A couple last thoughts on Twentieth Century

This is one of those films that going in I really didn’t care for but in the end it grew on me. Twentieth Century ends up being one of those films that’s really funny once you get past some of its shortcomings. It’s not only got entertaining dialogue, but it’s got a great performance from John Barrymore.

To start off, the film sets the tone right away, if not at a good pace, but nonetheless, you know this is a comedy. My favorite lines before Barrymore graces the screen come from Roscoe Karns, ever delivering those sarcastic one liners. In fact he and Walter Connolly show once again how important the supporting cast is. They’re supposed to be buffoonish but they have to be entertaining and that Karns and Connolly pull off magnificently. Karns the drunkard always at Barrymore’s bidding and Connolly as Barrymore’s loyal friend, forever getting fired and always on the verge of a heart attack.

Breaking down the film and reading the script definitely helped me stay focused throughout the story, otherwise I got bored somewhere in between. From Carole Lombard’s shrieks and the lack of a better audio track, the film tends to lag once the story moves on the train, and this is precisely when it should feel as if it were speeding up.

Lombard was a problem for me and I noticed it more so after reading the script. Had this been the first film of hers I had seen then perhaps her performance may not have bothered me as much. But when you go into a screwball comedy to see the queen of screwball, and it’s not just that you heard, you’ve seen her at her best, you go into the film with high expectations. This I believe is what the problem was for me. Her performance here isn’t bad, it’s just not great, and as I’ve mentioned she almost comes off as if she’s trying to act like Jean Harlow. In fact, I think Harlow might’ve been better in this, and I say that simply because I think I could tolerate Harlow’s whining, but I couldn’t for Lombard. It’s not that Lombard can’t play a spoiled princess because she has done it beautifully before, it’s just that this spoiled brat is completely unlikable. And while that might be on purpose, there should be something charming about her, and I couldn’t find it.

The only good thing about Lily being unlikable is that it makes sense that she ends up with Jaffe in the end. But even that’s a bit off because while Jaffe is unbearable, Barrymore has so much fun with him that you like Jaffe, you want him to get what he wants in the end, but then you wonder how he could put up with Lily. Barrymore is perhaps the most enjoyable thing out of this film. To watch his facial expressions go from patient to serious to melodramatic is all hilarious. He is such an actor and then when he has to go under disguise he says he can’t believe he’s sink so low as to become an actor. He’s comical and entertaining every bit of the way.

I couldn’t say that Twentieth Century is one of my favorites but it’s certainly isn’t bad or as unwatchable as I deemed it back years ago the first time I watched it. There’s a great cast, a fantastic lead in John Barrymore, but mostly it’s got a funny script, the one thing that holds the film together. It’s not like the screwballs that would come later on, but it certainly laid the groundwork for the genre in time to come.

One last look at Nothing Sacred

I know I've said this before, but I really, really wanted to like Nothing Sacred. It has Carole Lombard in it, so what's not to like? Well, unfortunately for me, there were one too many things that I really didn't care for. Overall, it isn't a bad film, but it seems almost confused, as if no one really knew what kind of story it really was or rather what kind of comedy it was. While Ben Hecht was going one way, William Wellman went another, and then there are the actors who made the most out of the script and the direction given. Had this been put in lesser hands, it would've turned out to be a disaster, but thankfully, for the most part, Lombard saves the film.

Casting the right leads is crucial for a successful screwball comedy and this film did right by casting Lombard in the role. She took Hazel and made her endearing in spite of her selfish motives and deception. There's no one quite adept at mastering the screwball heroine quite like Lombard. From her faces and reactions to the way she prances around like a five-year-old, Lombard makes any character she embodies likable. To top it off, she's absolutely beautiful and glamorous, so you love to watch her out in the town with fantastic gowns. And one of the best examples of Lombard's embodiment of Hazel is when she sits at a table in a night club wearing a fabulous designer gown, all the while she's sipping her drink and complaining and pouting like a schoolchild how New York isn't fun with everyone moping around. To see her is screwball at its best.

