With this lineup — Gary Cooper as the star, Sam Wood as the director, and Nunnally Johnson as both the producer and screenwriter — how could a movie miss? The film is Casanova Brown (1945), and if you don’t recognize each famous film name associated with it, it’s not because each famous film name didn’t do his part.
Gary Cooper (1901-1961) is the given: a movie career from 1925 until 1960; five nominations, two Oscar wins, as Best Actor (Sergeant York, 1941; High Noon, 1952); a Top Ten box office ranking 18 times (surpassed by only three other actors); the Number 1 box office star of 1953; more than 90 films with featured roles (The Virginian, 1929; A Farewell to Arms, 1932; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1935; For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943).
Sam Wood (1883-1949) was a veteran director of Hollywood’s Golden Age. His films from the 1930’s and 40’s include classics such as A Night at the Opera, Our Town, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Wood was nominated as Best Director for three of his films: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Kitty Foyle (1940), and Kings Row (1942). Although not credited, Wood reportedly contributed to Gone with the Wind. He directed eight Oscar Best Picture nominees including Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper.
Nunnally Johnson (1897-1977) was a newspaper reporter/author who relocated to Los Angeles in 1932 to work in the movies. By the 1950s, he was the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood, and he had moved on to producing and directing films. He exceled at adapting the works of others, beginning with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940), honored in 2006 as among the 101 greatest screenplays ever written. He either wrote, directed, or produced (sometimes all three) such films as Tobacco Road (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe, and The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which earned Joanne Woodward an Academy Award for Best Actress. He was active in Hollywood through the late 1960’s, writing the screenplays for the Elvis Presley vehicle Flaming Star in 1960 and the action flick The Dirty Dozen in 1967.
About the movie title, ‘Casanova Brown’ is a clever reversal of the famous lover’s reputation. Our Casanova knows nothing about the female sex, even though he has fathered a daughter and proposed matrimony to three different women within the movie’s 94-minute running time.
The movie’s release coincided with significant world events. It premiered overseas on August 8, 1944, so that it was first available to U.S. troops in 16 locations along the Normandy front. The soldiers were offered a light romantic comedy full of whimsey. Perhaps too much whimsey since it has been described as a “forgotten wartime comedy.” It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Music, and Best Sound at the 1944 Oscars, but it didn’t win any.
It is a funny movie, and if you find it funny it is a very funny movie. It has a tone that refuses to take anything seriously. It is whimsical.
Envision this scene. It is a long shot interior of a well-furnished home. A door is seen in profile, and from behind that door comes the sonorous tone of the Wizard of Oz (actor Frank Morgan here playing Cooper’s would-be father-in-law). You do not see him, but you definitely hear that voice:
“… and in the third place I have just about reached the end of my patience. This happens to be my home as little as a stranger might suspect it, and it is incurable that I should be continually called upon to defend myself against an apparently endless series of irresponsible and vulgar accusations. And now I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”
From the door and into the frame walks a 10-year-old child. “But grandpaw …” he pleads, then trudges off. It is only later the filmgoer realizes the child has accused Morgan of rifling his piggy bank for coins. Grandpaw has been put on an allowance by his daughters and wife, who control the family money.
Later in the movie, Cooper burns down the mansion of his first set of intended in-laws because the mother believes in astrology and does not allow smoking, hence Cooper has no place to safely extinguish his cigarette. Cooper kidnaps his own daughter – a newborn – since he believes she is about to be given up for adoption by the woman he hastily married – Teresa Wright — and is still in love with. This pulls him away from his second marriage ceremony which he instigated after believing his first marriage was annulled.
After kidnapping his daughter, he holes up in a swanky hotel, the Hotel Windsor, and is assisted by a gum-chewing bell captain (Emory Parnell) and a plain-faced maid (Mary Treen). She receives Cooper’s third marriage proposal.
As Frank Morgan comments mid-way through the picture. “I can see you are not exaggerating your quandry.”