Theodora Goes Wild
Tags: comedy

Plot synopsis:
Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne) is a Sunday school teacher and former church organist in Lynnfield, Connecticut, raised by two spinster aunts, Mary (Elisabeth Risdon) and Elsie Lynn (Margaret McWade). She also happens to be, under the pen name Caroline Adams, the secret author of a bestselling book that has the straight-laced Lynnfield Literary Circle in an uproar. The book is serialized in the local newspaper, and the Literary Circle, led by outraged busybody Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), forces the newspaper's owner Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell) to stop printing the salacious installments.
Theodora travels to New York City on the pretext of visiting her black sheep Uncle John (Robert Greig), but actually goes to see her publisher Arthur Stevenson (Thurston Hall). Though Stevenson reassures an anxious Theodora that only he and his secretary know her identity, his wife Ethel (Nana Bryant) pressures him into an introduction, which the book's illustrator Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas) overhears. Intrigued, Michael invites himself to dinner with the Stevensons and Theodora. Theodora becomes annoyed when Michael smugly assumes that she is a teetotaler, so she orders a whiskey. As the night goes on, she becomes drunk. So does Ethel, forcing Arthur to take his wife home and leaving Theodora alone with Michael. When he makes a pass at her, she panics and flees, much to his amusement.
Michael tracks her to her hometown, and his whistling is immediately noticed outside her house. Because she technically is not supposed to know anyone outside of Lynnfield, he coerces her into hiring him as a gardener, thus scandalizing her aunts and providing Rebecca Perry with ample information for gossip. Michael declares that he is going to break Theodora out of her confining routine, ignoring her protests that she likes her life just the way it is. Despite herself, she enjoys herself when Michael makes her go berrypicking and fishing with him. Finally, she finds the nerve to tell the disapproving women of the Literary Circle that she loves him. When she tells Michael what she has done, he is less than thrilled.
The next day, Theodora finds that he has gone back to New York and left her. She tracks him to his Park Avenue apartment. He admits he loves her, but then his father (Henry Kolker), the lieutenant governor, shows up, followed by Michael's wife Agnes (Leona Maricle). The estranged couple only have remained married to avoid causing a political scandal for Michael's father.
Theodora determines to free Michael just as he had done for her. He wants her to hold off until his father's term ends in two years, but she is unwilling to wait that long. She courts publicity by revealing herself as the true Caroline Adams. She is staying in Michael's apartment even though he has moved out to get away from her, and she tells the press of her intention to publish a new book that details finding romance in her small town and searching for someone who will call her "baby" – a story that mimics her relationship with Michael. Meanwhile, Michael denies to the press that he has even met Theodora. She finally crashes the governor's ball and arranges for reporters to photograph her embracing Michael. Agnes seeks a divorce to avoid looking like a fool.
Theodora returns to Lynnfield and is warmly welcomed as a celebrity, even by her now-supportive aunts. She causes further talk when she brings a newborn baby with her. When Michael, now divorced, sees the child, he tries to flee, but then Theodora reveals that the baby belongs to Rebecca Perry's own secretly married daughter.

Review: The script is beautifully structured and the performances are all terrific -- it's Irene Dunne's best film, and Elizabeth Risdon is wonderful in a smaller role as the aunt.
Irene Dunne plays Theodora Lynn, a proper New England girl.
Secluded all her life with her two prudish aunts and the other puritans of the "highly regarded" Lynn Literary Circle, she sublimates her revolt as the secret author of a tantalizing best-selling novel.
Like all the "early rom-coms," its time played a big role in not just its plot but its attitudes, which on the one hand make Theodora Goes Wild refreshingly irreverent but on the other still outmoded in certain varying personal ways.
Her Theodora became the forerunner of copious romantic comedies like The Awful Truth and Ninotchka, all anchored in similar principles: the enchanting transformation of their female protagonists.
Irene Dunne breaks out of small town conventions in "Theodora Goes Wild," a 1936 comedy also starring Melvyn Douglas, Thomas Mitchell and Spring Byington.
Dunne plays Theodora, who lives a sterile life with her two aunts in a small, Puritan, judgmental town.
He soon shows up in her home town as a down on his luck man seeking work and she's more or less blackmailed into giving him a job as the family gardener.This is a delightful comedy buoyed by the marvelous acting of Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas.
Douglas, who in later life would prove himself one of the great actors of all time, sails through this film as he sailed through so many others in roles that gave no hint of his enormous abilities.
Dunne is great as the staid spinster who becomes the talk of New York with her wild outfits, saucy attitude, and smart remarks.Underneath it all, of course, it's a love story some innuendo you don't find in a lot of '30s comedies, which adds to the fun.
