The Awful Truth

Plot synopsis:
Jerry Warriner (Cary Grant) returns home from a trip, which he falsely says was to Florida, to find that his wife, Lucy (Irene Dunne), is not at home. When she returns in the company of her handsome music teacher, Armand Duvalle (Alexander D'Arcy), Jerry learns that Lucy spent the night in the country with Armand, after his car, they claim, broke down unexpectedly. Lucy then discovers that Jerry did not actually go to Florida, though he went so far as to get an artificial tan and write multiple fake letters home to convince her that he did. Mutual suspicions result in divorce.
During the divorce proceedings, Lucy moves into an apartment with her Aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham) and becomes engaged to a neighbor, Oklahoma native Dan Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), while Jerry is seen on a date with singer Dixie Belle Lee (Joyce Compton). However, Leeson's mother (Esther Dale) does not approve of her. Eventually, Lucy realizes that she still loves Jerry and decides to break off the engagement. However, before she can inform Dan, Armand shows up at her apartment to discuss Jerry's earlier interruption of Lucy's singing recital. When Jerry knocks on the door, Armand decides it would be prudent to hide in the bedroom. Jerry wants to reconcile, much to Lucy's delight, but then Dan and his mother make an appearance. Wanting to avoid complications, Jerry slips into Lucy's bedroom, too. A fight erupts when he finds Armand already there. When Jerry chases Armand out of the apartment in front of the Leesons, Dan and his mother stalk out.
Afterwards, Jerry is seen around town with heiress Barbara Vance (Molly Lamont). To break up this relationship, on the night before the final divorce decree, Lucy crashes a party at the Vance mansion, pretending to be Jerry's sister. She acts like a showgirl (recreating a risqué musical number she had seen performed by Dixie Belle) and lets on that Jerry's father ("their" father) had been a gardener at Princeton University, not a student athlete as Jerry had claimed. Realizing that his chances with Barbara have been effectively sabotaged, Jerry drives Lucy away in her car.
Motorcycle policemen stop them on the road, and Lucy, plotting to spend more time with Jerry, wrecks the car. The couple get a lift to her aunt's cabin from the policemen. Once there, Jerry admits having made a fool of himself and the Warriners are happily reconciled, just before the clock strikes midnight.

Tags: romantic, comedy

Review:
Each scene takes moment from the time-line established by the impending day and hour and minute at which a husband (Cary Grant) and wife (Irene Dunne) become legally divorced, and the movie ends at precisely the stroke of midnight which marks that moment.
It succeeds with its self-assured anarchy and the charm of its stars.Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy and especially Irene Dunne are in top form.
(Grant and Bellamy basically repeat their roles, with the same success, in "His Girl Friday," another first-rate comedy)."The Awful Truth" is the masterpiece of Leo McCarey.
Cary gets himself involved with society debutante Marguerite Churchill and Irene takes up with mother fixated oil millionaire Ralph Bellamy.Any fan of old Hollywood films can tell you how this one will end.
Dunne received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her inspired work in this film, which endures as a reminder of why she was one of Hollywood's top actress during the thirties and forties.After flirting with success in SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), SYLVIA SCARLETT (1935), and TOPPER (1937), Cary Grant finally became a bonafide superstar with his performance in THE AWFUL TRUTH.
Exceptional performances are also delivered by the rest of the cast (including Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nominee Ralph Bellamy), but the film's real scene stealer is the incredible canine performer Asta as Mr. Smith, which is easily the best performance by a dog ever!
Much later, I had the good fortune to see it myself, at an oldies-goldies TV re-run, and it amused me like nuts.Today, as a movie professional, I can safely state that it's an instance of PURE COMEDY: bright humor, pointed satire, a healthy dose of absurd, deliciously foolish, a fast-paced rhythm that makes the 90 minutes seem barely 9 seconds!
The movie is really all about the sexual tension between Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, married partners who wilfully dissolve their marriage over the husband's possible infidelity (barely alluded to) and his lack of confidence in his wife's virtue (a.k.a. jealousy).
It is a good example of what master craftsmen can do to turn a thin and deliberately implausible plot into a fun movie.The actual story is pretty simple, serving only as a setup for a lot of pleasant nonsense - Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play a couple who get divorced, and then make each other jealous when they pursue other relationships.
