The Awful Truth: Leo McCarey

Here's a novel idea: make a romantic-comedy about a divorce. Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? But Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth proves that it isn't just possible, but that it's a formula that could produce one of the most delectably subversive films of the 1930s. Here's the set-up: mutual suspicions of infidelity lead to the divorce of Jerry and Lucy Warriner. They then proceed to sabotage each others' love life with extreme, and absurd, prejudice. First Jerry (played by Cary Grant in the first appearance of his trademark light comedic persona that would rocket him to super-stardom) ruins her chances with a wealthy neighbor from Oklahoma. Then Lucy (Irene Dunne in a performance that seems to out-Katharine-Hepburn Katharine Hepburn) gleefully destroys Jerry's chances with a wealthy heiress by showing up at her family's home, pretending to be his uncouth sister, and performing a risqué song-and-dance number. The joke is that both Jerry and Lucy are hopelessly in love the entire time. Their romantic subterfuge is merely another form of courtship. When they finally reconcile at the end of the film, it doesn't come as a surprise, but as a merciful confirmation of what the audience has known all along. The genius of The Awful Truth is that it confirms the idea of true love while dismantling the institution of marriage...or does it? What a brave, brave film, especially in the face of the archaic Hays Code.

8/10