Theodora Goes Wild is perhaps the greatest sleeper in film history.
If you think I'm joking, just watch her in Back Street, Love Affair (much better in my opinion than its more popular remake Affair To Remember), Show Boat, I Remember Mama, this film, The Awful Truth, A Guy Named Joe, Anna and The King of Siam, Life With Father, Ann Vickers.........
Today the home of a well known author like Irene Dunne would be a tourist attraction.But back in the Thirties, this still was the New England of Calvin Coolidge and descendants of the town founder just don't go writing romance novels.
But that's what Irene Dunne is doing only its under a pseudonym, lest the good people of Lynnfield make life uncomfortable for herself and her two maiden aunts.Irene's cover will be blown though when she meets her illustrator at her publisher.
Melvyn Douglas is quite smitten with her and he follows her back to Lynnfield from New York and persuades her that she ought to live life a little and not just vicariously through her novels.Dunne takes his advice with a vengeance after he's thoroughly embarrassed her.
Today she would be big time tabloid fodder and pays Douglas back in a way he can only blame on himself.It's charming pair of leads with a delightful supporting cast that play their roles to perfection.
A particular favorite of mine is publisher Thurston Hall who gets to do a drunk scene with Dunne, something the very proper Mr. Hall didn't often do.Irene Dunne got one of her five Oscar nominations for playing Theodora Lynn aka Caroline Adams, but lost in the big sweepstakes to Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld.I'm not sure how you could do Theodora Goes Wild today though.
It reminds me a lot of myself, growing up in a small town like "Lynnfield", and being brought up to think and act the way Theodora was.
For a fact, this movie is a lot like Irene Dunne's life, actually her friends said they liked her best in this movie, because it is most like her in character.
But she is a true revelation here.) The story involves hypocrisy, puncturing it, overcoming inhibitions, being decent in a true sense rather than according to a pre-prepared code.Dunne is a rather frumpy woman from a small town who has written a scandalous novel under a pseudonym.
Her range was broad and her hits included many women's pictures, several comedies (including "Joy of Living," dismal through no fault of her own.) And she played Magnolia in my favorite of all movie musicals: "Showboat," which came out this same year..
Irene Dunne, (Theodora Lynn) played the role of a small town gal living in Lynnfield where everyone was very religious and lived life straight as an arrow.
Melvyn Douglas plays the role as Michael Grant who is linked romantically with Theodora and he gave a great supporting role.
Unfortunately, I can't figure out why.I actually like Irene Dunne, and always thought that Melvyn Douglas was in the same league with William Powell when it came to glib, sophisticated comedy, so I was all set to enjoy this one.
But about a quarter of the way through it, I found myself asking, "When is this thing going to get funny?" The subject matter--how the reactionary, repressive mentality of a clique of small-town religious zealots stifles any kind of individual creativity at all--is more suited to a drama than a comedy, and I think this film would have actually worked better as a drama with some comedy thrown in, which both Dunne and Douglas were more than capable of, than just as a comedy alone, which it really isn't.
Dunne and Douglas try hard, but they're just not given much to work with.I know that a lot of people think this film is on a par with "Nothing Sacred", "My Man Godfrey" or "Twentieth Century," but I just can't see it..
The wait was my loss.To begin with, it stars two of the undeservedly forgotten luminaries of the movie industry: Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas.
Irene Dunne had been in Hollywood six years and made 20 feature films before this, her first crack at comedy.
"Theodora Goes Wild" is a wacky comedy-romance that introduced the comedic talents of Irene Dunne to audiences.
"Theodora Goes Wild" is a hilarious film of give and take.
Dunne plays Theodora and Melvyn Douglas is Michael Grant.
A wonderful supporting cast includes Spring Byington as Rebecca Perry, Thomas Mitchell as Jed Waterbury, Robert Greig as Uncle John, Thurston Hall as Arthur Stevenson, Nana Bryant as his wife Ethel, Elisabeth Risdon as Aunt Mary and Margaret McWade as Aunt Elsie.This is a superb comedy to add to any film library.
As a fan of Irene Dunne's, and not having managed to catch up with Theodora Goes Wild, I was looking forward to finally getting to see this movie after having read the lavish praise heaped on it on this site.
What did let the movie down was a weak script and an irritatingly hammy performance by the usually reliable Melvyn Douglas.
If you really want to see Irene Dunne at her very, very best then you should catch her in the much better written My Favorite Wife, or Love Affair, both infinitely superior to their later remakes.
