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No Time for Comedy: Warner
Bros. Pictures,
September 14, 1940
New York Times,
September 7, 1940
'No Time for Comedy,' a Gay
Romance, With James Stewart and Rosalind Russell, at
the Strand
By BOSLEY CROWTHEB
Let us be thankful this morning that the Warners
don't take titles seriously, else we certainly
wouldn't be sitting back, still giggling like a
dolt, over the Brothers' "No Time for Comedy," which
popped into the Strand yesterday. Maybe the skies
are darkening and the times out of joint, but the
moment is always propitious for a charming
jocularity of this sort. For here, we are pleased to
report—with a grateful nod to practically every one
listed in the credits above—is a lively and wistful
comedy for which every one would do well to find the
time.
Last year, when a play of the same name, by S. N.
Behrman, was showing on Broadway, the main question
was how a successful actress could keep her
playwriting husband from going serious and
social-minded under the mettlesome influence of a
rival dame. Now the chief problem is the same, but
the narrative has been happily expanded, and the
brittle and worldly wit of Mr. Behrman has been
abbreviated in favor of more extensive and
effervescent humorous action. Mr. Behrman was
writing intellectual comedy; the brothers Epstein,
who prepared the present script, are much more
interested in romantic implications.
And with James Stewart and Rosalind Russell playing
the play-writer and his wife, the switch in emphasis
is altogether to the good. For this permits the
introduction of Mr. Stewart as a diffident young
author from the West, arrived on Broadway to attend
the production of his first play, and Miss Russell
as the leading lady with whom he falls in love. This
early (and new) part of the story is admittedly the
best, for it scampers and frolics along with
captivating humor, and it gives more, poignant
meaning to the later complications of the story.
As usual, Mr. Stewart is the best thing in the
show—a completely ingratiating character who ranges
from the charming clumsiness of a country playwright
to the temperamental distraction of an established
writer with complete and natural assurance. Miss
Russell is excellent, too, in a cool, collected way,
while Allyn Joslyn is a delightful compound of irony
and venom as a theatrical director. Other members of
the cast are generally right as rain, though we
might have wished Genevieve Tobin's characterization
of the inspiring rival a little less fluffy and
obvious. But let's not start picking minor flaws (of
which there are a few) in a comedy as enjoyable and
altogether winning as this.
No Time for Comedy: Warner
Bros. Pictures,
September 14, 1940 |
