THEODORA GOES WILD DVD

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Irene Dunne... Theodora Lynn

Melvyn Douglas ... Michael Grant

Thomas Mitchell ... Jed Waterbury

Thurston Hall ... Arthur Stevenson

Rosalind Keith ... Adelaide Perry

Elisabeth Risdon ... Aunt Mary Linn

Margaret McWade ... Aunt Elsie Linn

Spring Byington ... Rebecca Perry

Nana Bryant ... Ethel Stevenson

Henry Kolker ... Jonathan Grant

This is one of my favorite movies. Sheltered, sweet Theodora, a girl from a "nice" family in a small Eastern town, writes a torrid romance under a pseudonym. Unfortunately, her aunts and the Ladies Auxillary decide the book must be banned and send poor Theodora to battle the evil publisher. While in New York at her publisher's, Theodora meets up with Melvyn Douglas, her book's illustrator. He guesses that Theo is not the vamp her book portrays her to be. He follows her back to her small town and tosses world upside down.

This movie is sweet, witty and very funny without being maudlin in the best style of the thirties. It was up for an Oscar and lost against very steep competition. If you like "My Favorite Wife" or other screwball comedies buy this movie. And as good as Irene Dunne is, Melvyn Douglas is even funnier.

One of the great underrated comedies of the 1930's!! It's shocking to realize this movie was made two years after the Hays Office clamped down on the studios because this picture has got everything a pre-code film could want - gags about illegitmate babies, prematrial sex, adulterous husbands, prudish (yet titilated) old biddies, etc. and who should star in this picture but one of the screen's most famous "ladies" Miss Irene Dunne!!! Her wholesome presence undoubtably got many a gag on screen that would have never passed muster in a Mae West or Jean Harlow picture (Irene even gives the back of her hair a Mae West-like pat as she snaps out one quip!)

Irene plays a rather repressed youthful spinster who lives with her two maiden aunts in a ultra-conservative and self-righteous New England town who somehow writes the best selling "dirty novel" of the year under a psuedonymn (just how this innocent lamb concocted such a book is never quite explained). While in New York with her publisher she captures the interest of the book's illustrator Melvyn Douglas who is fascinated that such a modest girl could write such a tome. Douglas proceeds to follow Irene back to her hometown and turns her life upside down. And that's just the first part of the picture!!

Irene was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film (one of her five nominations) and this comedy is a true tour de force for her like MIDNIGHT is for Colbert or BOMBSHELL for Harlow. This is definately her finest comedy film.

Melvyn Douglas is so aggressive in the first half it comes perilously close to wrecking the picture's charm. The scenes where he deliberately annoys Dunne and her maiden aunts at their home seem close to harassment by today's standards. Fortunately, Melvie gets her come uppance by our little churchmouse and this atones for the earlier scenes. Of note in the supporting cast is Spring Byington, usually cast as the sweetest most devoted of mothers but here giving a superb performance as the self-righteous biddy of all time.