Ed Uyeshima Five years before she butted heads with James Stewart working at Matuschek and Co. in Ernst Lubitsch's classic pen-pal romance, "The Shop Around the Corner", Margaret Sullavan was playing another character living in Budapest, this time a naïve young woman chosen to become an usherette in an elaborate movie palace. This warm-hearted 1935 screwball comedy has impressive credentials beyond a luminous Sullavan in only her third film, as it offers a screenplay by Preston Sturges ("The Lady Eve") and direction from William Wyler ("The Best Years of Our Lives") who married Sullavan during the tempestuous production. Alas, this was their only collaboration since they divorced less than two years later, but this long-forgotten collaboration is a fruitful one as the then-25-year-old actress sparkles in a role that could have easily been cloying if Wyler didn't maintain the right tempo for Sturges' alternately scatterbrained and clever story.Sullavan plays the improbably named Luisa Ginglebusher, a gregarious, pig-tailed orphan who regales the younger girls with her fanciful fairy tales. A blustery theater owner comes to the orphanage looking for girls to be silver-costumed usherettes at his Budapest movie palace. The head of the orphanage allows Luisa to accept the job on the condition that she performs at least one good deed a day in the real world. At the theater, Luisa meets Detlaff, a waiter who gets her an invitation to an exclusive party at which he is serving. She almost immediately has to hold off the bold advances of Konrad, a somewhat lascivious South American meat-packing millionaire who wants to seduce her and shower her with gifts. However, she isn't interested and lies about being married. When he insists on employing her "husband" so he can send him away, Luisa randomly picks a name from the phone book, hoping to do a good deed and divert some of Konrad's wealth to someone else. The lucky man is poor but proud Dr. Max Sporum, but complications obviously ensue when Luisa meets Sporum and Konrad finds out the truth.Although she had few opportunities to play comedy, the adorable Sullavan shines in this type of shenanigan-driven farce, whether using her electric wand to point patrons to their theater seats or prancing with a multiplicity of her mirror images as she models a "foxine" stole at the department store. Reginald Owen (Scrooge in the 1938 "A Christmas Carol") gamely plays Detlaff with rubbery charm, while Frank Morgan (the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz") is a bit too fey and downright wizardly as Konrad. Generally a tight-lipped presence on the screen, Herbert Marshall ("The Little Foxes") has never appeared more animated in a movie than he does as Sporum. Familiar character actors show up like Alan Hale as the cinema impresario, Beulah Bondi as the orphanage matron, a hilariously over-the-top Eric Blore (from all the early Fred-and-Ginger pictures) as a monocled drunk, and a menacing Cesar Romero as a pushy stage-door lothario. An unusual entry on Wyler's resume, this is quite a charmer thanks to Sullavan. The print is clear on the 2002 DVD, which includes the original theatrical trailer and a photo gallery as extras.

MARIO GAUCI This is another early and light Wyler film, on which he actually met his first wife i.e. star Margaret Sullavan; she is delightful in the title role of an orphaned girl who goes out into the world for the first time and, when offered the 'protection' of a wealthy older man (Frank Morgan), she tells him she is married to struggling lawyer Herbert Marshall (whose name the girl picked up at random from the phone book!). However, rather than be discouraged, he proposes to help her husband's career instead and, in this, she sees herself as having done her good deed for the day (a remnant of her naïve upbringing)! Of course, no end of complications follow, which also involve an overly protective waiter Reginald Owen and an eccentric drunkard of a Minister Eric Blore (who is only featured in one hilarious scene early on), with the remaining supporting cast including such familiar faces as Alan Hale, Beulah Bondi, Gavin Gordon (in an amusing film-within-a-film appearance!), Cesar Romero and Luis Alberni.The film is very typical of its era, being a sophisticated romantic comedy with a Continental setting; though never straying outside the studio, in this case Universal, its look is distinctive – particularly Charles D. Hall's art direction – and the whole feels a kinship to Ernst Lubitsch's pictures at Paramount. One more notable influence here is screenwriter Preston Sturges – still some years away from becoming a powerhouse director of zany originals – albeit with occasional sociological concerns, which can also be felt here.Though essentially stylish fluff, the film is kept afloat by the performances: while Morgan made a career out of playing flustered and misguided socialites (interestingly, his being played up as someone with the ability to set things right for others seems to have augured well for his best-remembered – and titular – role in THE WIZARD OF OZ {1939}), Sullavan and Marshall really shine, especially when playing off each other: her freshness all the better to contrast with his inherent stiffness. The latter, in fact, is bemused by the various benefactors' interest in his modest practice, but he clashes with the girl over his studious (i.e. bearded) look; this is a dilemma which, curiously enough, I have had to face myself ever since I grew a beard (for the first time in my life!) as a result of my recent tenure as an extra on the WORLD WAR Z Malta shoot – with some female friends fancying the change in image and some others not (but, unlike Marshall's character in the film, so far I have kept it)! In the end, Morgan sees how Sullavan is really drawn to Marshall, so he does the only honorable thing and steps out of the way but, in true Hollywood fashion, he lets the protagonists have their cake and eat it too (by not opting to withdraw his sponsorship).Tragically, Sullavan died at age 50 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates (though some considered it suicide, having earlier suffered from a nervous breakdown) on New Year's Day 1960; depressingly, two of her three children would actually commit suicide! Besides Wyler (their marriage lasted a little over a year), her husbands included actor Henry Fonda (they divorced a mere 2 months later!) and renowned agent Leland Hayward (the couple managed to stay together for nearly 13 years this time around). She was also mother-in-law to Dennis Hopper – while his pal Peter Fonda (not her son) named his daughter Bridget after Sullavan's own offspring from the Hayward union, on whom he used to have a crush (and who died, aged 21, only 11 months after her actress mother herself!).

