Bella Spewack (1899–1990)
Author of My Favorite Wife [1940 film]
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Works by Bella Spewack
My Favorite Wife (1940) 2 copies
Leave It To Me 2 copies
Kiss me, Kate 1 copy
Spring Song 1 copy
Clear all wires! 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1899-03-25
- Date of death
- 1990-04-27
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Romania
USA - Birthplace
- Transylvania, Romania
- Places of residence
- Bucharest, Romania
New York, New York, USA
New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA - Occupations
- screenwriter
playwright
journalist
memoirist - Relationships
- Spewack, Samuel (husband)
Porter, Cole (collaborator) - Short biography
- Bella Spewack, née Cohen, was born in Transylvania, now Romania, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a family of Hungarian Jews. Her parents divorced when she was a baby and she emigrated to the USA with her mother, settling in the tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her mother remarried to a man who abandoned the family a few years later while she was pregnant with Bella's stepbrother. Bella graduated from Washington Irving High School and began working as a reporter for a string of newspapers and as a press agent. In 1922, she married Sam Spewack, a foreign correspondent for The New York World. The couple spent four years reporting from in Moscow and Europe. After returning to the USA, they started writing plays and screenplays together and separately, mostly comedies. In 1940, they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story for My Favorite Wife. They also wrote some of the most memorable lyrics in musical theater history. Kiss Me Kate (1948), a modern update on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, was one of their collaborations with Cole Porter and won them two Tony Awards; it was adapted into a popular film. The play My Three Angels (1953) was adapted as the film We're No Angels. Bella chronicled her early life in Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side, which was published posthumously in 1995.
Members
Reviews
A widower remarries, then finds out his first wife isn't dead.
Funny. I don't usually like comedies with this sort of people-forced-to-lie-to-each-other premise, but this cast makes it work.
Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: C plus
GPA: 2.3/4
Funny. I don't usually like comedies with this sort of people-forced-to-lie-to-each-other premise, but this cast makes it work.
Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: C
Enjoyment: C plus
GPA: 2.3/4
Classic comedy. Many think the main characters were based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, as a successful pair of screenwriters whose every work is a variation of the "boy meets girl" plot. Between the Covers, rare book dealers in Gloucester City, NJ, however, has been informed that the main characters were based on the prolific screenwriters Grover Jones and William Slavens McNutt, Jones in particular was a one-man screenpaly factory. The play was the basis for the 1938 Lloyd Bacon-directed film featuring James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, and which also numbered Ralph Bellamy and Ronald Reagan among the cast. Reagan played the role of "Radio announcer at premiere". Would to God he had remained in that capacity!… (more)
1 Overture 2:42
2 Another Op'nin', Another Show 1:43
3 Why Can't You Behave? 3:09
4 Wunderbar 3:35
5 So In Love 3:34
6 We Open In Venice 2:14
7 Tom, Dick Or Harry 2:04
8 I've Come To Wive It Wealthily In Padua 2:10
9 I Hate Men 2:20
10 Were Thine That Special Face 4:09
11 Too Darn Hot 4:00
12 Where Is The Life That Late I Led? 4:20
13 Always True To You (In My Fashion) 3:59
14 Bianca 2:06
15 So In Love (Reprise) 2:10
16 Brush Up Your Shakespeare 1:40
17 I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple 1:53
18 Finale: Kiss Me, Kate 0:47
19 Kiss Me, Kate Overture 6:10… (more)
2 Another Op'nin', Another Show 1:43
3 Why Can't You Behave? 3:09
4 Wunderbar 3:35
5 So In Love 3:34
6 We Open In Venice 2:14
7 Tom, Dick Or Harry 2:04
8 I've Come To Wive It Wealthily In Padua 2:10
9 I Hate Men 2:20
10 Were Thine That Special Face 4:09
11 Too Darn Hot 4:00
12 Where Is The Life That Late I Led? 4:20
13 Always True To You (In My Fashion) 3:59
14 Bianca 2:06
15 So In Love (Reprise) 2:10
16 Brush Up Your Shakespeare 1:40
17 I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple 1:53
18 Finale: Kiss Me, Kate 0:47
19 Kiss Me, Kate Overture 6:10… (more)
Lists
Movies wishlist (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 7
- Members
- 243
- Popularity
- #93,557
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 14
No studio made this type of marital comedy better than RKO. The editing of Robert Wise, the photography of Rudolph Mate, and gowns by Howard Green helped turn the script by Bella and Samuel Spewack into a fun time at the movies. Everything is all class in this one, right down to the embroidered linen opening credits.
Irene Dunne is fabulous as the supposedly dead wife of Cary Grant. Shipwrecked while on an anthropological expedition seven years earlier, the family dog greets her with joy upon her return. But her two children believe her to be dead and she cannot bring herself to tell them the truth. Dunne is all hamburgers and root beer here, holding back a tear for all the moments she missed with her children.
Grant, however, has moved on, having just remarried. When he gets a take on his first wife while he and new bride, Bianca (Gail Patrick), are on their honeymoon, his stunned reaction sets the tone for all the fun to follow. Nick (Grant) is confused as to what to do, to say the very least. He still loves Ellen (Dunne) but is a bit afraid of the snotty Bianca. His guilt when Ellen teases him that she can’t turn her back on him for a second turns to suspicion when he discovers that the freighter rescued not one, but two people from that deserted island!
There are some fun moments as Ellen tries to pass off a short, balding shoe clerk as her island companion to Nick, who’s already got a glimpse of the tall and athletic Steven (Randolph Scott) at the Pacific Club. When Ellen proclaims she can live without either of them, it turns out she’s all wet. Nick’s jealousy reveals itself in some hilarious one-liners aimed at Steven.
Donald MacBride has some funny moments as the hotel clerk watching Grant swap rooms like musical chairs, and Granville Bates is great as the judge trying to sort out this whole mess so that true love prevails. A warm ending in the mountains with the children caps this one off very nicely.
This truly underrated blend of sentiment and comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant has stood too long in the shadows and it is time for it to take center stage for the warm and funny comedy it is. A real winner.… (more)