This is my entry in the
Classic Movie Blog Association Words, Words, Words! Blogathon celebrating
writers in film. Click HERE for more words about words!
Who among us has not dreamed
of writing a juicy best seller? Imagine the fame, the fortune, the fun! And,
just because we are all quite respectable individuals here (wink wink), imagine
creating a literary identity – one who says all of the things you’d never dare
(at least while anyone is watching). Sounds delicious, right? It might be, just
as long as you don’t get busted. Which is exactly what happened to poor little
Theodora Lynn.
Meet Theodora Lynn (Irene
Dunne) – prim and proper Sunday School teacher, daughter of the founding
fathers of Lynnfield, Connecticut, youngest member of the stuffy Lynnfield Literary
Circle – and author of The Sinner
under the pen name Caroline Adams.
Outwardly meek and mild Theodora manages to
balance her compartmentalized existence with woman of the world Caroline
(ducking down to New York to meet with her publisher and presumably keep an eye
on the big bucks her runaway best seller is raking in) quite well until the Lynnfield
Bugle, Theodora’s hometown newspaper, decides to run a serialized version of The Sinner. That’s when all heck breaks
loose.
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| Small town Theodora visits her publisher |
The old hens of the Lynnfield
Literary Society are up in arms. Staining their local paper is the purple prose
of The Sinner. While some of the
ladies obviously find the salacious story a guilty pleasure (most noticeably
Spring Byington as a delightfully hypocritical peahen who gets hers in the
end), it is decried as “unmoral and unprintable.”
 |
| The Literary Society is scandalized! |
Wielding their civic power
over the local press, they attempt to strong-arm the Bugle’s publisher, Jed
Waterbury (played by Thomas Mitchell), into silence. He resents the
self-righteous censorship, is frustrated by it and is maddened by the old
gossips, but he never gives up on freedom of the press.
 |
| Thomas Mitchell as the editor of the Bugle |
Meanwhile, Theodora goes
positively wild. Artist and scoundrel Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas) has
discovered her true identity and invades Theodora’s neat little world in Lynnfield
to toy with her (posing rather improbably as a gardener looking for work).
 |
| Michael shows Theodora he can fit into her "normal" life |
He
keeps her secret, but soon he and Theodora are canoodling and the gossip
machine is fired up. Michael encourages her to break free of those small town
constraints and live life to the fullest (which means sleep with him). Ah, poor Theodora, she thinks sex means love.
She takes Michael’s advice and declares her love to the world as well as her
secret identity as Caroline Adams. The town is shocked and Michael bolts.
 |
| Irene Dunne demonstrating her wild side on Melvyn Douglas |
Theodora is now in full
Caroline Adams mode. She follows her love to New York and plants herself in his
apartment. Michael is suddenly reticent, but why? Well, it turns out he is
married and his behavior is dictated by a father who is no better than those
controlling ladies of the Lynnfield Literary Society. Turns out big city hypocrisy
is pretty much the same as the small town variety.
 |
| Theodora hits the big city with a vengeance and an over the top wardrobe |
As the mildly wild
Theodora/Caroline, Irene Dunne is a wacky delight. Somewhat reminiscent of her
performance as the Cary Grant’s faux showgirl sister in The Awful Truth, she is raucous and dresses with bad taste and
abandon. She plants herself wherever Michael is and has the complicit approval
of the wife who wants to be rid of him. Michael’s double life soon comes to
light thanks to the glaring flashbulbs of a hungry press.
 |
| Caught by the press |
In the end, Theodora and Michael
are united, it appears Caroline Adams will be writing a new best seller and the
gentlemen of the press not only continue to serialize The Sinner, but get one hot and juicy story that is sure to sell
more papers to a public hungry for a good story.
You can never go wrong with
Irene Dunne in a comedy. Her playing is always light with a quality of
springtime. But – will someone please describe to me what she does with her
teeth or tongue. I can’t take my eyes off of her mouth (even when she is in
some pretty overwhelming furs).
As for Melvyn Douglas – I
can’t say I’m a fan. I don’t especially dislike him, and I must say he makes an
awfully good wolf – but as a romantic leading man…well, I just feel that he’s a
better wolf. I know he supported some of the very best (Garbo anyone?), but
imagine the fun if Theodora went wild with Cary Grant?
My favorite performer in the
film is Thomas Mitchell as the publisher of the Lynnfield Bugle. He is just
aces as the man who wants to sell papers and give the public what it wants. He is
so real in the way that real people were portrayed in 1930s Hollywood.
 |
| And of course, all's well that ends well |
While it’s mighty fun to
watch novelist Theodora/Caroline caught in the crosshairs between small town
hypocrisy and artistic freedom, it’s the other writers of the story – those
newspapermen – that caught my fancy. They are driven, they love their work and
they never, never, ever back down to a good story. And they make it all seem
like so much fun!