An older friend introduced me to "The Awful Truth" in the days before VCRs. I thought it so hilarious, I taped the dialogue on a tape recorder when it was shown on local channels.Of course, the most famous scene is the one in which Irene Dunne, still in love with husband Grant, appears at his society girl's family's estate.
But he is delightful too.Joyce Compton, in endless movies for a couple decades, is an absolute scream as Dixie Belle, the risqué nightclub performer with whom Grant takes up at around the time Dunne has taken up with deadly dull Bellamy.Not only is this sequence funny but it is also touching: Don't we all, on the rebound, make choices that seem right but turn out catastrophic!
I also like "Twentieth Century" and Bringing Up Baby." I do not like the smug "My Favorite Wife," also with Dunne and Grant" or the mean "Nothing Sacred." When it comes to screwball comedy, this is the one!
Like the way the film's structured, the dialog is clever (I understand that much of it was improvised, testament to the quality of actors involved working with an already great script) and the themes and situations are ones that transcend time, no matter how long ago the '30s might seem to most of us.
Magic.I started watching old movies like these, after two or more decades of mostly viewing movies from the '70s and later, when a few viewings of Sergio Leone films got me interested in that director's influences and from there I went to Kurosawa, back to his idol John Ford, and then Howard Hawks and John Huston and so on, starting to re-explore offerings by Bogart, Cary Grant, and others, including some classic films that I don't think I've ever seen ("Gunga Din," for example).
Dunne and Grant (this film launched him as a huge star) play a couple who hastily divorce and then alternately take turns trying to win each other back.
I can only imagine that politics played a part in her not getting a special lifetime achievement Oscar later in her life (she was a strong Republican), after all Ralph Bellamy himself got one and his film career paled next to Dunne's.Watch Theodora Goes Wild for another great Dunne Screwball performance..
This is a favorite film, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne at their absolute goofy best as a divorced couple who can't admit they still love one another.
Sure enough, though, love never quite runs as expected, and can indeed be a truly complex thing, especially when the other parties involved are human, a cheeky cat, and a rather smart and astute canine!The Awful Truth is tagged as part of the wonderful genre that encompasses the screwball comedy, and although to a degree that genre placement is true, I do believe that those not particularly fond of the high octane scattergun comedies from the genre, will certainly find this offering far more appealing with its pacing and lighthearted production values.The Awful Truth began life as a stage play in the early 20s, and was then adapted to film twice previously in 1925 & 1929, but here for the 1937 version, director Leo McCarey {Academy Award winner Best Director} improves the story big time with sharp witty dialogue and an appreciative knack for letting his actors improvise at free will in the name of comedy.
Taking the lead roles of the Warriner's is Cary Grant & Irene Dunne, and it's a great pairing as they positively bounce of each other with almost carefree abandon.
In this movie you can see two of the most brilliant actors, Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, who are both the Queen and King of Comedy.
I think we were a successful team because we enjoyed working together tremendously, and that pleasure must have shown through onto the screen," and Grant compliments her with "(Irene) had perfect timing in comedy and was the sweetest-smelling actress I ever worked with." Dunne indeed has the perfect timing and one of my favorite parts in this movie was the scene where she puts on a double act, pretending to be Grant's sister.
He can act all he wants and it doesn't seem like he's "acting." I admire performers who can do that, and Grant certainly deserves the reputation he had, and still has.Overall this movie was fun and entertaining, although I personally think that the movie's success was rather exaggerated, because the story itself isn't all that great.
Irene Dunne and Cary Grant star (in the first of 3 pictures together) as a divorcing couple who really love one another, but they're just so darned sophisticated!
Cary Grant, an up-and-coming actor in the mid-1930's, fortuitously teamed with the more established Irene Dunne for the first of three fruitful pairings in this archetypal 1937 screwball comedy directed with finesse by Leo McCarey.
A specialist in playing the third point in romantic triangles, Ralph Bellamy is likeably lunk-headed as Dan, and there are sharp comic turns by Cecil Cunningham as no-nonsense Aunt Patsy and Joyce Compton as nightclub chanteuse Dixie Belle Lee. According to Hollywood lore, McCarey encouraged Grant and Dunne to improvise much of their dialogue.
Irene Dunne and Cary Grant were wonderful together in this film as well as MY FAVORITE WIFE because the writing was so exceptional and the chemistry between them was terrific.
Plus, the movie is so similar to MY FAVORITE WIFE--another Grant and Dunn comedy.By the way, a couple things to look for: Yes, the dog "Mr. Smith" is the same dog that is "Asta" in the THIN MAN movies.
