FILM 2069: THE AWFUL TRUTH (1937)

TRIVIA: Irene Dunne later recalled the scene where she pretends to be Cary Grant's ill-bred nightclub performer sister, which was written over a weekend and handed to her on the morning she was scheduled to film it. She was supposed to do a burlesque bump in the middle of her musical number in that scene, a move she was never able to do. McCarey told her to just say, "Never could do that" when she got to that moment. She did, it stayed in the film, and Dunne found it "a choice comic bit."

Cary Grant was so convinced this film was not working, he begged to released during production. The film turned out to be a big hit.

The dog playing Mr. Smith was named Skippy, and was most popular for its role in The Thin Man (1934) movie & its sequel, as Asta. On those movies, he was notorious for trying to bite the actors. Even in this film, there's a scene where Cary Grant is trying to play with the dog, and the dog very obviously snaps and growls at him.

Leo McCarey's means of maintaining control over the picture was to shoot very little coverage of each scene and basically do all his editing in the camera. That way, there was very little leeway in how the footage could be edited other than the way he intended.

When Leo McCarey received his Best Director Oscar for the film, he reportedly said that he got it for the wrong film, a clear reference to his fondness for Make Way for Tomorrow(1937), which he made the same year.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

You can get this film here…

Or follow me along in trying to complete the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" here… (This is the latest edition my book is much older…)