But then there are also some miscasts. There's something off about Fredric March in this film, and one might think it's a lack of chemistry between him and Lombard, but that isn't the case. The scene in which he proposes marriage to her after they come out of the river, shows some amazing sparks between them, even if momentarily. March was just given a rewritten script but not any proper direction, and unfortunately, that means he isn't very funny. But he isn't the only miscast. There's also Walter Connolly, who seems as if he's trying too hard to be funny and doesn't end up being very funny at all. The problem with these miscasts is that without the right actors, then you end up with a mediocre film. This casting just adds to the confusion. Connolly should've stolen the show from Lombard and March. His role remained the same more or less from the early Hecht draft, and Connolly should've or should've been allowed to take Stone to his exploitative best. The problem with these two roles I think is that they were written quite cynically and for the film the actors were told to take the same roles to a screwy level.

Having said all this, there were obvious problems with tone. I didn't really understand until I read the script that the film wasn't set out to be a screwball comedy to begin with, but instead it was a satirical look at the circus of journalism. Yes, it's supposed to be funny, but screwball and satire are not the same thing. So initially, the first scene opens up and you think this is going to be a funny film, but the tone wavers after that. Some of the best screwy scenes, though, do come in the town of Warsaw. I loved the treatment Wally got from the townspeople, and my personal favorite was the child who runs over to a passing Wally and grabs his leg and bites it. But March also sets the tone off. His acting wavers from forced comedy to downright drama at points. Wellman failed to tell him that the drama bits are supposed to be exaggerated, or perhaps he saw his comedic skills and let him go right ahead with the drama instead. Unfortunately, all this just confuses you.

More confusion comes in the form of the script. I'll forgive the early filmmakers for making this mistake, but the more names you see credited to for writing in a film, the worse the story gets. Nothing Sacred has two credited writers, but on imdb there are another nine. A TCM article talks about two brought in for dialogue (one of which isn't listed over at imdb) and another two for the ending. That's a total of 12 people working on the same story at one point or another. It's a wonder the film is even watchable at all. Overall, the dialogue was fine, but then a funny line was thrown in and it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was only when I read the early draft that I realized the lines were kept because they were funny, but then the context changed a bit. Another problem with the script? Setups were not paid off. Of course, you wouldn't know it if you didn't read the earlier draft, but one of the best things about setups and payoffs is that you like being rewarded with a good payoff. Makes you happy you were paying attention. The ending, though, suffered the most, but then again, the early draft's ending isn't a screwball ending.

One performance that stands out nicely is that of Charles Winninger, who's really funny as Dr. Enoch Downer. Too bad, though, that in the film, he didn't get the chance to show the Morning Star who the six greatest Americans are. Winninger next to Lombard, personifies a great screwball supporting role. He's the klutzy doctor from a small town, and you wonder how he even got his license. And what was he drinking in the early scene? I feel as if that was another setup that doesn't get paid off. Thankfully, he is given the last line of the film, which again, comes out of nowhere, but he delivers it well enough to make you laugh, until you see the end credit and are reminded of the creepy title cards from the beginning of the film.

Yes, I can honestly admit, I didn't like Nothing Sacred. But really, I didn't like because it's a mess. I can recognize some fine performances and some lovely shots. I still absolutely love the scene between Wally and Hazel when he proposes, just like I laugh when Wally goes around Warsaw trying to find Hazel. But these lovely bits cannot save the film, not even Carole Lombard with her bubbliness. I really wish that Wellman would've been allowed to film the script Hecht wrote. Sure, Lombard would've been stretching her acting legs and perhaps have been seen in a different light, but I'm pretty sure she could've pulled it off, just like she made Hazel completely likable. If there's a reason to watch Nothing Sacred, it's for Lombard. You can never grow tired of her screwiness.

Screwball Satire?