I especially liked the fact that the movie was short.Cary Grant is excellent in his role.His acting is so funny, especially his dialog delivery and his facial expressions.
Grant and Dunne are perfect, and they have perfect support from Ralph Bellamy and Cecil Cunningham.It's all been said in other reviews, so here are just a few observations;*Important to note that this was possibly the first of the so-called 'screwball comedies' which were so popular in the 30's and early 40's.
He seemed to make a career out of this type of role and here gets an AA nom for his work.*There are so many funny scenes in this picture and I think it's a tribute to the comedic genius of Leo McCarey, who started out as a director of silent comedy shorts, including some Laurel and Hardys..
Leo McCarey directs this screwball marital comedy that stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a divorcing couple who secretly still love each other, so try desperately to thwart the other's romance: He to a "haughty" socialite(Molly Lamont), she to a "country bumpkin" oil magnate(Ralph Bellamy) He comes up with a scheme to visit their dog Mr. Smith, she tries to convince his fiancée that she is his scandalous sister.
The best screwball comedies, such as It Happened One Night and Sullivan's Travels, are unpredictable, fast-paced, and funny-- three qualities that The Awful Truth utterly lacks.The plot begins badly and goes downhill — but oh, so very slowly since the story drags on.
When she impulsively takes up with Ralph Bellamy's dull character, the action goes from screwball to mothballed.Meanwhile, her husband immediately agrees to the divorce, else there is no movie — and this film wouldn't be worth suffering through without Grant' s physical and verbal gifts.
Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, "superstars" of their era, don't quite have the chemistry that Grant had with other of his co-stars, like Rosalind Russell in "My Girl Friday." But this is an interesting if predictable example of the Screwball Comedy era.
Awful Truth, The (1937) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Leo McCarey's classic screwball comedy about a divorcing couple (Cary Grant, Irene Dunne) who decide to drive each other nuts while the other is dating.
Cary Grant is sublime, rarely needing words to express his feelings; Ralph Bellamy as Oklahoma Man - Dan Leeson:- "I'm in oil, y'know", whose little story about the rooster is told with the utmost seriousness; Joyce Compton is amazing as the night-club singer/dancer Dixie Bell, while Cecil Cunningham, as Aunt Patsy, gets some tremendous one-liners such as - "Here's your diploma." handing Dan his P45 (Lucy's farewell note).
The Awful Truth represents the genre at its peak of popularity.While both Irene Dunne and Cary Grant would do a lot of comedies in their time, they weren't especially associated with the genre, especially not at this point in their respective careers.
Ralph Bellamy – again, usually a dramatic player – is also very funny in a supporting role, playing the stereotypical ranch owner but still making him a real human character.Director Leo McCarey was one of the finest comedy directors of his time, seasoned in slapstick but equally adept at the talkie variety.
Irene Dunne provides some masterful comedy touches, particularly at the end of recital which Grant butts in on, and delivers a come-hither look in another scene that is priceless.
Heck, I didn't even mind the horseplay with the mutt from "The Thin Man", pardon my metaphor mixing.There are loads of great comedic scenes, for example Grant's embarrassment at his showgirl's very literal "Gone With The Wind" number, their drunken antics with the traffic cops, Grant's ju-juitsu duel with an Oriental doorman which predates "The Pink Panther" by nearly 30 years, Dunne's hilarious appearance as Grant's classless sister Lola and ending satisfyingly with a humorous variation on "It Happened One Night's" famous "Walls Of Jericho" set-piece.After this treat, I'm on the lookout for "My Favourite Wife" a similarly plotted Grant/Dunne comedy from the same era.
And it's another one of those films where there are so many great elements  Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are so perfect that it's really frustrating I laughed so little.
It's hard to imagine audiences of 1937 having any connection with these spoiled characters--it must have been the allure of movie idols Cary Grant and Irene Dunne that people fell for.
I'd already seen countless Cary Grant films by the time I'd gotten around to seeing The Aweful Truth, but have to admit I think it was my first Irene Dunne film.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne have great mutual chemistry and movie won Oscar for directing.7,5/10.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play a married couple who divorce due to (mostly) mutual misguided suspicions of infidelity.
Cary Grant had his best performance with Irene Dunne in this film, they are both humorous and seem to share a bit of what they find funny.
