The story chronicles the trials and tribulations of Newton Fuller who craves and gets "a little place in the country to call his own." Newton and his wife, Annabell, and their daughter, Madge, are hypnotized into taking over one of those windowless, waterless, almost roofless houses that dot the countryside. The ensuing troubles may be summed up by a search for water, a quarrel with a neighbor who owns not only the brook but the very road that leads from the highway to the house, the attempted elopement of the daughter with a summer-theatre actor, and the usual invasion of the weekend guests, including a prodigal uncle who is assumed to be rich but turns out to be just another bankrupt. It is discovered that the neighbor really doesn't own Newton's roadway, and that Newton's wife, who began by showing disgust over her husband's idiocy in wanting to live in the country, decides that he was right all along.
A pair of New Yorkers face culture shock when they buy a dilapidated country house.
Release Date: November 28, 1942
Release Time: 93 minutes
Cast:
Jack Benny as Bill Fuller
Ann Sheridan as Connie Fuller
Charles Coburn as Uncle Stanley J. Menninger
Percy Kilbride as Mr. Kimber
Hattie McDaniel as Hester
William Tracy as Steve Eldridge
Joyce Reynolds as Madge
Lee Patrick as Rena Leslie
Charles Dingle as Mr. Prescott
John Emery as Clayton Evans
Douglas Croft as Raymond
Harvey Stephens as Jeff Douglas
Awards:
1942 Academy Awards
Best Black and White Art Direction -
Max Parker, Mark-Lee Kirk, Casey Roberts - Nominated
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Author Bios:
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
AMAZON / B&N / INDIE BOUND
George S Kaufman
AMAZON / B&N / INDIE BOUND
Film
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