No Time for Comedy *** (1940, Rosalind Russell, James Stewart, Genevieve Tobin, Charles Ruggles) – Classic Movie Review 7951

Director William Keighley’s 1940 screwball romantic comedy No Time for Comedy stars James Stewart as comedy playwright Gay Esterbrook who scores a hit with his first Broadway play and then wants to write something heavyweight, but it turns out to be rotten as well, in this jolly transfer of S N Behrman’s hit stage comedy play.

Stewart is very cheering and so is co-star Rosalind Russell as his actress wife Linda, who tries to keep him on track. Genevieve Tobin and Charles [Charlie] Ruggles help, too, as Mandy and Philo Swift. The handling is slightly overdone, and so are some of the support performances, but the screen-writing Epstein twins, Julius J Epstein and Philip G Epstein, turn in a finely honed, amusing script.

Also in the cast are Allyn Joslyn, Clarence Kolb, Louise Beavers, J M Kerrigan, Lawrence Grossmith, Robert Greig, Frank Faylen, Jack Wise, Leo White, Pierre Watkin, Nella Walker, John Ridgely, Paul Panzer, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Wedgwood Nowell, Jack Mower, Selmer Jackson, Olaf Hytten, Arthur Housman, William Hopper, Stuart Holmes, Herbert Heywood, Bess Flowers, Edgar Dearing, Glen Cavender, James Burke, Sidney Bracey and Herbert Anderson.

No Time for Comedy is directed by William Keighley, runs 96 minutes, is made by Warner Bros – First National Picture, is released by Warner Bros, is written by Julius J Epstein and Philip G Epstein, based on S N Behrman’s stage play, is shot in black and white by Ernest Haller, is produced by Hal B Wallis, Jack L Warner and Robert Lord, is scored by Heinz Roemheld and is designed by John Hughes.

Frank Faylen again plays a cab driver opposite James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7951

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