DVD Review: Unfaithfully Yours

Let me begin by extending a warm thanks to the folks at Reel Life Video in Brooklyn, New York. Were it not for them, you would be reading a review of a current DVD release--maybe Resident Evil: Apocalypse, or perhaps the Final Destination Scared 2 Death Pack. Really, it could have been anything from the new release wall, but blind luck and a surly hipster video clerk conspired instead to deliver Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours to my door, labeled both "Drama" and "New" and therefore able to pass undetected into my home by way of my well-intentioned (but not very film-knowledgeable) partner. The mix-up is to be expected – this particular film, plucked from the Sturges archives and revamped by the Criterion Collection in 2005, is as unplaceable as it is brilliant. It doesn't fit easily into any particular niche, and resists, as Sturges himself did, being labeled and shelved by folks who don't know nil from nought.

A fifty-eight year old film that confuses video clerks today surely flummoxed audiences then. Now more properly dubbed a "pitch-black comedy," Unfaithfully Yours announced itself to the world as "six kinds of picture in one!" and the trailer, a bonus feature on the Criterion Collection disc (and what should be a stock feature on any DVD of any film), zips from one clip to the next, rubbernecking the viewer with rapid fire promises of "Great music! Sheer terror! Hilarious comedy! Tense drama! Sparkling dialogue and high temperature romance!" I personally envisioned six frazzled 20th Century Fox studio executives, wagging their cigars at each other, spitting invectives and cursing Sturges's name. "Comedy!" one cried, "Murder!" cried another, "Screw it! Do 'em all!" cried the last. 
Though Orson Welles is often thought of as the original "written and directed by" guy (1941's Citizen Kane) Preston Sturges debuted a year before him. Sturges's canny dealing with the studio suits probably made Welles' career--and the career of every aspiring writer/director thereafter--possible. We see it often now: the artsy young go-getter who, armed with sly charm and a few crib notes on precedent, convinces Hollywood to let him sit behind the camera and shout "Action!"  In the studio system of the 1940s and 50s, there was no precedent for a young go-getter to stand on. Sturges set his own by selling one of his scripts with a director (Sturges) pre-attached. Asking price? One US dollar. The Great McGinty debuted in 1940 and promptly won itself an Oscar for Best Screenplay. In the next four years Sturges wrote/directed, wrote/produced, and wrote/directed/produced no less than seven films, some you might recognize (Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story), and some you might not (Safeguarding Military Information, a 9 minute short developed for the War Department).

Unfaithfully Yours features three unusual costars. The film's working title was Symphony Story; the plot revolves around a world famous conductor, who in turn revolves around his muses—the conniving Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the delicate Gioacchino Rossini, the mournful Richard Wagner. Not since silent films had movie audiences been asked to devote such singular attention to the tines and rumblings of a full-scale orchestra. Sturges called on Rex Harrison to play the conductor, Sir Arthur de Carter. Harrison's silken British accent and his wiry frame were perfect for the role of the brilliant and manic Sir Arthur, who holds the film on its schizophrenic edge by cycling quickly from sharp-tongued talker to crazed madman to slapstick comedian. Sir Arthur is married to the young, pretty Daphne (Linda Darnell), bland and beautiful and perfectly willing to tend to his genius. But Sturges opens the film with a very public love scene between Sir Arthur and Daphne, and here Darnell overplays her character's doe-eyed dedications of faithfulness, so much so that the viewer raises an eyebrow and keeps it raised until the end of the film. Sir Arthur seems to have no doubts about his darling, but through the fumbling of his brother-in-law August (the always dopey Rudy Vallee) and a few well-intentioned detectives he joins us in our suspicions about Daphne. Under the influences of his muses, Sir Arthur's suspicions swell into rage, and Sturges's dives quite literally into his hero's mind to present us with three fantasies of revenge, set to the distinct paces of the three composers; the results are deliciously sinister as he plots murder, contemplates forgiveness, plays the lion-hearted Hamlet. But when Sir Arthur returns to real world, the real Unfaithfully Yours emerges also. Here he finds reality working in opposition to his finely-tuned reveries, and here is Rex Harrison, tragi-comic god among men. I have never laughed so hard as I did during the decline and fall of the absurd, frustrated Sir Arthur de Carter.

The Criterion Collection touts itself a rescuer of "important classic and contemporary films," piling on extras, cleaning things up with digital transfers and clarified audio. For Unfaithfully Yours they've added an interview with Sandy Sturges (Preston's widow), an obtuse essay by Jonathan Lethem, and commentary from "Sturges scholars James Harvey, Brian Henderson, and Diane Jacobs." The commentary track is insightful, particularly regarding Sturges and his problematic studio relationships, and they're deft at pointing out, say, the impact of the film's pacing or the lighting of a particular scene. But I was eventually compelled to turn the audio track off--I am of the opinion that commentary should do more than gloss scenes with dull, film-speak ramblings. Great commentary ought to deliver juicy morsels, enough to make us seem clever at the bar the next night. The three "scholars" enlisted here are too scholarly to be any fun; I tended to imagine them knitting or whittling while talking--anything but enjoying the film "flat on the back with a sandwich in one hand and a bucket of beer in the other and as many pretty girls around as possible." For maximum enjoyment I recommend keeping the commentary off and heeding the above quote from Sir Alfred himself. (I plopped onto my couch with a pint of Guinness and some potato chips). And remember, when a Preston Sturges character goes at someone with a straight razor, you're supposed to laugh.