Snowed Under

The producer of a play is having trouble with playwright Alan Tanner (George Brent) in that he can't seem to finish the third and final act of a play that is due to go into rehearsals. He taps Alan's first wife, Alice (Genevieve Tobin), to go to Tanner's home in Connecticut to help him finish that play. She shows up, Alan is more than a little glad to see her, and it looks like the play is on its way to getting finished. But then the deputy sheriff (Frank McHugh) shows up with a warrant for Alan's arrest for non-payment of alimony to the second wife, along with said gold-digging second wife (Glenda Farrell) and her lawyer (John Eldridge). Then Alan's current girlfriend (Patricia Ellis) sneaks back into the house, refusing to leave. With the sheriff's car wrecked and a blizzard in progress, all of these people have to spend the night under one roof. Complications ensue.

The way this is set up - playwright whose life has spun out of control due to missing his first wife after having cheated with, married, and divorced a gold digging showgirl but who also has a new girlfriend who is really too young for him but is used to having her way because her family is wealthy - It could have been spun into a Douglas Sirk film if you wanted to take the plot outline and make a melodrama. But like I said, it is obvious from the farcical beginning this is going to be light entertainment all the way and you can pretty much see the end from the beginning. It doesn't outlast its welcome at 62 minutes and is a nice way to pass the time if you are recovering from a nervous breakdown without a serious tense moment in its entire running time.

Modest Warners comedy, a little over an hour and filmed essentially on one set, has playwright George Brent holed up in his Connecticut retreat struggling to come up with a third act, where he's visited by the first wife he still loves (Genevieve Tobin, who's charming and elegant), the second wife who wants her alimony (Glenda Farrell, who's a little too shrill and boisterous), and the kid who wants to be No. 3 (Patricia Ellis). Frank McHugh also shows up to arrest him, and a housekeeper who ought to be Clara Blandick but isn't helps out. It's so one-set that it seems to be derived from a stage farce, but isn't, and implausibilities pile up--if it's such a snowstorm, why are the roads so clear? How does Brent get over to the housekeeper's house? Why is everybody suddenly fainting? Gags, such as McHugh getting covered in snow, get overworked, and Ray Enright, never the most dynamic Warners director, doesn't make much of the slender material. But it's nicely shot, with particularly lovely snowbound exteriors, and the cast looks like it's having fun.

Snowed Under casts George Brent as a playwright who is working to get a third act right for producer Porter Hall. To get away from it all he's taken a mountain cabin up in snow country to get some privacy and the creative juices flowing.

Privacy is about the last things he gets in this somewhat claustrophobic comedy where all three women in his life come for a visit. Ex-wife Genevieve Tobin arrives first, current estranged wife Glenda Farrell is second who brings along lawyer John Eldredge and Deputy Sheriff Frank McHugh to get either her back alimony or Brent in the pokey. Finally there's current girlfriend Patricia Ellis who kind of sneaks in when no one is looking.

Snowed Under is short and fast paced comedy in which Glenda Farrell stands out in this cast. Brent learns that old adage of it's cheaper to keep her.

We kind of know right away who Brent winds up with, still Snowed Under is a lot of fun with an impeccably cast ensemble.

Snowed Under (1936)

*** (out of 4)

Surprisingly entertaining comedy about a writer (George Brent) who flees to a cabin in Conneticut to try and finish up a play that is due in a week. The show's producer gets worried so he sends the writer's first wife (Genevieve Tobin) to try and help him and before long his second wife (Glenda Farrell) shows up demanding that he be thrown in jail over back alimony. SNOWED UNDER is a pretty far-fetched little comedy but the terrific cast and its fast-pace makes it a real winner and it's really too bad that the film isn't better known because it's a pretty good little gem. I think the strongest thing the film has going in its favor is the terrific cast with Brent, Tobin and Farrell leading the way with their top-notch performances. You've also got Patricia Ellis playing a young woman also in love with the writer, Frank McHugh as a deputy sent to arrest him and John Eldredge and Helen Lowell are also good in their supporting bits. The entire cast works so well together and the dialogue they're having to spill is flying out a mile a minute. The dialogue is delivered in an extremely fast way and the entire cast does well to really push it and make it funny. Some of the best moments deal with the three women constantly fighting amongst each other trying to see why one wants to be with the writer or why they were ever with him. The sequence where the writer decides he wants to go to jail instead of staying in the house was pretty good. The location, a small house in the woods, is the perfect setting and you really do feel as if you're in this place with all these characters as things start to go crazy. Fans of the 30s comedies should really enjoy this and it certainly deserves to be better known.

George Brent has writer's block. While he is very talented, his recent plays have bombed and the old formula is gone. So, his agent arranges for his first wife (Genevieve Tobin) to meet him at his vacation retreat, as she had been his writing partner during his glory days. However, this plan is in serious jeopardy since the second ex-wife (Glenda Farrell) shows up--and she is THRILLED with the idea of messing up anything that he was trying to complete. Add to that his secretary (Patricia Ellis)--a woman who wants to become wife #3 but who is also a major distraction.

"Snowed Under" is a kooky comedy--much of the mold of films like "Palm Beach Story", "My Favorite Wife" and "The Man Who Came to Dinner". However, the quality of the film is a couple steps below these excellent films and this is for a variety of reasons. First, occasionally the acting and writing are a bit too broad and the film tried too hard to make you laugh. While I love Glenda Farrell in most films, here she was just too shrill. Also, a few of the scenes were very, very awkward and poorly constructed--such as the fainting scene near the end of the film. The film simply is too goofy and cleaning up the script a bit would have made a better film. It didn't help that the fake snow never melted and looked really, really fake. Overall, watchable and even occasionally enjoyable...but also lacking the polish and fun you might expect in such a film.