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Jan. 1st, 2019 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been desperately impatient for Yuletide reveals this year because ever since remembering the existence of The Talk of the Town (1942) and then rewatching it for Yuletide canon review I have been dying to tell everyone about it, and I had to WAIT and it was EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING.
Okay, so: The Talk of the Town. It stars Cary Grant as a labor organizer who gets falsely accused of murder and arson and has to hide out in the house of the local schoolteacher while avoiding detection by her subletter, a Supreme Court nominee.
It is, of course, a screwball comedy.
SUPREME COURT NOMINEE RONALD COLEMAN: The law is built on reason and principle
FUGITIVE LABOR ORGANIZER CARY GRANT, FORGETTING THAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN HIDING, AND EMERGING FROM THE BUSHES IN RIGHTEOUS ANARCHIST DISDAIN: The law is a gun pointed at somebody's head!
STRESSED-OUT SCHOOLTEACHER JEAN ARTHUR: ... so this is .... Joseph the anarchist gardener???
And then the next half hour of the movie is just all of them living in a house together arguing about legal ethics and falling in love while attempting to make sure that Supreme Court Nominee Ronald Coleman doesn't notice that his new favorite radical gardener is actually a fugitive on the lam?
Actual quotes, from this actual movie:
JEAN ARTHUR: That professor's got a mind like a steel trap. And sometimes he seems like such a little boy, I feel like kissing him.
CARY GRANT: Not a bad idea.
RONALD COLEMAN: We must get some [borscht] for Joseph.
JEAN ARTHUR: We haven't the time.
RONALD COLEMAN: But think of his face, the ecstasy.
RONALD COLEMAN: Leopold, what a fine fellow. I've been thinking, Nora, that if someone took his hand and said, "Leopold, my reckless friend, here's love and companionship forever." Well, some day that man would... You see what I mean, Nora?
Guys, it's good. It's SO good. It's so VERY good that the studios were so indecisive about what the actual endgame was supposed to be that they filmed two whole different heterosexual endings and just kind of threw one at the screen at random, and the ending they picked doesn't actually read any less like a threesome, so well done, team!
Anyway all this is to say that my primary Yuletide assignment was Labor Relations for Talk of the Town; my recipient asked for threesome fluff, which is the absolute correct thing to ask for out of this film, and I instead ended up spending several hours researching major union-related Supreme Court cases of the thirties and forties because unfortunately sometimes I cannot be stopped.
(I had a blast writing for this movie in several directions, but the real personal giveaway here was the minor plot point involving obsolete recording technologies.)
Okay, so: The Talk of the Town. It stars Cary Grant as a labor organizer who gets falsely accused of murder and arson and has to hide out in the house of the local schoolteacher while avoiding detection by her subletter, a Supreme Court nominee.
It is, of course, a screwball comedy.
SUPREME COURT NOMINEE RONALD COLEMAN: The law is built on reason and principle
FUGITIVE LABOR ORGANIZER CARY GRANT, FORGETTING THAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN HIDING, AND EMERGING FROM THE BUSHES IN RIGHTEOUS ANARCHIST DISDAIN: The law is a gun pointed at somebody's head!
STRESSED-OUT SCHOOLTEACHER JEAN ARTHUR: ... so this is .... Joseph the anarchist gardener???
And then the next half hour of the movie is just all of them living in a house together arguing about legal ethics and falling in love while attempting to make sure that Supreme Court Nominee Ronald Coleman doesn't notice that his new favorite radical gardener is actually a fugitive on the lam?
Actual quotes, from this actual movie:
JEAN ARTHUR: That professor's got a mind like a steel trap. And sometimes he seems like such a little boy, I feel like kissing him.
CARY GRANT: Not a bad idea.
RONALD COLEMAN: We must get some [borscht] for Joseph.
JEAN ARTHUR: We haven't the time.
RONALD COLEMAN: But think of his face, the ecstasy.
RONALD COLEMAN: Leopold, what a fine fellow. I've been thinking, Nora, that if someone took his hand and said, "Leopold, my reckless friend, here's love and companionship forever." Well, some day that man would... You see what I mean, Nora?
Guys, it's good. It's SO good. It's so VERY good that the studios were so indecisive about what the actual endgame was supposed to be that they filmed two whole different heterosexual endings and just kind of threw one at the screen at random, and the ending they picked doesn't actually read any less like a threesome, so well done, team!
Anyway all this is to say that my primary Yuletide assignment was Labor Relations for Talk of the Town; my recipient asked for threesome fluff, which is the absolute correct thing to ask for out of this film, and I instead ended up spending several hours researching major union-related Supreme Court cases of the thirties and forties because unfortunately sometimes I cannot be stopped.
(I had a blast writing for this movie in several directions, but the real personal giveaway here was the minor plot point involving obsolete recording technologies.)
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Date: 2019-01-08 12:33 am (UTC)Even when he's asking Nora to marry him, he phrases it as a job offer - much less romantic than that bit at the end that you quoted, where he's ostensibly trying to set Nora up with Dilg, but really it sounds like he wants to grab Dilg's hand and say "Leopold, my reckless friend..." himself. In fact, every single scene where either man tries to set Nora up with the other one. JUST ADMIT YOU LOVE EACH OTHER AND LEAVE POOR NORA OUT OF IT.
Although actually I totally bought that Dilg was into her too. (Cary Grant has chemistry with everyone, he can't help it.) Nora/Ronald Coleman is the wobbly leg of the OT3. Although weirdly I want them to marry and then Dilg can come visit them in between bouts of labor agitation and he sleeps on their couch and they feed him borscht to try to build him back up because he's looking peaky, and generally bond over how much they both love Dilg, until finally Dilg is like "You GUYS we need to talk about the elephant in the room.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-09 03:07 am (UTC)Though I do buy that they're all into each other; it is very charming really how each of them is one hundred percent convinced that they are the only sensible one of the trio, and the other two are sweet, innocent, clueless babes who must be protected at all costs. I am also EXTREMELY into this future-fic you have drafted out here and I think you should for sure write it. >:D
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Date: 2019-01-09 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-11 05:15 am (UTC)