The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942) – W. Keighley

Adapted for the screen by the Epsteins (who also wrote Casablanca) from Hart and Kauffman’s Broadway play, this comedy increases in chaos as it proceeds but I don’t know that it fully reaches screwball heights. Monty Woolley plays Sheridan Whiteside, a famous author who enjoys hobnobbing with the rich and famous but has little patience for fools. When he slips on the ice when entering the house of a rich industrialist in small town Ohio, he breaks his hip and must stay at their house for weeks. He promptly takes over his house, relegating the family to upstairs/offscreen (except when he advises the adult children to leave the nest). The main plot focuses on Whiteside’s assistant Maggie Cutler (played by Bette Davis) who falls in love with local newspaper editor and budding playwright Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis); Whiteside attempts to break it up by ringing up actress Lorraine Sheldon (Ann Sheridan) to seduce Bert away from Maggie. It’s funnier than it sounds, mostly thanks to Woolley (and the script), but the real treat is the sudden surprise entrance of Jimmy Durante (playing a trickster character based on Harpo Marx) who helps to resolve the plot. Genius!