Above and Above (1939, USA)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Up and down |
| Original title | It's a wonderful world |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1939 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | WS Van Dyke |
| script | Ben Hecht |
| production |
Frank Davis for MGM |
| music | Edward Ward |
| camera | Oliver T. Marsh |
| cut | Harold F. Kress |
| occupation | |
| |
Above and Above (Original title: It's a Wonderful World ) is a screwball comedy by WS Van Dyke from 1939.
action
Private detective Guy Johnson's job is not very exciting: He is available day and night to the tobacco heir and millionaire Willie Heyward to save the latent alcoholic from trouble and to bring him home safe at night. Willie has just married for the fourth time, and his bride is Vivian. In the evening, however, he is so drunk again that Guy has to come to the rescue. He finds his client in a hotel - with a pistol in hand and on the floor in front of him a dead dancer who had recently announced through the press that she wanted to sue him. Guy hides Willie, but both are found and arrested. A short time later the verdict is reached: Willie is sentenced to death for murder, while Guy is sentenced to one year in prison. Guy escapes while being transferred to prison.
He has a clue to find the dancer's real killer: when he found her, she was holding half a coin in her hand. The owner of the other half must be the murderer or be able to help in the case. When Guy saw an advertisement in the newspaper during the rendition asking the owner of a half coin to meet his wife at the Saugerties Theater, he decided to flee to solve the case.
On his escape he meets the poet Edwina Corday, whose car he takes and who he kidnaps shortly afterwards, as the police are already after him. Both survive the night together. The next day Edwina reads in the newspaper that Guy is not a serious criminal, as she suspected, but a detective. The same newspaper also states that she is now missing. Edwina, who sees Guys research as a great adventure, decides to help him with his work even against his will.
With the help of disguises and small lies, both succeed in escaping the stupid police officers several times, even if they keep arguing. You get to the Saugerties Theater, where Edwina introduces Guy as an actor from Alabama - he is immediately hired for a supporting role and now has to learn text. In the meantime, they both try to find the owner of the half coin and, if necessary, to rescue it. Guy's partner Cap Streeter has now also arrived at the theater and is taking part in the search. This is made more difficult when Edwina mistakes him for a police officer and knocks him down.
The evening theater performance begins and both the police and Vivian - the guy who suspects the murder of the dancer - are present at the performance. Guy and his colleagues fail to check all men for their identity with the coin owner and so a man is murdered during the performance. Guy is about to give up because he believes his only witness against Vivian was shot when the theater director tells him and Edwina that the actor only stood in for a certain Ned Brown at short notice.
Guy is arrested by the police officers present, but Edwina manages to cast suspicion on him and convince the police that important evidence is hidden in Guy's house - which is actually Ned's house. The policemen drive to Ned's house and meet Vivian, her lover and the tied up and threatened with a gun Ned Brown, who is actually Vivian's husband, who is believed to be dead. Edwina and Guy manage to overwhelm Vivian and her lover - Vivian wanted her new husband Willie dead and inherit his fortune. Her new lover murdered the dancer and cast suspicion on Willie. However, like Ned, her lover had received half a coin from Vivian as a souvenir. When the second coin disappeared and Ned surprisingly returned home from Australia alive, he too was supposed to die to cover up the last traces. In the end, Guy is the lucky one: He receives $ 100,000 from Willie for solving the case and saving his life.
production
Top and bottom was created as an offshoot of the numerous Nick and Nora films about the thin man . The studio bosses had recognized that the detective stories about a squabbling couple were reaching the audience and subsequently produced, among other things, the detective films about the couple Joel and Garda Sloan: Murder as it stands in the book (1938), Fast and Loose (1939) and Fast and Furious (1939) as well as Top and Bottom with the unequal couple Guy Johnson and Edwina Corday.
Directed by WS Van Dyke, who had previously worked with James Stewart on Rose-Marie and Dünner Mann, 2nd case and who also directed many of the Dünner Mann films. Van Dyke went haywire in just twelve days.
criticism
Contemporary critics turned out to be “anything but enthusiastic”, as Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times called the film “almost too strenuous to relax”. Other critics saw In Top and Over it a “crazy comedy that didn't really get going”: “In this extremely exaggerated film, Stewart played a role as a die-hard private detective that was completely contrary to his type. […] It's a Wonderful World was made competently, but had nothing new to offer. "
Other critics praised the relatively unknown MGM film as a "clever, funny farce with definite virtues [and] a biting sarcastic script": "The plot moves briskly and lively like a brown hare".
The film-dienst described Top and Bottom as a "turbulent crime comedy, which is considered a high point of the fast-paced Hollywood entertainment of the 30s; From today's point of view, pleasant entertainment, which in the interaction of James Stewart and the too experienced Claudette Colbert turned out to be a bit rough ”.
Web links
- Haywire in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Donald Dewey: James Stewart. A life for the film . Henschel, Berlin 1997, p. 123.
- ^ Howard Thompson: James Stewart. His films - his life . 6th edition. Heyne, Munich 1991, p. 41.
- ^ Frank S. Nugent : It sa Wonderful World (1939) . In: The New York Times , May 19, 1939.
- ↑ Jonathan Coe: James Stewart. His films - his life . Heyne, Munich 1994, p. 49.
- ^ Howard Thompson: James Stewart. His films - his life . 6th edition. Heyne, Munich 1991, p. 42.
- ↑ underneath and over it. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .