As I write this, the 2024 US presidential election has been decided in favor of a candidate I doubt will be good for women. One indication of that is the winner’s previous determination to end abortion, resulting in a disturbing meme on social media lately, with men declaring “your body, my choice”.
Gary Cooper’s character in the 1944 comedy Casanova Brown would probably concur with that sentiment. He discovers his extremely brief marriage to Theresa Wright has resulted in a baby she intends to put up for adoption. When he learns of this, he yells, “What’s the idea of giving my baby away?”
It isn’t like Wright is taking the moral high road, either. She had the hospital send a mysterious letter to Cooper in hopes he would arrive and reconcile with her. She only knew where he was because of the announcement on his impending marriage to Anita Louise. So, she’s going to emotionally blackmail a man, using their baby as bait, to prevent him from remarrying.
What I found strange is there is yet another person who doesn’t want Cooper to marry Louise, and that is his future father-in-law, played by Frank Morgan. This is twice as bizarre because the older man actually likes Cooper, and feels his own daughter is not worthy of the man.
I found this to be a deeply off-putting film, populated with characters I didn’t like and who behave too irrationally for even the wide boundaries of a screwball comedy. For example, there is how Cooper and Morgan react to the frustratingly vague correspondence from the maternity hospital. That letter recommends calling the facility to discuss a matter too delicate to put in print. Cooper, for now real reason, decides he can’t just call the hospital. Instead, the two men engage in a long, circular conversation before Cooper boards an overnight train to Chicago so as to address the matter in person.
When he arrives at the hospital, he doesn’t question why he is put through a battery of medical tests. Anybody, I do mean anybody, would have put their foot down as soon as they were told to change into a hospital gown and lay down on a gurney. At one point, it looked like they were administering anesthesia, and I hoped he was about to unwittingly receive a vasectomy. No such luck, as the hospital was simply getting his health information on file, so as to be available to prospective adoptees.
In a third act of jaw-dropping stupidity, Cooper actually kidnaps the baby and holes up in a hotel room with two of its employees (Mary Treen and Emery Parnell) who go waaay beyond their stated duties. Inexplicably, Cooper sends frequent, detailed reports on the infant’s health to the hospital, and I wondered why the police didn’t just follow the messenger carrying those straight back to the kidnapper.
Even the characters in the margins are strange and unlikeable. Wright’s mother (Patricia Collinge) is obsessed with astrology and is determined Cooper’s date of birth foretells disaster. She also detests smokers, resulting in a smoldering cigarette Cooper has hidden in his suit jacket pocket turning into a full-blown inferno which destroys her family’s mansion. Admittedly, the scene where Cooper tries to fight the fire is impressive, as it looks genuinely dangerous. Also, I think a certain old taunt needs to be rephrased as “liar, liar, coat’s on fire.”
The one character which should work, but still doesn’t is Morgan’s crotchety, greedy family patriarch, except his tirades aren’t balanced by any positive qualities. This should be somebody we would want to hang around with ourselves, but I know I wouldn’t. Still, one genuinely surprising moment has him fishing money out of his grandson’s piggy bank and bemoaning, “Doesn’t anybody ever give that kid a quarter?”
I hated Casanova Brown, and for more reasons than its retrograde point of view concerning women and their rights in regards to childbirth. The idiot plot and deeply irritating characters would make this an unpleasant viewing experience at any time, but it couldn’t have helped my opinion of it that I watched it as public sentiment seems to be making an uncomfortable shift to that of women not owning their own bodies. In the film, Cooper reacts to Collinge’s belief in astrology with, “What did I do, marry into the 13th century?” I can relate to that, as I feel like I woke up there after this most recent election.
Dir: Sam Wood
Starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Frank Morgan
Watched on Classic Flix blu-ray