Mary, Mary

This is a version of the very long running (1,500+ performances) Broadway comedy by Jean Kerr, wife of New York Times theater critic Walter Kerr and author of the novel, Please Don't Eat The Daisies.

It would have been a much better film if Debbie Reynolds been given better (or any) direction.

Debbie was sometimes not adept at playing it real, there was sometimes a sense that she was making an effort. But at her best, she was spontaneous and delightful - especially in her earlier efforts like Singin' In The Rain, Athena, Give A Girl A Break, I Love Melvin, etc.

Take a look at Debbie in Susan Slept Here (written and directed by Frank Tashlin) if you don't think she could be real, believable, touching, funny, and everything else she is supposed to be here, and isn't. There's a reason she became a bigger star than many of the MGM girls she originally appeared in support of - and guys, for that matter. Even when she isn't too good (as in this film) it's obvious that she has star power. Imagine a film starring the other four leads and no Debbie.

The trouble here is that, rather than relying on her own vocal inflections, and her proved ability to deliver comic dialogue, she gives an imitation of Barbara Bel Geddes (the original star of the Broadway show)! I don't know whose idea this was, but it wasn't a good one.

It's a decent romantic comedy that has a lot of pretty good jokes about the contemporary fads and foibles of the day. The action really doesn't leave the apartment set. The set and costumes are in deliberately neutral tones, like they were designed to be shot in black and white. (The brightest colors are in the title sequence.) Like Debbie's performance, the stylized color scheme serves to distance us from the story, since it encourages us not to forget we're watching something unreal. The whole thing is shot at some distance from the actors - though this seems to have been Mervyn LeRoy's later style, in general. This also hampers involvement.

The performances of Barry Nelson and Michael Rennie - the original Broadway stars - as well as Hiram Sherman, who took over on Broadway from John Cromwell, the actor and director ("Since You Went Away"), are quite good, and Diane MacBain is charming.

At a (then) genuinely astounding 1,572 performances (March 8, 1961 - December 12, 1964 at the Helen Hayes and Morosco Theatres), Jean Kerr's MARY, MARY was one of the most successful boulevard comedies of all time. The all too seldom seen movie version is as nearly perfect a transfer from stage to screen as we ever had, preserving not only all the witty charm and stylish banter of the stage hit, but most of the sharp stage performances that made it a hit as well!

Of course, we know that charming Barry Nelson and suave Michael Rennie repeated their stage roles. Given his long list of screen roles as the perfect British detective, it's amazing John Cromwell didn't repeat his stage role as Oscar Nelson, the accountant who brings the formerly married but still fond Bob and Mary (Nelson and...we'll get to that) together to go over tax matters. Presumably Cromwell was busy, because the film makers went with his first stage replacement, Hiram Sherman (who did the role on Broadway from May 13 to September 1, 1963).

Diane McBain didn't do her role on Broadway, but was excellent as the deceptively pretty but self aware young thing Bob is currently dating.

The film's unappreciated coup sprang from the Hollywood gimmick of insisting on a MOVIE name to help with the box office. In this case it was the oft' over praised Debbie Reynolds, and she was just fine as the brittle but brilliant Mary.

What made it a "coup" was that Reynolds was a far better mimic than she was (based on Hollywood outings in things like THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN or BUNDLE OF JOY or her Broadway fumble in IRENE) actress. It wasn't until I saw Barbara Bel Geddes, the original Broadway Mary, years later in another Jean Kerr play on stage that I realized that what Reynolds had given us in this delightful film was Bel Geddes' original Broadway performance - very movement, gesture and vocal inflection - letter perfect!

An intimate, five character, wonderfully written comedy, and with "three and a half" of the Broadway cast. One might say "no wonder it worked so well," but also credit film producer/director Mervyn Leroy who got the appropriate screen performances (performances don't always transfer intact - stage star Stockard Channing, while fine in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, isn't nearly as effective on screen as she had been on stage with better direction) and Harry Stradling's perfect cinematography for never allowing the piece to seen static, confined or "stagey."

