No Time for Comedy

James Stewart and Rosalind Russell both got loaned out from MGM to Warner Brothers for their one and only screen teaming in No Time For Comedy. This play by S.N. Behrman ran for 185 performances on Broadway during the 1938 season and starred Katherine Cornell.

It also starred Laurence Olivier which leads me to believe the stage version has GOT to be a whole lot different than what we are seeing. Usually James Stewart and Laurence Olivier were never up for the same parts so their must have been a real big rewrite to make this part playable for James Stewart.

Imagine George Bailey if for amusement in Bedford Falls he wrote plays and you've got the character of Gaylord Estabrook who Stewart plays in No Time For Comedy. The film opens with the play about to open out of town and being produced by Clarence Kolb. Kolb has second thoughts though when he meets country rube Stewart from some small town in Minnesota and backs out of the production. But star Rosalind Russell has faith in the play and she pulls together the money to have it produced. Of course she falls for Stewart and they're married.

I don't know about you, but I sure can't see the future Lord Olivier playing the part as Stewart presents it.

The rest of the film is about Russell's and Stewart's marriage and the trials they're put through. Another married couple, Charles Ruggles and Genevieve Tobin, take an interest in each of them. Ruggles does well in a very unusual role for him, a sophisticated banker with pretensions to superiority.

No Time For Comedy is decidedly a second level entry in the credits of both the leads. Fans of Stewart and Russell should like it though.

...and why doesn't Warner Brothers know what to do with them? This feeble adaptation of a Broadway hit is comedy-drama of the clumsiest kind, veering uncertainly and arbitrarily between one genre or the other with no grace or logic. Nor are the stars well used: Despite his natural charm, Stewart can't hide the fact that his character is basically a lush and a spoiled child. Russell keeps doing irritating Greer Garson great-lady things, pointing her nose and clipping her diction and suffering with a noble smile. Louise Beavers, another trouper, is made to do demeaning dumb-maid stuff. Then there's that noisy Warner Brothers music, telling us exactly how to feel every damn minute.

One grace note: Charles Ruggles and Genevieve Tobin, who were paired so well in "One Hour with You" nearly a decade earlier, are coincidentally back in similar parts. He's as dry a light comedian as you could ask; she makes much out of little. But the movie keeps yelling how charming it's being, and trying to pass off boilerplate dialogue as repartee. 'Tain't funny, and it's not convincing as drama, either.

Rosalind Russell and James Stewart are husband and wife in "No Time for Comedy," a 1940 film also starring Charles Ruggles, Genevieve Tobin, Louise Beavers and Allyn Joslyn.

It's based on the Broadway hit that starred Katharine Cornell and Laurence Olivier in one of his early lead roles in the U. S. This was the play, according to legend, that David O. Selznick arranged for Olivier to star in so he would be separated from Vivien Leigh while she was doing "Gone with the Wind."

Russell is the glamorous stage star Linda Paige who is starring in a drawing room comedy by one Gaylord Esterbrook (Stewart). He's actually from the sticks, and the play is not without its problems.

When the production loses its backer, Paige steps in and saves the show. Bumpkin Esterbrook becomes a lauded playwright and marries Paige. He writes comedies with starring roles for her.

One day he meets Mandy Swift, a socialite who likes to, shall we say, take young men under her wing and mold them. She convinces Gaylord that he needs to write some serious drama. Since he's already doing some serious drinking, it stands to reason one should follow the other.

Not having seen the original play, it's hard to say whether the film matches up to the original. At the time of the film, Spain was involved in a civil war, and all of Europe threatened by the Nazis; war was imminent.

The play is about a playwright who is agonized by his success in the genre of sophisticated comedies when the world is such a serious place. It's also about several years into a marriage when the bloom has fallen off the rose.

The film "No Time for Comedy" is an uneasy mix of drama and comedy. Stewart, who normally plays a likable character, plays a country boy spoiled by success. He turns to drink and another woman, making him much less likable.

Yet the audience is set up from the beginning to think he's going to be a nice guy.

Russell, of course, plays the stage actress (which she was) beautifully. As Gaylord's suffering wife, she is dignified and sophisticated and you can see her broken heart beneath the veneer. Louise Beavers is fabulous as the maid who is not only an equal in the household but acts on stage as well.

Part of the problem with "No Time for Comedy" is that nowadays, we know the importance of comedy in times of tragedy. In fact, it's always time for comedy, never more than when there's a dark pall over the world. Despite good performances, the movie seems dated today, as I suspect would the play.

"No Time for Comedy" starts out as cute "country bumpkin moves to the big city" story. The plot moves to its fun, middle section with clever lines and happy days. then the inevitable, serious life situations. some good laughs in the middle, mostly at the expense of Clementine, the maid, played by Louise Beavers. Ros Russell does a great job as the starlet Linda Paige, who marries the author (Jimmy Stewart) of the play she saves. Charlie Ruggles does a fine job as the understanding husband of "the other woman". Also a very patient, understanding take on when one's spouse starts to look at others, especially for this period of time in film-making. Whenever Genevieve Tobin spoke, she sounded just like Billie Burke. Tobin ALSO married her director Keighley, and seems to have left the biz after this film. Note it did not win, or even get nominated for any awards, in spite of the big names in it. not sure if that's because its too many different things, or maybe the subject matter couldn't be rewarded in those times. It must have done OK in the theater, since it was re-released again later with a new title.

This is a fascinating picture for Stewart fans. Made after "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and in the same year as "The Philadelphia Story," "No Time" adds an interesting pre-war wrinkle to Stewart's on screen persona. At a time when he was most associated with the "aw-shucks" stereotype of the All-American naif, his Gaylord Esterbrook must have come as a shock to movie-going audiences. Gaylord begins as another one of Stewart's lovable rubes, but by picture's end he's become a cynical sophisticate - and Stewart's handling of the transformation is seamless. He's surprisingly good at playing the gruff curmudgeon and a man on the verge of an extra-marital affair - another atypical Stewart-like development. Likewise, the film itself mirrors Gaylord's personal and artistic transformation, beginning as a typically bubbly romantic comedy but turning bitingly (yet still amusingly) sour by the second act. After a series of comeuppances, Gaylord comes up against his limitations and the final scene -- a confession of humility delivered as a monologue to a seemingly non-existent audience -- is truly moving in the tradition of some of Stewart's finest moments. Lovely.