Reading scripts from the early days of talkies isn't the easiest thing for me. I assume that many of the early screenwriters were playwrights to begin with and so needed to explain much stage direction. These kinds of things aren't really seen much in scripts today, unless the director has written the script. In any case, it's can be a lengthy process for me because it doesn't always grab me. So, I'm always hesitant to read an old script. Especially when I see a lot of action lines. This was the case with Ben Hecht's screenplay of Nothing Sacred. Straight from the beginning, he's describing this world, and I'm almost a bit overwhelmed. But truth be told, once I got over it, the story is quite good, and different from what the film turned out to be, and it became clear to me that Nothing Sacred wasn't meant to be a screwball comedy, but really it's more black comedy, it's meant to be a satire.

To be quite honest, I couldn't understand why it is that people love this film so much and I just couldn't see why, other than that Lombard was lovely in it and Charles Winninger was pretty funny, Hattie McDaniel and Margaret Hamilton have essentially cameos but make great use of their small roles. But I couldn't really see what it was that was great about it. I thought because of the change of writers that there was something wrong with the story, and there is, although I couldn't figure out how to make it better. When you reach the end of the film, you kind of know it's going there, but it's not very satisfying. I'm not really laughing a whole lot when Hazel suddenly tells all these leaders of New York that she's not sick and then they all decide the story can't get out. I like the bit about dying alone like an elephant, but that's a line that would have been funnier as a payoff if the film would've kept the setup from the script, but they didn't, and so it's just a funny line only because Carole Lombard knows how to deliver it.

The screenplay is quite cynical, and in the end I almost didn't like it. In fact, as I was getting close to the end I was a bit disgusted by Hazel because in my head I think this is a screwball comedy and suddenly there's nothing funny about kidnapping newborns from African-Americans who are written in such a racist manner that I had reached my limit. But it turned out quite funny and the ending was sweet. I still think the script has some blatant racism in it though, but I know those were different times. I think where the film fails is that William Wellman and David O. Selznick wanted it to be a Lombard screwball comedy, but it wasn't. Whereas in the film, you like Hazel, she isn't really likable in the script, but then again, no one is. Everyone has their own motivations for the whole deception. While Wally and Stone think it's the real deal, they exploit Hazel in order to sell newspapers. Hazel just wants a free tour of New York because she's sick of Warsaw and Dr. Enoch is holding a twenty-two-year-old grudge against the Morning Star for not picking him as the winner of an essay on the six greatest Americans--which is another setup that never gets paid off in the film, but in the script it does. Sure, these are all things that are pretty much established in the film, but the screenplay shows a more nuanced portrayal of these characters.

For the most part, Stone is left intact as a ruthless and exploitative newspaper editor, only there are more headlines he toys around with and to show how desperate he is at selling newspapers he even writes an article when he has to. Wally, on the other hand, seems funnier in the screenplay, but here I think it's because of the lines and so Fredric March's performance is hurt more by the rewrites of the script. The line of the greatest fire in Rome, which comes out of nowhere almost in the film, is said earlier in the scene and within the dialogue context. It seems as if the writers hired to polish up the dialogue only picked lines they liked and forced them onto new dialogue, without really re-reading it through. The marble editor line, though, was kept intact, which goes to show that March couldn't quite deliver it, or at least he couldn't quite do it for me.

