The Man Who Came to Dinner...and stayed and stayed and stayed! Sheridan Whiteside, the man who came to dinner, throws out insults with a voluminous precision volley. Maggie Cutler, his secretary, is described by Whiteside as an aging debutante supporting her two-headed brother.
Hailed by critics as one of the funniest plays to ever hit Broadway, The Man Who Came to Dinner is, according to Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times "A portrait done out of relish for the bountiful mischief and sharp tongue..." and a hilarious parody and caricature of the famous wit, Alexander Woollcott.
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in with a midwestern family.
Release Date: January 1, 1942
Release Time: 112 minutes
Cast:
Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside
Bette Davis as Maggie Cutler
Ann Sheridan as Lorraine Sheldon
Richard Travis as Bertram H. Jefferson
Jimmy Durante as Banjo
Grant Mitchell as Ernest W. Stanley
Billie Burke as Daisy Stanley
Reginald Gardiner as Beverly Carlton
Elisabeth Fraser as June Stanley
George Barbier as Dr. E. Bradley
Mary Wickes as Nurse Preen
Russell Arms as Richard Stanley
Ruth Vivian as Harriet Stanley
Nanette Vallon as Cosette
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Moss Hart was an American playwright and director of plays and musical theater. Hart recalled his youth, early career and rise to fame in his autobiography, Act One, adapted to film in 1963, with George Hamilton portraying Hart.
Hart grew up at 74 East 105th Street in Manhattan, "a neighborhood not of carriages and hansom cabs, but of dray wagons, pushcarts, and immigrants" (Bach 1). Early on he had a strong relationship with his Aunt Kate, whom he later lost contact with because of a falling out between her and his parents, and her weakening mental state. She got him interested in the theater and took him to see performances often. Hart even went so far as to create an "alternate ending" to her life in his book Act One. He writes that she died while he was working on out-of-town tryouts for The Beloved Bandit. Later, Kate became quite eccentric, vandalizing Hart's home, writing threatening letters and setting fires backstage during rehearsals for Jubilee. But his relationship with Kate was life-forming. He understood that the theater made possible "the art of being somebody else… not a scrawny boy with bad teeth, a funny name… and a mother who was a distant drudge." (Bach 13).
After working several years as a director of amateur theatrical groups and an entertainment director at summer resorts, he scored his first Broadway hit with Once In A Lifetime (1930), a farce about the arrival of the sound era in Hollywood. The play was written in collaboration with Broadway veteran George S. Kaufman, who regularly wrote with others, notably Marc Connelly and Edna Ferber. (Kaufman also performed in the play's original Broadway cast in the role of a frustrated playwright hired by Hollywood.) During the next decade, Kaufman and Hart teamed on a string of successes, including You Can't Take It With You (1936) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939). Though Kaufman had hits with others, Hart is generally conceded to be his most important collaborator.
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic.
Kaufman was known as "The Great Collaborator" because he wrote very few plays alone.
Moss Hart
INDIE BOUND / B&N / WIKI / GOODREADS
George S Kaufman
INDIE BOUND / B&N / WIKI / GOODREADS
Film