JLRMovieReviews Fade in: we see an orphanage of kids, all cute and adorable and we see Margaret Sullavan in the middle of them, entertaining them with her animated tall tales, and her acting ever the child herself in telling them, even though she must be seventeen or eighteen. Alan Hale wants an new usherette at his movie house, but doesn't want the fast types who go after the boys, so he and his wife get the idea, maybe a young girl from this orphanage, who's sweet, naive, and doesn't know anything about well, anything, will do. He of course picks out Miss Sullavan. She sets out in the world with one mission: to do good deeds and to do them wholeheartedly and with a smile. With that attitude, she could get in a lot of trouble. But she knows enough to stay away from a wolf who tries to come on to her, after leaving work, played by Cesar Romero; he was too good looking! She takes up with Reginald Owen, who has a "safe and nice" face. Ultimately, for fun, I think, he tells her to go a party, but there she meets Frank Morgan, before he was "The Wizard of Oz," who gets ideas with her around. He wants to do nice things for her, but when she blurts out she's married, to keep him away from her, things get complicated and a little sticky. Enter Herbert Marshall. And, you better watch this feel-good "The Good Fairy" in order to learn two important lessons: Watch out for those good deeds; they may snowball. And, from the smallest things we do, comes the best gifts, sometimes even for ourselves.

theowinthrop Before "Christmas In July" and "The Great McGinty" Preston Sturgis was a screenplay writer - one of the two great screenplay writers of the 1930s who graduated into very respectable directorial careers (the other being Billy Wilder, of course). Oddly both men cut their abilities at Paramount, not MGM. And both claimed that they were dissatisfied with the ways two of their best scripts were shot ("Easy Living" and "Remember The Night"), butchered (in their opinion) by the same director: Mitchell Leisin.Actually this was hardly fair to Leisin. If he did not have quite the cynical bite of either Sturgis or Wilder, he did not ruin their screenplays. He tended to make characters more human. Moreover, it is hard to support the comment about "Easy Living", when Leisin is credited (not Wilder and Charles Brackett his partner) with the most famous scene in that film: Leisin created the Automat scene where all the doors of the Automat food compartment fly open and all the bums in New York City run amok getting free food! This was not ruining a film, but improving it.Sturgis' screenplays were an interesting group. He wrote the screenplay for the Edward Arnold biography "Diamond Jim". He also did the Ronald Colman - Basil Rathbone film "If I Were King". He also did the Bob Hope - Martha Raye - Andy Devine comedy "Never Say Die". His screenplay work was generally quite sharp, and never sharper (prior to his own directing) than in "The Good Fairy".Margaret Sullavan plays Luisa Ginglebusher, who has just come of age, and has to leave the convent school presided over by Beulah Bondi. Luisa has been well brought up, and she is determined to live up to the best traditions. One thing is her determination to do good. Naturally, she is like a wide eyed lamb in a world of wolves. Sure enough she soon is taken (briefly) under the wing of an arch-wolf, Cesar Romero. But she finds she has attracted a good fairy of her own, Detlaff the waiter (Reginald Owen). If one thinks of Owen solely from his nice performance as Ebenezer Scrooge, it is wonderful to see him kick off his comic shoes and timing in a film like this. He sees Luisa as a decent girl, and she is making sure she remains that way in the wilds of the wicked city of Budapesth. But Luisa sees herself as a good fairy, and she picks, out of a telephone book, a name of a person to help. It is a lawyer, Dr. Max Sporum (Herbert Marshall - complete with chin whiskers). Sporum is a fiercely honest attorney (which explains the lack of clients). Luisa, when she discovers this, decides to encourage customers. She has attracted one old goat: Konrad a rich meat factory owner (Frank Morgan). She manages to convince him that she is married to the struggling Sporum, and that she would do anything to help her "husband" make a success. Konrad takes the hint, and goes to Sporum to make him his lawyer. Sporum is amazed but thinks Konrad was told about him by an old law professor, Dr. Stanislav Metz (Eric Blore). When Luisa talks to him about his success afterward Sporum is still in a state of euphoria (he took some of the first retainer money to buy a pencil sharpener). Luisa does suggest some new clothing and he shave off his whiskers.Eventually Luisa is in over her head, as she tries to balance Sporum (who she is falling for), Konrad, and the guardian angel Detlaff. And it's done quite well. Look at the scene where Detlaff is serving Konrad and Luisa in the restaurant and keeps knocking every possible dish Konrad suggests they order ("What kind of restaurant is this?", a perplexed Konrad/Morgan asks). The scene where Marshall has to shave his beard (Luis Alberni is the barber - also with a beard) is brief but funny, as Alberni tries to talk Marshall out of the sacrifice. He just barely loses.It was a wonderful comedy, hinting at what the writer was capable of. And with names like Sporum and Ginglebusher future Sturgis names like Kockenlocker and Hackensacker were just around the corner. One only regrets that none of the leads, except Cesar Romero, ever appeared in a Sturgis film when he was directing them.