The different ending reveals even more about some of the characters. Hazel is seen as even more ambitious than Wally, and suddenly driven to get a bigger story to help out Wally and Stone. On the other hand, Dr. Enoch was robbed of some of his best lines by the rewrite of the ending. This bumbling doctor, who you're always wondering how he ever got his license to practice, does the biggest botch-up in the end. The Sultan shows up again because his wife is delivering four babies and she had met him as a Sultan and so he wanted her to have a sort of formal delivery. He asks for Enoch's help. The good doctor falls for the Sultan's request. Hazel and Wally are trying to get out of New York before everyone discovers who they are and leave Stone behind to take the fall once everyone finds out the truth. Wally feels bad about it and wishes there was a bigger story that would overshadow Hazel. And while quadruplets aren't really that big of a story, when Hazel sees another African-American with recently born twins, she dons a nurse's uniform, tricks the father into going home so she can steal the babies from the nursery. She delivers them to Enoch, who reluctantly agrees to go along with the plan, and thus a new story is born: the world's very first sextuplets, or as Enoch names them, the six greatest Americans--he did say he was going to show the Morning Star the six greatest Americans if it was the last thing he ever did. And so, everyone is in full-mode again and Hazel and Wally slip out. Of course, days later when the two are to be wed, they get a note to go to the hospital at once, and when they all arrive, the scene there is filled with cops, Stone apprehended by a couple of them, Enoch by another pair, the African-American father pointing fingers, and when Wally and Hazel see this, they quietly slip out before getting caught. And what do the six babies sound like when they cry? Why they cry to the tune of the song Dixie. There're more details, but this is the general gist of it, and I must say it's more satisfying than the one in the film. It just seems like everything set up in the beginning is finally paid off in the end. It comes across as smarter and worth more my time. Mostly though, it's a lot darker and cynical of not just journalism but the people that drive it, from the reader to the journalist and round back to the object of the stories. Everyone in the end has their own selfish motives to get ahead and drive the newspaper business booming along the way.

Some of the other differences include the montage in the beginning and the attempted suicide. In the screenplay, the montage is different and then the scenes that follow are a different order of what we see in the film. For what I see in the script, it seems that is perhaps the only part in which the film version is served better. Much of this is more talking, but I liked that in the film these things are shown instead. I don't need to hear about the whole sculpture that is going to be made in Hazel's memorial, but I rather enjoyed watching a poet trying to be inspired by a bored Hazel sitting right across from him. What these scenes did show, though, was just how exploitative Stone could really get, something I kind of already knew, but through these scenes it's definite and who knows, while I could've done without them, perhaps if they would've stayed then Walter Connolly might've given a more convincing performance. As for the attempted suicide, Lombard has a way of making a simple suicide completely screwy. This scene is much funnier in the film, with Hazel getting the nerve to jump and Wally pushing her in and them jumping in only he can't swim. In the script, Hazel is found swimming and Wally rescues her. They banter, but the film version is much funnier, at least when considering it as a screwball comedy.

I'm really glad I was able to find and read the screenplay to Nothing Sacred, mostly because I really wanted to like the film and through the script I realized the true story and was able to better appreciate it. It would be interesting to see the remake to see how loyal it remained to either the film or the script. The screenplay made clear too what defines a screwball comedy, and the cynicism found in Nothing Sacred, isn't something typical of the genre. The film in the end, is an attempt at a screwball comedy but with dashes of satire so it somehow ends up being a screwball satire, which is confusing, and if you read the script, you'll just wish they made that film instead.

Screwball characters and casting

Some time last week I wanted to get into the characters of Nothing Sacred, but I found myself having a hard time, mostly because I was distracted by what I consider the miscasting of two crucial characters. No matter how many times I tried to go about it, I couldn't get past the performances, when I really wanted to just focus on the characters. So I decided to go ahead and read the screenplay first, and while I'm not going to get into that today, some of the characters there are completely different than the ones you see on screen, but then the script is different than the eventual film. But whereas Carole Lombard is able to mold the character of Hazel Flagg into a screwball heroine, Fredric March and Walter Connolly fail to give convincing let alone really entertaining performances in their respective roles of the ace reporter chasing whichever story comes his way and the newspaper editor who will do whatever it takes to get dibs on the lead.

