Tonight I got a bit of a rare treat, The Man Who Came To Dinner was on tonight. It seems that TCM has been doing Bette Davis all day, and I’ve missed some of my darn good movies :'(.
The man who came to dinner, is one of those films that is not on, but you just have to make waves to sit down and see it when it is! Sheridan Whiteside as portrayed by Monty Woolley, I feel is one of the best cantankerous characters I’ve ever encountered on the screen. Whiteside is the ultimate and supreme bastard, and one selfish mean old son of a bitch to say the least. It’s like take every chipper and nasty thought you ever had, roll it into a big tight ball, and let it roll on over everyone else kind of a part to see. Yeah, you could say I’m a “Nice guy” that envies such a bit lol. What can I say, the villian is always more fun then the hero, until the end of a story >_>.
Every time I watch the film, I always crack up, it really is deliciously funny. Oh, and when the sarcophagus shows up at the end…. mahuhauha! Although I would have to say, the thing wraps up in a hugemongus feat of deus ex machina; it is still hilarious. The second it arrived, my brain clicked, “Hmm, hey why not …”, and sure enough they did xD. I generally have an exceptionally fine memory for cinema compared to most of my peers, but this is a movie I get to see maybe once every year or three, so I can’t remember every single nuance of it, without a little jogging. And of course, the finale is a perfect and fitting ending to the whole scheme hehe.
And an excellent summery of just how nasty the old bastard is, here’s his Nurses parting words after friend Banjo chases her off:
Nurse Preen: I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside, I am leaving the nursing profession. I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you , Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory. From now on , anything I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure. If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed YOU, Mr. Whiteside, she would have married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross!
and that is an understatement 🙂
In reading around Wikipedia, as I usually do before adding an IMDB link to one of my blogs; I’ve learned that The Man Who Came To Dinner was written by the same people that wrote another of my very dear favourite films. Which of course as it so happens to be, is also an uproarious comedy in its own right xD