everett Riskin, DIRECTOR: Richard Boleslawksi, SCREENPLAY: Sidney Buchman, Original Story: Mary McCarthy, PHOTOGRAPHY: Joseph Walker, MUSIC DIRECTOR: Morris Stoloff, CAST: Irene Dunne (Theodora Lynn [alias Caroline Adams]), Melvyn Douglas (Michael Grant [a.k.a. Dubarry]), Thomas Mitchell (Jed Waterbury), Thurston Hall (Arthur Stevenson), Elisabeth Risdon (Aunt Mary), Margaret McWade (Aunt Elsie), Spring Byington (Rebecca Perry), Nana Bryant (Ethel Stevenson). FORMAT: 35mm. RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes. ORIGINAL RELEASE: November 12th, 1936. THEODORA GOES WILD was an extremely important film in the career of star Irene Dunne. Her first screwball comedy, the film helped cement her status as one of the principal leading ladies of the genre, along with such stars as Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, and Katherine Hepburn. Prior to this film, Dunne was known primarily for her musical talents from films such as SHOWBOAT (1935), and for her dramatic roles in melodramas such as BACK STEET (1932) and MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1935). As such, her performance in THEODORA came as a pleasant surprise to 1936 audiences; her image as a reserved and compliant lady is turned on end in the film’s second half as she inverts her persona to become provocateur extraordinaire. She so impressed audiences with her newfound comedic range in THEODORA that she received a 1936 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Nevertheless, Dunne was reluctant to accept the part at first. “I do recall that I made this film under protest,” Dunne reminisced after a screening of THEODORA in 1969, “I’d never made a comedy and didn’t feel I was fit for making comedies.” Dunne took a six week European vacation in the summer of 1935 in an attempt to avoid making the film, hoping Columbia would assign another actress to it. However, the studio would not be manipulated, and upon her return Dunne was put on suspension until she agreed to do the film. Director Richard Boleslawski, a former director of the Moscow Art Theater and a student of Konstantin Stanislavski, did not want to make the film either, but was similarly forced into it by the studio. “We arrived on the set glaring at each other,” recalled Dunne, who was at first wary of Boleslawski’s abilities. In an attempt to placate Dunne, Harry Cohn, studio head of Columbia, even gave Dunne the power to have Boleslawski replaced should she find him unsatisfactory. However Dunne quickly found the director to her liking and the two had an amiable working relationship. Perhaps indicative of Boleslawski’s training in the Stanislavski System (ancestor to Method acting), Dunne’s costar Melvyn Douglas recalled in his autobiography an anecdote in which Boleslawski helped Dunne “muster the proper amount of excitement for an important entrance.” After alerting the cast and crew to his scheme, Boleslawski “crept up behind [Dunne] and fired a blank cartridge from a hand gun held just below her buttocks. If you look at the film… you will be rewarded with one of the most breathless, bewildered on-camera entrances ever recorded.” THEODORA’s script ran into trouble with the Production Code Administration (PCA). After approving the film’s treatment in April of 1935, director of the PCA Joseph I. Breen, upon receiving the script’s first draft, wrote a scathing three-page letter to Columbia studio head Harry Cohn in March of 1936. Breen didn’t even offer the usual litany of extremely specific lines of dialogue or plot developments that would need alteration for the script to meet with PCA approval “because the basic story, page after page, is so thoroughly in opposition to all that the Code stands for.” Among the many of the script’s inherent flaws was its violation of the Code’s first principle that no film shall “lower the moral standards of those who see it” by throwing audience sympathies “on the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” THEODORA, according to Breen, does just that: “The whole flavor of your story violates this first principle of the Code. Evil, as exemplified by the heroine – who… proceeds to break up two marriages as if this were a right and proper thing for her to do – is made to appear attractive.” As such, the script “makes a travesty of marriage,” itself an additional violation of a subsection of the Code. Breen continues: “All the decent people in your picture, who are represented as church-going people in a small town, are made to appear ridiculous, stupid and silly; while those in the big city… all of them indulging in extra-marital activities, drunkenness, and debauchery, are made to appear attractive.” In order to meet with the PCA’s approval, Breen recommended the following: “it will be necessary that you either do not show Theodora actually breaking up… marriages,” and if that was unavoidable, “then it will be necessary for you to punish these people, and, more especially, Theodora, for their part in these undertakings.” Additionally, Breen demanded that Columbia “remove from the story the flavor which it now has, which tends to