There's not a whole lot more to say about Lombard than what I've already raved about. Is there another actress who can top her in the genre? Probably not. She has a way of taking on roles and just making them endearing. Her way of approaching scenes and reacting to them as almost a child would are completely brilliant. Her face molds itself into so many different reactions, but mostly it gives a wide-eyed wonder. While in My Man Godfrey she plays like a spoiled five-year-old, here Lombard plays like a sheltered rural school girl, out in the city for the first time. And even though she gets spoiled after some time in New York, you still like Hazel. One of the scenes that stand out is after the Heroines of History night in which she takes to the stage only to pass out drunk. That same night she had been complaining to Wally how she was tired of everyone looking at her so miserable. The next day, she's nursing a hangover when a group of school children arrive to sing to her. She declares clearly, like a spoiled heiress, that she'll go mad, but then she relents and says to go ahead and let them up. Hazel's still got a heart underneath it all. And throughout the film, she feels bad that she's deceiving so many people, but of course you laugh at it because she continues with the deception. But with Lombard as Hazel, it's hard to stay angry at her for too long.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite taken by March's performance as Wally. Here's an ace reporter who just wants to do a great job. All he wants is to get a great scoop and deliver it and make his boss happy, in essence, he just wants to be the best reporter the world has seen. But I was never quite convinced of it. I wasn't sure if he was a crooked reporter or if he just wasn't smart. I mean, really? I'm supposed to sympathize with someone who keeps getting false leads? But I know this is supposed to be exaggerated, but March just didn't play the part. Why wasn't he gullible then like in a Ralph Bellamy sort of way? I'd prefer him to be smarter, though. And I think that was the point, just a reporter who's good but he kind of always gets such bad luck, no matter how hard he tries. But the comedic timing just wasn't there. Granted, it might not be entirely his fault. The finished film's script didn't provide really great lines for him. The line about the greatest fire in Rome. He delivered it at such an awkward time that I always thought it was his fault, but after reading an earlier draft of the screenplay I saw it wasn't him. Even still, he looks pretty ridiculous trying to be funny. It's hard to judge his comedic skills as I haven't seen his other comedies, but from this one alone, I'd say he's not really a natural. Most of his scenes with Lombard, he plays them so seriously that I often wondered if he was in the wrong film. They should've been a little more exaggerated, melodramatic even. I wanted to see him squirm more, but it just didn't happen. I don't think it was for lack of chemistry, I just think March wasn't the right man for the role, or maybe he didn't get the proper lines or the right direction.

Then there's Connolly as Oliver Stone, the supposed ruthless newspaper editor of the Morning Star. Connolly knows how to act, no doubt in my mind, but for some reason, once again as with March, he was miscast in this film. I didn't see anything ruthless about Connolly's performance except only in what came out of his mouth, but the way he actually performed, didn't show money-hungry to me. At first I thought I was biased, having seen him It Happened One Night, but I was convinced there that he's a ruthless business man willing to do whatever it takes to get his daughter back, and yet somehow I wasn't convinced here. I think part of the problem is that I found him trying too hard to be funny. And here's a crucial role that if anything should steal away the show from the two leads, but instead there's a guy whose voice rises and lowers from what seems like out of nowhere, and who tries desperately to look menacingly to a shoe-shiner, but really it's not very funny. I suppose it goes down to a matter of taste, but I really wasn't impressed by it. I do wonder if here it's William Wellman's direction. I feel as if there are too many things going wrong at this point that it boils down to writing and direction, and while there are story problems, this particular one seems like a direction problem. Wellman should've caught on that there was something lacking in Connolly's performance, but he didn't address it. And again, it could be me, but I can't help thinking if a more domineering actor would've been better, or even a funnier one.

One of the things looking at the characters and the actors cast in their roles has helped me see is how important getting the right cast truly is. Lombard, March, and Connolly are all fine actors, but somehow March and Connolly didn't serve their roles up to their utmost potential, which is a shame, because Nothing Sacred has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, I think it comes down on Wellman. Lombard is the only who makes the most of the script changes and truly gives a wonderful performance in which you can love Hazel, but March and Connolly weren't given great direction. It seems as if Wellman and David O Selznick really wanted to make a screwball comedy, but what I'm seeing more as I watch and read up on the film is that Nothing Sacred isn't a screwball comedy; it's really a satire. And that's really why the characters don't seem to come across the way they should.