All the while they try to hide how they still feel about each other.Cary Grant is great, as usual, but it is Irene Dunne who really shines in this very funny comedy.
A cute romance story filled with genuinely funny moments.THE AWFUL TRUTH was nominated for six Oscars (including Best Actress for the wonderful Irene Dunne and Best Picture), winning for Best Director (Leo McCarey).
I can't get enough of this movie.I'm a big fan of Cary Grant and, because of this film, of Irene Dunne.
"The Awful Truth" was a completely funny film, typical of the ridiculous, over-the-top screwball comedies of its time.
Ralph Bellamy, in my opinion, is one of the film's very best characters, however, as a hilarious country bumpkin planning to marry Dunne after her and Grant's divorce.
I hadn't seen this in over 10 years, and finally watching "The Awful Truth" again, I was quite surprised at myself at how loud I was laughing, as Cary Grant and Irene Dunne REALLY put on a performance.
In particular, it's a classic in the 'comedy of remarriage' vein.In the film, Cary Grant & Irene Dunne play an unhappily married couple whose suspicions of infidelity lead them to seek a divorce.
In support, Ralph Bellamy's Oscar-nominated performance as Dunne's new beau stood out, though others were memorable as well.In the end, "The Awful Truth" is a top-notch screwball comedy worthy of being ranked alongside the likes of "Bringing Up Baby" & "The Philadelphia Story".
Irene Dunne was wonderful in this movie, especially the scene where she pretend to be his (Cary Grant) sister (they are married) and sung a trashy song in front of those high class people.
And although Grant and Dunne put up excellent performances (as usual), i believe the true star of the movie is director Leo McCarey who offers perfect pace, editing and mise en scène.
The fun is watching those wonderful comic actors Cary Grant and Irene Dunne giving hilarious performances in their best film together.
Laughs all the way to the end, which leaves big warm smiles.Wonderful performances by Cecil Cunningham as Dunne's unmaidenly aunt, and Ralph Bellamy as the perfect rival for Grant.
Both Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are truly great actors with broad appeal, yet this film drags like you wouldn't believe.
As such Dunne is the absolute scene stealer using inventive style of a comedy performance which has become the signature of screwball.Though Ralph Belemy is excellent as the 'hillbilly' oilman (he should of perhaps had a part in the US television soap Dallas, though he did reference his character in The Awful Truth, that of Dan Leeson in Pretty Woman (1990) playing the rich businessman James Morse) he is essentially playing the same part as he did in His Girl Friday (1940) again opposite Grant.
Special tribute also goes to canine actor Mr. Smith who does a sublime thespian turn deserving of a doggy Oscar.The Awful Truth with the addendum of an excellent supporting cast is essential viewing for fans of classic old films, screwball comedy and Cary Grant..
The Awful Truth is the movie that made Cary Grant a star and has Oscar-winning direction from Leo McCarey.
Innocent, energetic, and gracefully acted all around, The Awful Truth is a great showcase of Cary Grant and Irene Dunne's chemistry while presenting a bittersweet love story along the way.One of my favorite films of all time is Bringing Up Baby, which is famously a screw ball comedy.
And I think Cary Grant's best performance is in Penny Serenade, where he shares the screen with Irene Dunne.
Jerry and Lucy constantly fight and can't seem to get over each other.Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a fun couple.
The romantic comedy The Awful Truth is directed by Leo McCarey and stars Carey Grant and Irene Dunne.
With "The Awful Truth," each scene feels like a moment.One other interesting note: At the end, it seems likely that Cary Grant and Irene Dunne will now spend the night together in the one room on the one bed.
Leo McCarey's "The Awful Truth" is among the best of the "screwball" comedies of the 1930s.
It gives the movie a sort of a realistic look into how Cary Grant and Irene Dunn worked as actors but it doesn't always provide the movie with some much needed great witty dialog and fine written comedy moments.
(I think it's much funnier than the overrated (IMHO) Bringing Up Baby (which also stars Grant).) Irene Dunne really busts out of her more ordinary characters and shines in this film with humor, intelligence and, in the wonderful final scene, even sexiness!
This is Grant and Dunne's first screen pairing together, they would go on to make two more successful films after 'The Awful Truth'.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne were paired in two hilarious comedy romances.
A favorite scene is when Lucy (Irene Dunne) gets a dance lesson from Daniel (Ralph Belamy), to Jerry's (Cary Grant) great enjoyment of it.