Thomas Mitchell manages to infuse some life in the opening half of the film, but even Mitchell, talented as he is, is stuck with a dull script that goes nowhere fast.And as for IRENE DUNNE and MELVYN DOUGLAS, while I agree that they both have credentials galore in smart screwball comedies, this is not one of them.
A few smart witticisms would have helped but the script is a painfully dull affair about a novelist smothered by the hypocrisy of living in a small town where the latest best-seller is causing a stir--and happens to have been written by her.
I should add I am a devoted fan of Irene Dunne and slightly less so of Melvyn Douglas but I can't see how these two professionals could have stomached this drivel.
Irene Dunne is the true star of the film.
I don't know what the reaction would have been to "50 shades of grey"!).I highly recommend adding this film to anybody's watch-list, as it is a very nice heartfelt movie, but especially for Irene Dunne's wonderful performance..
A writer, played by Irene Dunne, has written a scandalous, sexualized novel which has sparked controversy across the country none more so than in the writer's home town, where no one knows she's the author (she used a pseudonym) but are up in arms nevertheless about the book's content.
Today, I viewed THEODORA GOES WILD and was totally caught up in the fun of an exellently written script.
Then Melvyn Douglas' pursuit of Irene Dunne might have seemed charming in a different era, but it rankled me.
Thomas Mitchell, Irene Dunne, and Melvyn Douglas all do a great job.
I think THEODORA GOES WILD accomplishes what screwball comedy does best: it takes two misfits (in this case played by Irene Dunne & Melvyn Douglas) and shows them with all kinds of inner pain and complications caused by family and society at large.
Irene Dunne plays Theodora, a straight-laced young woman living with her two spinster aunts in a prudish small town, who just happens to be the secret author of a scandalous and best-selling series of romance novels.
When the town's gossip mongers become too much to bear, and Douglas takes off after her declaration of love, Theodora decides she's tired of being straight-laced and goes wild.Dunne and Douglas have a lot of chemistry in this, and even if the movie overall doesn't make much sense (what screwball romance ever did?), the two of them keep it fun and energetic.
I'm not sure Dunne's performance warranted the Oscar nomination she received, and I don't know what in the world the Academy was thinking to nominate the movie for its editing, but it's a solid comedy from the old days.Grade: B+.
Irene Dunne carries the whole film on her back and is wonderful.
Melvyn Douglas does well with his role until the script paints him into a corner as a tongue tied whiner after Irene turns the tables on him.
As this movie began, I was pleasantly surprised by Dunne because she was playing a repressed small-town woman and thus didn't produce any of the grand gestures that are typical of her.
All hell breaks loose when a woman in a small, conservative New England town writes a steamy best-seller under a pseudonym.
I found Melvyn Douglas' presence irritating and his performance grating, but I guess that's part of the charm of these comedies.
Theodora Goes Wild was released two years into Hollywood's production code and yet the entire premise of the movie is one huge "how did they get away with that?!".
A film with a heroine who writes risqué novels and rebels against her ultraconservative, God-fearing, Helen Lovejoy type aunts who deem it their obligation to keep the fictional town of Lynnfield, Connecticut (yet another screwball comedy set in the state) the one last pure, God-fearing town in America.
- This movie hasn't lost an ounce of relevance for today's world.The scene at the beginning of Theodora Goes Wild in which the local literary group read passages from the latest "scandalous" novel from author Caroline Adams really is jaw-dropping.
However, the local newspaper run by Thomas Mitchell starts printing a serialization of the scandalous bestseller in an effort to show the town how people live, love and learn in the real world.
Whoever said old movies are stuffy and the dreaded "O" word, outdated?Despite writing highly successful adult novels, Theodora's conscious still objects to it and thus requires a bit of Melvyn Douglas as Michael Grant to ignite Theodora's sexual awakening after he seduces her while wearing a vest as his only piece of torso.
Once Michael liberates Theodora from her small town way of life she returns the favour and liberates him from his New York, bourgeois decorum..
ACT ONE: In the town of Lynnfield, Connecticut, publisher Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell) causes a scandal when his newspaper publishes a serialization of "The Sinner," a risqué best-seller by Caroline Adams.
Waterbury is forced to concede.The uproar is especially troubling for Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne), a member of the town's founding family, who lives with her two uptight maiden aunts (Elisabeth Wisdon; Margaret McWade).
In fact, Theodora IS Caroline Adams, author of "The Sinner," a secret she keeps from her aunts, and from the town.ACT II: While in New York to meet with her publisher, Theodora meets Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas), an obnoxious artist who designed her book's cover.Intrigued by the fact that "Caroline Adams" wants to keep her personal life a secret, Grant follows Theodora back to Lynnfield.