From the Land of the Living to the Obituaries

I re-watched the opening sequence of Nothing Sacred and I can't pinpoint down what it is or what's lacking in this sequence that initially didn't grab my attention. Now that I look at it more carefully, it's pretty well written and well thought out. I hate to say that it's the Technicolor, but I'm starting to think that's what's bugging me. In any case, the opening to this film does exactly what all films should do: establishes the tone and premise straightaway.

If I go further back from the opening scene, I really didn't like the opening credits. That Fredric March clay model freaked me out. If it was supposed to be funny, it was lost on me. I suppose though that through the credits, the tone was being set. But then once the credits are done, we're informed we're in New York, the land of skyscrapers, "where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other ... and where Truth crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye ...." A criticism? Next there's a banquet where newspaper editor, Oliver Stone, played by Walter Connolly, is getting set to introduce the guest of honor. The first lines he says is that there are only two people qualified to introduce their guest, one is his "humble self" and the other his esteemed reporter from the Morning Star, Wally Cook, played by March--who was sleeping or drunk, I'm not sure which and I'm not sure why since it's never explained, and if it's supposed to be funny, again it was lost on me. The fact that right off the bat a character can attribute themselves as humble in front of a large audience tells you that this isn't a regular drama or even comedy. And while the dialogue from there on out isn't that memorable, there is that great moment when Hattie McDaniel enters the banquet with the police and her four children to denounce the Sultan, who's the honored guest played Troy Brown, as her husband.

So the joke is on the Morning Star that the Sultan is really a shoe shiner from Harlem. When Stone has words with the "Sultan," he gets all livid in what's supposed to be an exasperated rant. Connolly in It Happened One Night was simply great as the millionaire dad willing to go to great lengths to get his daughter back, but I didn't like some of his performance in Nothing Sacred. This isn't always true, though. Later on, when Wally goes to talk to Stone about doing the Hazel Flagg story, Connolly is fine playing the overstressed newspaper editor. It just seems that when he's to get all out of wits that it just kind of falls flat for me. But in any case, the fact that the Sultan turns out to be a shoe shiner puts the Morning Star in a bad light and that's the impetus needed for the story. Stone removes Wally from the Land of the Living and sends him, where else but to the Obituaries Department as punishment for disgracing the newspaper.

March at the Obituaries desk is funny. It seems there's no room for the department anywhere else, so there is a desk in between file cabinets and in front of stairs and a water cooler. And of course, it seems that everyone gets in the way, from people throwing empty cups over at Wally's desk to people going up the stairs and having bits of paper fly over and land all over him. It is obviously a horrible place for a writer to get any work done. Here, Wally has yet another motivation to make it up to Stone. Not only does he want to restore his reputation, but he also wants to get out of the Obituaries. He pleads his case to Stone, claims ignorance about the Sultan's true identity, and then presents the Hazel Flagg story, which is the story we're about to follow. Of course, Stone shakes on it and allows him to go and find the story. And Wally promises a great story or else Stone could put him in short pants and make him Marble Editor. So, although the two leads have yet to meet, the premise is set up, the motivations are there, and we know that this isn't a serious piece.

Personally, I think there's something missing from this piece. But if I'm honest, all the right ingredients are there. Perhaps it's a bit of putting it all together that doesn't go quite well for me. But in reality, the premise is set up right away, as well as the motivations behind the characters. It could've been zanier, especially when it comes to journalism--a shot at the competition at the banquet taking pictures and calling editors to stop the presses and dictating new headlines. As I mentioned, I didn't quite get what Wally was up to in the beginning of the film. I assumed he was drunk, but what did that have to do with anything? Was that to contrast the fact that he was the Morning Star's ace reporter? It would've been better if they would've followed through with that character trait then. Have Wally approach Stone in a drunken state and announce he's had an epiphany while having his seventh scotch and if he goes to Warsaw, Vermont, the newspaper's reputation will be redeemed. And of course Stone will go ahead with it because Wally is his ace reporter even if he is a drunk and he has nothing left to lose.

