The Man Who Came to Dinner

The Man Who Came to Dinner betrays its origins as the film version of a smash Broadway play, taking place almost entirely in the space of a single room. It features Monty Woolley reprising his stage performance as the title character. He amply proves the adage that guests, like fish, start to stink after three days.

Notable for a dishy screen cat fight between Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan, The Man Who Came to Dinner was a sort of inside joke about Broadway celebrities of the '30s and '40s. Despite the fact that its original targets have long since faded from the scene, it remains a pleasant evening's entertainment.

Woolley plays Sheridan Whiteside, renowned critic and radio commentator, brought to a small upstate New York town for a lecture. Local hostess Daisy Stanley (Billie Burke) is all atwitter at the prospect of hosting the great man at a dinner party, until he slips and falls on her icy front steps. The cranky, demanding guest takes up residence on the first floor of her house, under the care of a local doctor and a terrified nurse (Mary Wickes).

Accompanied by his faithful secretary Maggie (Davis) he begins to interfere in the lives of the Stanley family, urging the son to take a tramp steamer to pursue his photography career, and encouraging the daughter to run off with her beau, an organizer who's trying to bring a union to daddy's factory.

Meanwhile, Davis is falling in love with the town's stalwart young newspaper editor, who also happens to be a promising playwright. Whiteside doesn't want to lose her, and calls in stage siren Lorraine Sheldon (Sheridan) to break it up by hook or by crook. Maggie retaliates, and the on-screen meow mix is delicious.

Woolley demonstrates why he packed them in at his performances on Broadway, although he's a little over the top for today's taste. Davis is coolly efficient and admirable as Maggie, but she's completely sabotaged by the miscasting of Richard Travis as her suitor, who just happens to have written a Broadway-quality play on his very first try. He's so aw-shucks, small-town and utterly boring that it's impossible to believe Davis would leave her exciting career and fond employer to tend his picket fence.

Things get much more fun when Sheridan arrives to do her job as the scheming femme fatale, wearing a series of fabulous film star outfits. Davis calls in the cavalry in the form of urbane playwright Beverly Carlton (Reginald Gardiner) to pull a nasty and well-deserved payback prank on Sheridan's vixen.

Burke (she of Good Witch Glinda fame) flutters and trills as the unfortunate hostess while her husband (Grant Mitchell) blusters, the local doctor attempts to get the great critic to work on his book, and the whole household tries to cope with the bizarre gifts sent to Whiteside, his live radio broadcasts, and the arrival of his rather annoyingly loud friend, Banjo (Jimmy Durante).

Legendary playwright team George S. Kufman and Moss Hart modeled the characters in the The Man Who Came to Dinner after their friends and contemporaries on the stage.

Whiteside was inspired by Alexander Woollcott, critic, bon vivant and columnist for The New Yorker, a member of the famed Algonquin Round Table. The urbane, effete Carlton was a thinly disguised version of playwright and raconteur Noel Coward, and Sheridan's actress is meant to put us in mind of stage diva Gertrude Lawrence, with perhaps a touch of Tallulah Bankhead thrown in.

The bottom line

A bit past its freshness date, The Man Who Came to Dinner is fun for Bette Davis fans, those who love a good cat fight between two divas, and anybody who likes old Broadway plays brought to the screen. The terrific cast somewhat overpowers this slender vehicle, but it has its moments.

If you liked The Man Who Came to Dinner, you may like All About Eve, The Corn is Green, The Bishop's Wife, or Mr. Skeffington.

'The Man Who Came to Dinner' at a Glance:

Year: 1942, Black and white
Director: William Keighley
Running Time: 112 minutes
Studio: Warner Brothers