Thank heavens for films like this that once kept mature, literate audiences both young and old coming back to the movies all the time.Modern movie fans accustomed to expect nothing but action, titillation and pratt falls in a "comedy" may be amazed how good a film can be when dialogue matters - whether in a little gem like this or in lavish, big films like MOONSTRUCK or Shakespeare IN LOVE!

To quote Bob and Mary: "Mmmm. That's good coffee!"

The merit of this film is that it preserves for posterity one of Broadway's longest running comedies, with only minimal changes from the stage version. That is not an insubstantial contribution, and the movie deserves credit for letting us experience much of what 1,572 Broadway audiences witnessed.

That said, there is something impenetrable about watching Debbie Reynolds looking positively gorgeous as she tells Michael Rennie of the trials and tribulations of being a "plain" girl and woman. The part of Mary was written for Barbara Bel Geddes, who fit that dialogue perfectly (see her Midge in "Vertigo"). Debbie, on the other hand, was simply too radiant to give credibility to a character who supposedly compensated for insecurity about her looks with unceasing wit.

Recently-divorced couple in New York City, he a book publisher and she a magazine column editor, are reunited for tax reasons and find that old spark still burning beneath the constant insults. Freely adapted from Jean Kerr's popular play, this trite material relies heavily on the dropping of famous names and places to help fill in the backgrounds of these otherwise-unreal characters (as soon as Debbie Reynolds enters, we learn that she shops at Schraff's and spends endless hours at Elizabeth Arden). This is the kind of 'cozy' movie wherein everybody has money and free time to spare, but no looming work schedule. Reynolds breathlessly keeps pace while seemingly channeling Bette Davis; it's not a bad performance, however the clucking, one-dimensional writing leaves Reynolds without the shape or the semblance of a real woman to play. The male suitors on hand (Barry Nelson as the former hubby and Michael Rennie as a movie idol) do what they can, though neither seems particularly well-suited to Debbie, and their constant back-and-forth verbal bouts are tiresome. The film is dizzyingly claustrophobic, while the few funny bits are almost buried by the plastic set-up and inert direction. ** from ****

Jean Kerr, whose husband, Walter, was a preeminent New York theater critic, enjoyed quite a success on Broadway with the play on which Richard L. Breen's tidy little script is based. (Jean had previously had a big best-seller with her "Please Don't Eat the Daisies!", a highly fictionalized tale of her married life, filmed at M-G-M in 1960, starring Doris Day and, in my view, a miscast David Niven. M-G-M's coffers enjoyed a handsome refilling when that audience-pleaser rang boxoffice bells.) It was said that a negative word from Mr. Kerr sounded the death knell for a play that had made its way to the Great White Way, and a glowing review under his byline was jubilantly good news for a show's backers. He, no doubt, passed on reviewing "Mary, Mary" when it came to Broadway, but his wife's sophisticated, for its day, comedy-of-manners didn't need his praise.

When Warner Brothers gave Mervyn LeRoy the directorial reigns on their Burbank soundstages, Debbie Reynolds was awarded the title role, co-starring with Barry Nelson who had appeared in the stage version. It was always the way, when the studio system still held sway, that the obvious and only choice was a bonafide Hollywood movie star to headline a project such as this, and so the very appealing Barbara Bel Geddes, who had played Mary McKellaway on the stage to excellent notices, was not to repeat her role before the Technicolor cameras. Debbie, as she had in her previous M-G-M starring roles, didn't disappoint, however, and she was ably supported by Mr. Nelson, the gorgeous Diane McBain, and, in a witty turn (and a departure from the usually more serious roles assigned to him), Michael Rennie.

An acquaintance of mine worked in the sound editing department at Warner Brothers when this was being filmed and he confided to me that Ms. Reynolds played an anxious visit to a screening/editing room during filming, somewhat concerned that her performance wouldn't strike just the right comical note. I seem to recall that she was reassured by that technician and his coworkers and the reviewers and the film's audiences were eventually in agreement.