Ralph Bellamy, Cary Grant, and Irene Dunne get into quite a romantic pickle in THE AWFUL TRUTH
THE AWFUL TRUTH (Leo McCarey, 1937)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, August 12, 2:00, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15
Series runs through September 17
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
The insults fly fast and furious in Leo McCarey’s uproarious screwball comedy The Awful Truth. “Marriage is a beautiful thing,” a divorce attorney tells Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne), but it can also be riotously funny. Adapted from Arthur Richman’s play, The Awful Truth features one of the great comedy pairings of all time, Dunne and Cary Grant, as a husband and wife seemingly at the end of their rope, with Grant’s Jerry Warriner coming home with a sun-lamp tan he claimed he got on a trip to Florida, while Dunne’s Lucy returns from a mysterious night in the country with her music teacher, Armand Duvalle (Alexander D’Arcy). Tired of the lies and deception, Jerry and Lucy decide to get a divorce, even fighting over who gets the dog, Mr. Smith. Jerry hooks up with wealthy socialite Barbara Vance (Molly Lamont), while Lucy is pursued by rich Oklahoma bumpkin Dan Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), who doesn’t seem to do anything without the approval of his beloved mother (Esther Dale). (Bellamy went on to play a similar role as Bruce Baldwin in Howard Hawks’s 1940 His Girl Friday, serving as the boring love interest for Rosalind Russell, playing Grant’s ex-wife.) But Jerry and Lucy can’t seem to stop running into each other and sabotaging their new relationships, exchanging brilliant one-liners — many improvised — while inwardly wondering if they really do belong together after all, even if they refuse to be the first one to admit it. They certainly deserve each other. In accepting the Oscar for Best Director for The Awful Truth, McCarey claimed he really should have gotten it for his other 1937 film, Make Way for Tomorrow, but it’s The Awful Truth that has had more lasting impact, still fresh after seventy-five years, filled with unforgettable scenes and bawdy, wry humor. The Awful Truth is screening August 12 in the BAMcinématek series “American Gagsters: Great Comedy Teams,” which runs through September 17 and consists of fifty films (all but one in 35mm) with a special focus on Grant, including Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn and the aforementioned His Girl Friday.