It’s a Wonderful World **** (1939, Claudette Colbert, James Stewart, Guy Kibbee, Nat Pendleton, Frances Drake Edgar Kennedy, Ernest Truex) – Classic Movie Review 7916

‘I never met a dame yet who wasn’t a nitwit and a lunkhead.’ MGM signed up Paramount studios actress Claudette Colbert to star with their contract artist James Stewart in director W S Van Dyke II’s vivacious, zany 1939 screwball comedy It’s a Wonderful World, and, thanks to these experts and writer Ben Hecht, this is a bubbly and delightful piece of fluff that has worn very well.

The splendidly daft and inventive plot, based on an original story by
Ben Hecht and Herman J Mankiewicz, has Stewart as Guy Johnson a detective arrested by the cops, escaping by plunging from a train into a river handcuffed with a cop, then going on the lam and abducting daffy famed poetess Edwina Corday (Colbert) when the drunken playboy (Ernest Truex) he supposed to be guarding is accused of murdering his mistress (Frances Drake), who has actually arranged a fake killing with her real boyfriend. But, after various close shaves, one in the woods with boy scouts, a second at a riverboat crossing, and another in a theatre playing the Maxwell Anderson play What Price Glory?, Colbert helps Stewart find the true killer.

Stewart (managing some impersonations) and Colbert spit out the insults and witty bickering repartee and handle the sophisticated slapstick like the masters they were (‘You’re a poetess, well I guess some people are just born unlucky’ – ‘Too manly for poetry, huh?’), while Van Dyke II controls the direction with great pace and vigour. Among the amusing character support, Guy Kibbee shines as ‘Cap’ Streeter, Stewart’s boss. The title is a line from one of Colbert’s cornball poems.

Also in the cast are Nat Pendleton, Frances Drake, Edgar Kennedy, Ernest Truex, Sidney Blackmer, Hans Conried, Richard Carle, Cecilia Callejo, Cecil Cunningham, Leonard Kibrick, Grady Sutton, Andy Clyde, and Cliff Clark.

It’s a Wonderful World is directed by W S Van Dyke II, runs 85 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Ben Hecht, based on an original story by Ben Hecht and Herman J Mankiewicz, is shot in black and white by Oliver Marsh, is produced by Frank Davis and is scored by Edward Ward.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7916

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