This weekend I did a little bit of yardwork, some paying work, did my taxes, reread the first half of The Book of the Long Sun and even had time to watch a few movies. What a luxury!
August 13 movie: Wise Girl. Rich socialite Miriam Hopkins's sister and brother-in-law died and left their two children to the husband's brother, starving artist Ray Milland. Hopkins poses as a bohemian to get the dirt on Milland so she and her father can win custody of the children. It's a fairly conventional romantic comedy, but worthwhile for the heavily romanticized depiction of Greenwich Village in 1937. Milland lives in an apartment complex full of artists, writers and actors, who pay no rent to the kindly antique dealer who owns the building. Somehow snooty socialite Hopkins manages to fit right in. And does she follow through with her plan, or fall for Milland and learn the value of his free-wheeling lifestyle? If you have to ask, you haven't seen many romantic comedies.
At some point I realized that I had already seen this, but I kept watching because I only vaguely remembered it. There are a few great scenes, notably when Hopkins, Milland and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (playing a great character: a boxer/sculptor/dressmaker and one of the most together people in the artist community) dress up in silly bohemian clothes and earn $3 each, plus dinner, to sit in an Italian restaurant all night to "add atmosphere." Also another scene where Hopkins gets a job as a living model in a department store window, which turns into a brawl.
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