In his Friday, October 25, 1963 review, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote:
"Obviously, Mervyn LeRoy did a little bit more than merely place his camera in the Helen Hayes Theater and shoot a straight running photograph of a performance of 'Mary, Mary' to get a film of the Jean Kerr comedy. But you would hardly be able to tell it from the rigidly setbound quality of his film version of the long-run stage play, which came to the (Radio City) Music Hall yesterday."
That just about says it all. Rarely has a film of a play been as faithful as LeRoy's film version of Kerr's urbane comedy, which was the most celebrated stage farce of its time. As Crowther indicated, the work of LeRoy's art director John Beckman and set decorator Ralph S. Hurst borrows heavily from the play's famed designer, Oliver Smith. Debbie Reynolds took over Barbara Bel Geddes's stage role, but the play's leading men, Barry Nelson and Michael Rennie, were back on that familiar set.
Yes, the film - about a divorced couple brought together for income tax purposes - is stagebound, but that's not necessarily bad. I like the idea of being transported back to the Helen Hayes Theater in 1960. The film perfectly approximates the joy of attending a matinee performance of a stylish, sophisticated comedy. And I was there as a kid.
Yesterday, Turner Classic Movies televised "Mary, Mary" at noon, and I was there front row-center. In hand, I had my copy of Jean Kerr's stage script, courtesy of the Dramatist's Play Service. I read the play along with the actors on my television set, that's the fidelity that, except for two minor added sequences, scenarist Richard L. Breen brought to the film.
Jean Kerr was, of course, the wife of the Times' great theater critic, Walter Kerr, and her adventures as the wife of a critic has been the subject of two other films - Charles Walters' bubbly "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960), with Doris Day and David Niven as Jean's and Walter's on-screen surrogages, and Don Weis' "Critic's Choice," the film version of the 1960 Ira Levin stage comedy with Bob Hope as a theater critic whose wife, played by Lucille Ball, writes her own play.
By the way, Otto Preminger directed the original stage and Henry Fonda played the role of the critic.
7 comments:
Yes, "Mary, Mary." I enjoyed seeing it again. Would like to see another Reynolds title, "Goodbye, Charlie," too. Maybe Turner? It resurrected "The Rat Race" after all.
MARY, MARY played at Radio City Music Hall and i do remember seeing it and enjoying it. And it was one of the rare opportunities that Diane McBain had to show some of her comic style, which was always on display in the TV show SURFSIDE SIX.
"Mary, Mary" was the first Boadway play that my parents took me to see. I still can't get over how close the film was to it
Coincidently, like Sheila, "Mary, Mary" was the first Broadway play my parents took me too. I fell in love with the theater with this play. Never saw the movie but I sure would like too. Speaking of Reynolds, "The Rat Race" is a good film and certainly worthy of a DVD release. Nice performances by Reynolds, Curtis and a slimy Don Rickles. "Goodbye Charlie", based on a George Axelrod play, is light and fun. Reynolds is very good. Tony Curtis I always thought was underrated. I always like George Axelrod's work.
"Mary, Mary" is Warner Brothers, so that would seem a natural fit for Turner Classic Movies, since Turner owns the Warner backlist.
The station has really come through lately for Warner product from the '50s & '60s, like "Home Before Dark", which Mr. Baltake has previously written about. Lots of Mervyn LeRoy films and Delmer Daves films from that period. In the case of Daves, "Parrish" - i still have childhood memories of Diane McBain, Sharon Hugueny, and Connie Stevens telling Troy Donahue how, when it really gets hot, she sleeps raw - and my six-year-old voice suddenly piping up to ask my cousin who had taken me to see the movie - i wanted to go because i was a big fan of "Surfside Six" and "Hawaiian Eye" and i wanted to see McBain and Stevens in a real movie - "what does she mean, raw?" - "Susan Slade", "Spencer's Mountain" - another fond childhood memory, of Mimsy Farmer touching James MacArthur's sunburn. More Daves - "Rome Adventure", "A Summer Place" and "Youngblood Hawke."
Saw a local production -- so-so, at best -- of the Jean Kerr theatrical script years back. I mainly remember the bit about the (live) TV ad where the person on camera exhales a cigarette and says "MAN, that's good coffee!" (This being an anecdote told by the heroine.)
Oh, yes, and the ending struck me as a trifle "Playboy of the Western World"-ish. But that's the subject of a whole different discussion.
Hi MARY MARY lovers:
I've found it on DVD. Go to www.wbshop (Warner brothers site), then go to the Archives Collection.
It's not digitally remastered but it's a good copy, even letterboxed. Only $19.95.
Oh happy day.
Paula
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