Hit Me Again

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Smarty

The surprise for me in "Smarty" is that I watched it all the way through, because viewing it grew more and more bothersome and problematical. The film itself is put together okay, looking clean and polished, but it is the parade of moderately distasteful but well-dressed characters that pass along in parade that brought me down, as well as the fact that some of my most-enjoyed actors of the 1930's play roles that are just so unnervingly disconcerting and basically disgusting in socio-moral comportment. All the characters save one (Claire Dodd) seem to have some kind of serious personality or behavioral flaw, all of whom swim around wounded in the same big polluted swimming pool. In sum, "Smarty" is a fascinating, disturbing, and, in some ways, appalling exercise in filmed expository morality among people I hope to never meet in real life with actors I perhaps wish had not been in it.

This pretty amusing Pre-Code Hollywood divorce farce features an excellent cast and several very funny lines. It treats divorce as simply a part of the mating game, and treats the mating game as just that; it's one cynical movie. The script is certainly nowhere as witty as the first few Thin Man movies, and is actually disturbing if you put it at all within the real context of violence against women - the way the script treats hitting your wife as an element of comedy is downright shocking.

Joan Blondell is Warren William's wife. She's the sort of woman who likes to tease, and eventually she teases William into giving her a smack. So she divorces him and marries Edward Everett Horton. It's one of those movies based on a stage play in which everyone is arch and witty - F. Hugh Herbert wrote they play and had a hand in the movie script. It's opened up nicely for the screen, even though the pacing and delivery still smacks of the theater. It's amusing in its code-compliant way, but a very minor effort. It holds some interest in being a sort of proto-screwball comedy, talking about sex with people one should not have sex with, but in a manner that doesn't annoy the Hays Office.

Interesting if bizarre dark comedy. This has been well reviewed by others. Two comments. The first is Warren Williams vacillating character, one minute dismissive of his ex-wife, then next expressing his undying love. This is not his most forceful or consistent role. The next is Joan Blondell and her motivation. She divorces her husband one minute and marries another shortly thereafter. Was she trying to make her husband more romantic, or was she living out her masochistic fantasies? The dimpled Claire Dodd does a good job as the divorced friend of the couple. It was also nice to note Edward Everett Horton toning down his usual effete, fuss-budget persona.

A racy but mean-spirited early movie. Who wants to see the great Joan as -- well, it rhymes with "witch"?! It's politically incorrect, too. Slapping a woman is not funny, and never was. Fun to watch for the stylish acting, but leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Smarty has Warren William and Joan Blondell as a husband and wife. Joan is a vivacious tease and a flirt and William has limits on his patience. One night when she proves too much William belts her on the chin and Blondell files for divorce. Johnny on the spot lawyer and neighbor Edward Everett Horton offers to be Blondell's divorce attorney and he marries her. But we're talking life with Horton and his fuss budget personality. I think you can figure this one out. It's most dated because in this day and age no one slaps a woman without condemnation. Still F. Hugh Herbert's script has quite a few laughs in it and Warner Brothers regulars Claire Dodd and Frank McHugh get their share also as neighbors and card playing regulars. Funny at times, but most dated.