sneer at decent people, their church-going activities, etc.; and the drunkenness and debauchery will have to be cut to an absolute minimum.” Columbia representatives met with Breen shortly after the above letter was written, and in mid-April the studio submitted a second draft, which met with Breen’s approval, pending a minor list of alterations. Breen was surprised at the studio’s ability to make such a successful turnaround, writing, “We wish to take this occasion to congratulate you on the fine piece of workmanship displayed in this particular script. You will recall that we were considerably worried about the first draft script; but the present document impresses us, not only as an acceptable one under the Code, but, likewise, as an excellent script for a first rate comedy.” However, despite Breen’s approval, the film still seems to contain much of the “flavor” that Breen found so objectionable: Theodora indeed breaks up a marriage; adulterous love is made to look appealing; characters embark upon drunken debauchery, and the women of the small town indeed appear “ridiculous, stupid and silly” as a consortium of gossiping busybodies, unequivocally aided in one sequence by inserts of hungry-looking cats edited in amongst their telephone scuttlebutt. Perhaps the script received a green light from Breen and the PCA because Theodora is at first hesitant to partake in the sort of scandalous (or romance-novel chic) exploits about which her pseudonym Caroline Adams writes (before outing herself, Theodora often defers to the desires of her overbearing small town relatives, and is eager to avoid their scrutiny), and that her “going wild” is subtly calculated. Theodora goes wild, but with altruistic purposes. Theodora undergoes a dramatic shift halfway through the film, from straight woman to screwball comedienne (and subsequently swapping roles with love interest Michael). Such a change in character stands in stark contrast to the screwball persona of other leading ladies such as Carole Lombard, who is consistently (and purposefully) zany throughout most of her screwball comedies. THEODORA received stellar reviews upon release. Variety described it as “A film masterpiece from every viewpoint.” Motion Picture Herald: “Always it’s bubbling amusement that backs up a clever story idea with performance in both acting and directing.” Time Magazine: “For cinema patrons who like rollicking farce, TGW amounts to a feast.” Hollywood Reporter called it “An uproarious romantic farce that will stand with the very best in a sensational comedy year.” 1936 was indeed a sensational comedy year; in April Columbia also released MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN. The two films share similarities in that they both involve the exploits of small town characters in the big city, leading some reviewers to unfavorably compare THEODORA to MR. DEEDS. Frank S. Nugent wrote for the New York Times, “Columbia obviously was dreaming of a distaff edition of ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ when it produced ‘Theodora Goes Wild…’ scowling horrendously and twirling our long dark mustache, we must puncture the toy balloon by proclaiming that Theodora is no match for Mr. Deeds in sound, honest, homespun humor… farce does not set too well upon the lovely shoulders of Irene Dunne.” The New York Herald Tribune’s Frank Barnes wrote, “[THEODORA] has the same sharp contrast of rural and metropolitan ways, but nothing like the vitality that made that memorable show [MR. DEEDS] so hilarious.” However, despite sharing some qualities, MR. DEEDS and THEODORA are really two different kinds of movies, the former a populist dramatic comedy with an undercurrent of gravitas, while the latter is a completely screwball affair where nothing is taken seriously. THEODORA GOES WILD compares quite favorably to films of its ilk, and stands today as a glowing example of its genre. Program notes by Jason Gendler SOURCESAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Hollywood in the Thirties: Discussion and Questions Transcripts.1969. Barnes, Howard. Review of Theodora Goes Wild. Time, 23 November 1936. Douglas, Melvyn and Arthur, Tom. See You at the Movies: The Autobiography of Melvyn Douglas. London: University Press of America Inc, 1986. Gehring, Wes D. Irene Dunne: First Lady of Hollywood. Oxford: Scarecrow Press Inc, 2003. ---. Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. Leff, Leonard J. and Jerold L. Simmons. The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood Censorship and the Production Code. Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 2001. Nugent, Frank. Review of Theodora Goes Wild. New York Times, 13 November 1936. Production Code Administration File for Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936). Margaret Herrick Library: Beverly Hills, California. “Reviews.” Hollywood Reporter, 2 November 1936. “Reviews.” Motion Picture Daily, 4 November 1936. “Reviews.” Motion Picture Herald, 14 November 1936. “Reviews.” Variety, 2 November 1936. Schultz, Margie. Irene Dunne: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. |