Grant gets Theodora to hire him as a "family gardener" by blackmailing her, threatening to tell her aunts that she is Caroline Adams.He takes up residence in the family's guest cottage, and drives the Lynn family (and the people watching the movie) crazy by his constant annoying whistling, and by setting his dog after the Lynn family's cat.The second act of this movie was one of the most screechingly-painful things I've watched in movies in a long time.
I really hated Toki, Grant's stereotypical Japanese manservant character, who is always going on about his "lemon pie.")Of course, Theodora's actions scandalize the town of Lynnfield, and cause a lot of trouble for her aunts.
But eventually Theodora is welcomed home by the town, despite the efforts of the hypocritical gossip Rebecca Perry to make her an outcast.The Third Act of this movie ALMOST makes up for the horrible Second Act, because Theodora turns the tables on Grant, and drives him crazy by causing a scandal about him in the press, just as he did about her in her home town.
It's a very sweet payback, and Irene Dunne has fun turning from a shy hometown girl into a wild celebrity author.But Theodora just doesn't realize that Michael Grant isn't worth it.
You see, one of their own is the author of a scandalous novel that they've been trying to get condemned, and once she has enough of them running her life with their babbity provinciality, she tells them off, leaves for New York, and really gives them something to gossip about."She" is Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne), the seemingly sweet church organist who is followed by one of the representatives (Melvyn Douglas) of the publishing firm her book was released through, threatening to blow her goody two-shoes image out of the water for good.
Irene Dunne plays an overly prim and proper lady who lives in a town dominated by fun-hating old biddies!
The town is extremely similar to the one from the Hal Roach comedy, MISS POLLY, except that THEODORA GOES WILD is a good and funny film.
Dunne and Douglas are terrific and the film, despite its ridiculous plot, is a lotta laughs and is a good example of a "screwball comedy"..
says Melvyn Douglas as smug sophisticate Michael Grant, the perfect foil to Irene Dunne's title character, the virginal church organist Theodora Lynn, who lives with her two spinster aunts in her namesake Connecticut village and dashes off to big bad New York City with the seamy best sellers she writes to let off steam.
It's as if Julie Andrews was playing a singing nun and an aging topless actress IN THE SAME MOVIE, instead of decades apart in THE SOUND OF MUSIC and S.O.B. The script for THEODORA GOES WILD is consistently clever, and the supporting cast doesn't miss a trick to sell the comedy.
One of the best screwball comedies giving Irene Dunne still another losing Oscar nomination.This comedy tests values, traditions and brings the small town living versus the big city in plenty of view.Dunne is equally matched with fine chemistry between her and Melvyn Douglas.
The film also boasts a tremendous supporting cast with Spring Byington, Thomas Mitchell, Thurston Hall and Elisabeth Risdon at their very best.When a small-town writer writes a racy book under an assumed name, all hell breaks loose in the town when excerpts of the book are run by the non-stuffy Thomas Mitchell.While in N.Y., Dunne, the writer, meets the illustrator.
Only then we learn that there's been some, ahem, not so wholesome things going on.Irene Dunne - nominated for an Oscar for her role - puts on the performance of a lifetime as the woman whose writing upends the hamlet.
Melvyn Douglas isn't the type whom I would expect to see in a screwball comedy, but you're sure to love his performance as the illustrator.
But I submit that it hasn't aged particularly well.The plot revolves around a scandalous novel, "The Sinners", written by a small town young woman: Theodora Lynn, who has adopted the pseudonym Caroline Adams, to hide her identity from her 2 elderly aunts she lives with, in particular, and the people in her town, especially the conservative Literary Circle.
As her illustrator Michael Grant(Melvyn Douglas)remarks, in her book, she imagines many of the things she would like to do, but is afraid of disapproval.
Finally, Theodora gets the nerve to tell off the members of the Literary Circle, including her aunts, but good.
Seen today, accustomed as we are to seeing the adorable Irene Dunne in her later comedies slinkily casting those lovely eyes sideways and laughing that distinctive gurgling laugh it's hard to believe that after several years as a celebrated drama queen 'Theodora Goes Wild' represented for her a leap in the dark into the hitherto unaccustomed territory of farce; at which she immediately proved adept.Thomas Mitchell as the town's abrasive newspaper editor figures prominently in the opening and closing scenes, promising a more satirical subject than we actually get.
Melvyn Douglas does his best to bestow some charm on the obnoxious Michael Grant, but the two lead characters have absolutely nothing in common, and Theodora deserves much better than this mischief-making jerk who doesn't even let her know that he's married.