Merrily we live 1938 - Basically a cute, charming remake of My man Godfrey

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030442/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,4

Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Main Cast: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Alan Mowbray, Billie Burke, Patsy Kelly, Ann Dvorak, Tom Brown, Bonita Granville

"It's hard to argue that Merrily We Live doesn't owe a huge debt to My Man Godfrey, with which it has a great deal in common. Normally, copycats of classics are pale imitations that provide, at best, a few moments of diversion but are in no real way memorable. So it's quite a surprise that Merrily is actually quite a scintillating little screwball comedy, in spite of its Xerox-like origins. Merrily lives up to its title, being one of the most delightfully madcap comedies of the era. While the screenplay that Jack Jevne and Eddie Moran cooked up isn't high on originality, it's quite skillfully put together and very well structured. Yes, we often can see that a particular gag is coming, yet when it arrives we welcome it as a friend whom we haven't seen in so long that his familiarity seems fresh. Credit is also very much due to Norman Z. McLeod's lightning fast direction, which keeps everything going at a crisp pace yet never allows things to get so frenetic that the audience loses track of things. The cast is also a delight, with lovely Constance Bennett a joy and Brian Aherne turning in a perfectly calibrated comic performance. Best of all, though, is Billie Burke, having found the part that she was always meant to play and one which takes thorough advantage of her very distinctive personality and even more distinctive way with a phrase." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/merrily-we-live-v102162/

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Topper 1937 - The film that set the standard for supernatural comedies

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029682/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,4

Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Eugene Pallette, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper

"By 1937, producer Hal Roach was hoping to wean himself away from the Laurel & Hardy-Our Gang slapstick on which he had built his studio's reputation by delving into the 'screwball comedy' genre. Roach selected the racy Thorne Smith fantasy novel Topper for adaptation, and the result was one of the most endearingly funny films of the decade, inspiring controversy on its 1937 release. The gentle, whimsical comedy about friendly ghosts was scorned by some for morbidness and for indulging in the supernatural. In fact, Topper was the first feature film about ghosts that succeeded both at the box office and among critics. A husband and wife killed in a car accident return as spirits, visible only to their friend Cosmo Topper. The ghosts are prone to misbehaving but are well-intentioned and helpful. Every Hollywood ghost story that followed owed something to Topper's clever spirit and fanciful imaginings.
Though special effects abound in Topper, most of the humor derives from the embarrassed reactions of Roland Young as he tries to fend off the flirtatious advances of the ghostly Marion and the benignly strongman tactics of the spectral George. Adding to the fun are Eugene Pallette as a flustered house detective and Arthur Lake as a pratfalling bellboy. The musical score by longtime Hal Roach composer Marvin Hatley is perfectly attuned to the zany goings-on (including snatches of background music from Roach's earlier Laurel and Hardy comedies), while Hoagy Carmichael appears briefly on screen to introduce the film's signature tune, 'Old Man Moon'.
Inspired by the Thorne Smith novel The Jovial Ghosts, Topper was a hit that remained popular for more than a generation, inspiring the sequels Topper Takes a Trip and Topper Returns and a 1950s television series. Cary Grant, Constance Bennett, and Roland Young are the three stars, with Young getting an Oscar nomination." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/topper-v50462/

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It's a gift 1934 - A classic comedy by any standards

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025318/
IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Main Cast: W. C. Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol

"Anyone seeking to understand W.C. Fields's humor and screen persona need look no further than Norman Z. McLeod's It's A Gift. The 1934 movie, which was successful but not highly regarded at the time, has become the defining film in the comic's screen career. It's also a very telling comedy about men who are downtrodden in spirit and put-upon by everyone around them, particularly women and children. It's misogynist humor, which is one reason why Fields' comedy, like that of the 1990s television series Married... with Children, is almost entirely a male phenomenon. In It's A Gift, Fields' performance as the common man and hen-pecked husband achieved a level of sympathy that he would seldom find in his other, more aggressive, assertive roles. Fields' Harold Bissonette is, or rather, once was, an essentially kind man - he wants nothing more than peace and quiet to enjoy his meals, family, and home, and wouldn't even mind earning the respect of his wife, if that's what it takes - but his patience is tried at every turn by some of the most obnoxious supporting players ever to grace a feature film. It's significant that the one and only completely sympathetic character in It's A Gift is Harold's new neighbor, a complete stranger (former filmmaker Dell Henderson) who does Bissonette a good turn without even knowing anything about him. The gesture is an element of the script that suggests, subtly yet profoundly, that there is hope for Harold and the men in Fields' audience like him. Fields never did another movie that was as cleanly executed, neatly constructed, or pleasing - indeed, by the end of his career, with Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, his barbed humor spun in too many directions at once, evoking a spirit of anarchy but not much sympathy or warmth. It's A Gift is Fields at his most affecting and funny and, along with his performance as Micawber in George Cukor's David Copperfield, his best work on screen." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/its-a-gift-v25529

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Horse feathers 1932 - The maddest comedy on the screen!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023027/
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Main Cast: Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo), Thelma Todd

"If ever there was an archetypal Marx Brothers comedy, it was the team's 1932 offering Horse Feathers. The movie makes no more sense than most of the boys' films, and that's exactly the way it should be. Ostensibly a parody of the college films that had become popular at the time, Feathers is really an attack on everything conventional - including rational moviemaking. More technically polished than Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, it still revels in anarchy and elevates the non-sequitur as close to an art form as it can get. The movie is filled with Groucho's special brand of humor ('Why don't you go home to your wife? I'll tell you what, I'll go home to your wife and, outside of the improvement, she'll never know the difference') and features one of his signature songs, 'I'm Against It', as well as the very popular 'Everyone Says I Love You'. Other highlights include the classic exchange involving the password 'swordfish', a delightfully silly classroom shoot-out and a deliciously zany football game send-up featuring the boys in a sanitation wagon disguised as a Roman chariot. Director Norman Z. McLeod keeps the camera trained on the boys and then gets out of the way, but he does manage some well staged moments in the finale. Most importantly, he keeps the pace from flagging, even during the Zeppo sequences, with the result that there's hardly a wasted moment in the film." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/horse-feathers-v23170

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