I liked the play on words "from the land of the living," and then placing Wally in the Obituaries Department. It is here, in this great frustrating scene, where apparently he discovers Hazel Flagg's story and decides to sell it to Stone, even if it is just to get out of that godawful place. Furthermore, I liked that in essence he does leave the land of the living to go in search of a story in Warsaw, Vermont.

Nothing Sacred has an opening sequence that hits all the right points and is well-written with some funny bits. Perhaps for a screwball comedy, a little more screwiness could've occurred, but overall the film does exactly what it should. We know this is a world in which the ordinary isn't the norm, and a problem is presented right away so that the characters are motivated to fix it. There's some play on words, and while one of the two leads is yet to grace the screen, she is introduced through dialogue with a promise that her story is the one we're about to discover.

A yacht in the middle of the sea

Earlier this week I rewatched It Happened One Night and took a closer look. I can't get over how much I enjoy the banter and I believe this is mostly because, for the most part, Ellie is such a strong female character. Peter talks down to her and treats her like a brat, but she shrugs it off and just gives it back to him, which makes it enjoyable to watch. But when the film opens, we haven't even been introduced to Peter yet. Instead, the first scene establishes Ellie and her predicament.

The first shot after the credits show a yacht idling by in the middle of the sea. You know from there this is may deal with the rich. Upon closer look inside the yacht, the conflict is given right away. Ellie is introduced and she's refusing to eat. What follows is an interaction between Ellie and her father in which they discuss the elopement her father kidnapped her from, yet apparently he was too late because they had already been pronounced husband and wife.

Claudette Colbert plays Ellie exactly as she should be, as a spoiled heiress who is suffocating under the blanket of restrictions her father places over her. She fights back with words of a daughter who isn't allowed to live. The only problem that distracted me here was when Ellie said she was over 21 and that King Westley was certainly over 21. At first I understood it to be she was saying she was 21 and there's no way Colbert could pass for a 21-year-old. In fact she was about 29 or 30 during filming. But then I started thinking of the implausibility of Colbert playing someone younger than what she really was. Surely Ellie is younger than Colbert, and you see, this is all going through my head while the scene plays out. The age factor, though, doesn't deter Colbert. This is especially true when Andrews slaps Ellie across the face. Colbert is brilliant; her reaction is dead-on how Ellie should react and then storms out. And throughout the film Colbert is really good at playing Ellie the right age, but the fact that she looks older distracts me. But not enough. In fact I appreciated her performance more so. I found it genuine.

One thing I found great about this scene is how quickly the conflict is presented. There's no beating around the bush. The opening credits are over and straight to matter at hand: Ellie won't eat, Ellie's married, Ellie's been "kidnapped" so she can change her mind. Ellie isn't your typical heroine either. She has a feisty nature about her and when her dad slaps her across the face for being so ungrateful and throwing a tray of food on the floor, Ellie dashes out of the room, past all the crew and up to the deck. She positions herself at the edge of the yacht and with one final look back she jumps off and into the sea. She swims away and her father is frantic. But this is unexpected. It's like a slap in your face. A heroine who won't take anything standing still? A girl who fights back? Goes after what she wants? Who would've thunk it? Well this has you captivated and wanting to follow Ellie wherever she goes because this is someone you can root for.

Another important thing established in this scene is not just Andrews' overbearing overprotectiveness, but also his love for Ellie. Sure he grabbed her out of her elopement and took her against her will out at sea, but he was concerned over her hunger strike, and when he slaps her across the face, he flashes a look of instant regret when Ellie gives him a resentful look. When she jumps off, his face is terrified, and when the crew can't keep up with her, his response is that of course they can't, she's too smart for them, too quick. She's his daughter and he loves her and no amount of money will stop him. Walter Connolly played Andrews well, stern when he needs to be but lovable at the same time.

I think this scene established in a few minutes exactly what was the issue at hand, as well as the pace. This isn't going to be a slow drama, but a quick one filled with sharp dialogue and a strong heroine you can cheer on. It draws you in and hooks you for what turns out to be a truly great film.