Man Who Came to Dinner: Movies about Writing

What is one of the greatest Christmas movies that’s not actually about Christmas? No, not Die Hard, but that’s in the top five. No! Not Gremlins! Gremlins is super about Christmas! The Mogwi was a present for Pete’s sake!

Nope, I’m talking about one of the early non-Christmas Christmas films The Man Who Came to Dinner, a tale of wit and grumpy celebrity. Monty Woolley plays Sheridan Whiteside, a radio personality and writer known for his intellect and biting remarks. Bette Davis is cast in one of her few comedic roles as his secretary Maggie Cutler, one of the only human beings who can put up with him because she gives back all the insults he gives. Sherry (as his close friends call him) is having dinner with a prominent family in a small town as a favor to a friend when he slips on ice and damages his hip. Stuck at the home of what he considers his inferiors, wheelchair-bound Sherry starts to turn the wealthy household upside down. Meanwhile, Maggie starts to live her own life for the first time by dating local newspaper man Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis). The cast also includes Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke as the rich homeowners stuck with Whiteside’s winning personality, Mary Wickes as a frazzled nurse, Ann Sheridan as a diva movie star named Loraine who Maggie despises, Reginald Gardiner as a charming member of the Hollywood set named Beverly (yes, he is a man named Beverly), and Jimmy Durante as Banjo - a Goucho Marx parody.

There is so much I could gush about this film - how Sherry’s friends include Chruchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, the penguins and octopus he receives for Christmas, the murderers and Japanese businessmen he invites to this house that is not his, and the many fantastic insults he gives. The writing in this is brilliant in order to match with the main character’s inspiration - Alexander Woollcott. Look him up. He’s a very interesting historical personality and writer. However, this is a blog about writing so let’s talk about writing.

Since Whiteside is a famous wordsmith, one of the very first things that happens is his doctor presents him with a stack of papers as thick as a cinder block and asks him to read through it. This is, of course, the doctor’s memoirs which Sherry pretends to be interested in so the doctor will do as he asks. The bigger writer who presents himself to Sherry is Bert. He is willing to enter a battle of wits in order to get the interview he needs for his paper. Mostly this comes down to Sherry tricking him out of money here and there. When Bert starts dating Maggie, he lets her read a play he’s been working on. He, himself, does not bring the play to Sherry’s attention, but Maggie does as the same time as announcing that she’s quitting in order to peruse a life with Bert.

The play is described as being quite good, however, Sherry is terrified of change and does not want Maggie to quit. Therefore, he uses this good work of writing in order to destroy all of her hopes. Yep, this is a comedy. I won’t give the whole thing away and notice that I’m not using any quotes from the film this time because you should really experience it for yourself. I will say that Hollywood caricatures who come in and out of the story provide ample shenanigans to fix everything. The point I am trying to make is that Bert’s play is of a standard that Sherry is able to use it in order to create absolute chaos.

And isn’t that the true spirit of the holiday season - chaos.

Old Acquaintance: Movie about Writing

OH. MY. SWEET. BABY. SLEIPNIR. This movie was. . . hard to get through. Before I get accusations about being a rube who doesn’t appreciate art, I want to point out that I usually love old movies. I thought, “A 1943 film I’ve never heard of staring Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis based on a play by the same guy who wrote ‘Bell, Book, and Candle’. You son of a bitch. I’m in.” Then I started it. Then I turned it back off. Then I tried watching more the following day. Another ten minutes and I stopped. I think it took me a week to watch this film in it’s entirety.

It’s a melodrama so of course there are silly rivalries, a couple of love triangles, and other ridiculous fodder. The movie is about two childhood friends who both grow up to be well-known authors. Practical and good-humored Kit (Bette Davis) is a novelist and playwright who really only churns out products every few years. They don’t make her a lot of money, but acquire her a lot of fame since she chooses subject matters of society and feminism. Her work seems to be mostly popular with academics like college students. Meanwhile type-A personality Millie (Miriam Hopkins) mass produces best selling romance novels that make her a wealthy woman in only a few years. Although Millie is constantly jealous of Kit and feels they need to be in some kind of competition, Kit only wishes Millie success and makes many excuses for when Millie acts selfish or flies off the handle. A part of this comes from the backstory of Millie having brought Kit home from school one day so she wouldn’t have to go to her own awful life and from then on she became like a foster child to Millie’s family. Kit feels a constant gratefulness for this because she credits any parts of her happy childhood to Millie.

Millie also the wife of some kind of successful gentleman with a thin 40s mustache (played by John Loder) who not-so-secretly pines for Kit. Together they have a daughter, Deirdre, (played by Dolores Moran as a teenager) who is named after the main character in Millie’s books and also seems to love Kit more than her emotional mother. Then, when Deirdre is a young woman, she and Kit fall in love with the same man (Gig Young) and Kit stands aside for her would-be niece. See. Drama. So. Much. Drama.

The pair of women have several literary conversations throughout the film that always start off interesting and realistic. They range in topics from editing and peer review to confidence in writing and when you have to let of of a project (just publish already) *note: I feel personally attacked every time this comes up in a film about writing. I will finish when I’m ready. Stop judging me, TV people! And even the ideas of marketing and publicity. Then the conversations turn into a thinly veiled fight with Millie constantly insulting Kit without realizing it. Still, Kit keeps trying to save Millie’s relationships with her husband and child, despite all of Millie’s tantrums.

I feel like if this was just a drama that only focused on the two authors and their friendship versus the differences in their careers, I probably could’ve gotten behind this film. Even if it was about how Kit was constantly trying to save Millie’s personal life in the midst of success and a character study of how Millie is so oblivious, I’d probably have felt this was a smart film about interesting writers. Instead, I found myself zoning out as there were long speeches involving words like “I can’t! I simply can’t” and discussing the moral implications of all the messes of their lives. Music swelled, people started to talk in passionate tones, and I would go get a snack. When I’d come back they’d still be talking about love affairs and suicide attempts. And I got really sick of this martyr routine they gave to Bette Davis. And it goes on for years! The movie takes place over nearly two decades and, although she does have success as a public figure, is never a bestselling author and of all the things she wants in life the only thing she gets to have in the end is her toxic friendship with Millie.

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