Synopsis
A title card introduces the location and the first joke,
Sunny California.
Standing under a small umbrella in a driving rain, Dulcy
Parker (Davies) and her fiancé Gordy Smith (Nugent) are waiting for a
train. Dulcy and Gordy discuss the importance of the passengers on the train,
Charles Forbes (William Holden) and his family, including daughter Angela (Sally
Starr). Gordy must carry out a merger of his jewelry factory with Forbes' company
in order to stay in business and have enough money to marry Dulcy. He warns Dulcy
about Forbes' sensitive nature and asks her not to talk too much or attempt to
induce him into the merger. Of course, Dulcy will do everything she was asked to
avoid. She irritates Forbes immediately. Her chatter keeps the family standing in
the rain. After Forbes has been further delayed by a photographer, Dulcy knocks
over the camera and spoils the photograph.
Dulcy throws a weekend party for Forbes and his family at her palatial home. The other guests include Dulcy's brother Bill (Hackett), who knows and is attracted to Angela (Julia Faye). Dulcy instructs the butler, Perkins (George Davis), a convicted robber who has been paroled to Dulcy's custody, in the proper manner of greeting guests, but he remains awkward and untrained. Skylar Van Dyke (Stewart) arrives. He is rich, highly eccentric, and an avid golfer. Last to arrive is Vincent Leach (Pangborn), a prissy film scenarist who has been courting Angela.
After the arrival of the Forbes family, Dulcy unsuccessfully attempts to entertain Mr. Forbes, causing him to become increasingly annoyed and grumpy. The antics of Van Dyke and Leach only add to Mr. Forbes's irritation. Events climax with Dulcy bringing about both the apparent theft of Angela's pearl necklace by Perkins and the elopement of Angela and Leach. Gordy despairs about the merger with Forbes. However, Van Dyke offers to back his business and with better terms than Forbes has offered. Gordy tells Forbes about Van Dykes' offer. As Gordy and Dulcy are rejoicing, a well-known attorney, who represents the Van Dyke interests, arrives. He is looking for his insane cousin, Horace Patterson, who goes about posing as a rich man and calling himself Mr. Morgan, Mr. Rockefeller or Mr.Van Dyke. Dulcy and Gordy are staggered as Van Dyke is carted away.
At this point, when everything has gone wrong, all the pieces of the plot are brought together for a happy ending. Forbes joins them as the lawyer is taking his cousin away. He recognizes the lawyer as representing the actual Van Dyke interests, misunderstands the situation, and makes Gordy a new and better merger offer. Bill and Angela return without Leach. A wedding has occurred, but Bill is the groom. Perkins arrives and returns the necklace. He found it carelessly dropped and had taken it for safe keeping. Dulcy and Gordon kiss as happiness abounds.
Discussion
Not So Dumb is based on Dulcy, a play written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly that was a hit when it opened on Broadway in 1921. In the printed text of the play, Kaufman and Connelly give a nod to humorist Franklin Pierce Adams, who created the cliché-spouting housewife Dulcy for his newspaper column. The first film version was produced in 1923, directed by Sidney Franklin and starring Constance Talmadge. Another film version, directed by S. Sylvan Simon and starring Ann Southern, was produced in 1940.
The comedy is built around the talkative, dull-witted, meddling, but well-meaning, Dulcy. Successful portrayal of the character requires an actor who can gain an audience's attention and sympathy, while simultaneously convincing them that she is an idiot. King Vidor had directed Marion Davies in two successful silent pictures, The Patsy and Show People, both released in 1928, in which Davies plays characters similar (if not as grating) to Dulcy. Not So Dumb was Davies' first sound film and a vehicle to display her ability with comic dialogue. She works hard to bring liveliness and appeal to the overly talkative, slow-witted, pushy Dulcy. Accentuating her dialogue by speaking rapidly at a high pitch, Davies maintains her natural charm and manages to transfer some warmth to the rather tiresome character.
Not So Dumb was (technically) King Vidor's first all-talking picture. (His previous film, the influential Hallelujah (1929), was shot on location in Tennessee and Arkansas. Technical difficulties with outdoor sound recording led to much of the film being shot silent and dubbed in the studio.) The difficulties experienced by a silent director making the transition to sound are evident throughout Not So Dumb, which lacks the fluidity and movement of Vidor's silent stage adaptations, such as The Patsy. The film is stodgy and stagebound: dialogue is endless and mostly unfunny, spoken by stiff actors standing (or sitting) around, passively observed by an immobile camera. The resulting film is boring and monotonous.
The most interesting aspect of Not So Dumb is its cast. The careers and personal stories of several of these actors are quite interesting. The life of Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst's mistress, is well known. Julia Faye, who plays Mrs. Forbes, also had a long-lasting relationship with a famous and powerful man, Cecil B. DeMille. Elliott Nugent and Donald Ogden Stewart had important careers in Hollywood and New York. Franklin Pangborn contributed his comic presence to almost 200 films. Nugent, as Dulcy's fiancé, William Holden, as Mr. Forbes, and Raymond Hackett, as Dulcy's brother, are all required to express varying amounts of exasperation, frustration, and irritation. They carry out these assignments adequately. The best comic acting comes from Stewart, as the crazy Van Dyke, and Pangborn, as the fussy Leach. Their absurd characters are enhanced by suitably comical facial expressions and actions.
Reviews of the film were surprisingly positive. According to Mordaunt Hall in
The New York Times, audiences chuckled fairly constantly at the antics of
Dulcy and her guests. Marion Davies shines in the role of Dulcy.
William
Holden is capital.
Donald Ogden Stewart
deals out amusement in his odd role.
Elliott Nugent is splendid
and
Raymond Hackett is clever.
Overall, Hall judges the movie
a bright affair
for which
the lion's share of the credit must go to Mr. Vidor for his fine direction.
Variety stated that the thoroughly seasoned
comedy
again punctures the bull's-eye as a continuously effective guffaw-inducer and
tummy vibrator.
He points out that the storyline of the play is closely followed and has been only
slightly changed for Davies. The Van Dyke character has been enhanced, and Donald
Ogden Stewart makes his goofiness fascinating.
The cast is praised for
uniform excellence.
He highlights Julia Faye who, in a more prominent role
than usual, reveals competence,
and Franklin Pangborn
of L.A. stock fame
who provides a fine piece of comedy work.
William
Holden was a splendid choice
for the old business man. Marion Davies
continues her
light comedy series of slightly sappy janes. Comedy is her forte.
King
Vidor has provided a typically efficient comedy effort.
He concludes that
it is a dandy comedy all the way.
We may conclude from these two reviews that filmmakers, audiences, and reviewers,
only recently introduced to talking pictures, were not experienced judges of
bright
and dandy
in comedy films.
Further Reading