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NR | 1h 22m | Comedy, Romance | 1942
In the early 1940s the screwball comedy was beginning to wane, so by 1942 studios looked for another way to show rich folks acting loopy.
Audiences in neighborhood picture houses were living with war news and rationing, which made screwball comedies welcome escapist fare.
Director Gregory La Cava had already steered high-society farces to success with films such as the sublime “My Man Godfrey” (1936); “Lady in a Jam” carries some of that playful interest in a spoiled heiress behaving badly.
This film moves from swanky Manhattan environs to Arizona’s sunbaked desert, trading silver cocktail shakers for pickaxes and prospector hats. The change of setting gives La Cava and his cast room to try a different flavor of comedy, even though the story wanders.
Irene Dunne gets handed the wheel as Jane Palmer, a scatterbrained socialite. Dunne’s comic timing gives Jane a buoyant spark. Patric Knowles plays the straight-laced psychiatrist caught up in her orbit. Their comic rhythms don’t always line up, so Dunne does much of the heavy lifting.
A Fresh Start
Jane has blown through her entire inheritance, though she still acts as if her money will somehow turn up. As the sheriff prepares to auction off her belongings, her business manager, Mr. Billingsley (Eugene Pallette), turns to the Palmer Medical Foundation, which assigns psychiatrist Dr. Enright (Knowles) to Jane’s case.
Her chauffeur quits, and Enright takes his place, keeping his real profession under wraps. After the auction, he reveals who he is and urges her to return to the Arizona home where she grew up.
Jane expects her grandmother, Cactus Kate (Queenie Vassar), to bail her out. Kate refuses and points her toward the family’s old mine, where Jane’s grandfather made his original fortune.
She says Jane’s behavior runs in the family, then leaves her granddaughter to see what she can dig up. Jane dons work clothes, grabs a pickaxe, and starts swinging at the hard ground while Enright watches her take on manual labor. Before long, she’s also trying to charm the doctor.
Jane’s childhood sweetheart, Stanley Gardner (Ralph Bellamy), turns up hoping to rekindle old flames. He’s a singing cowboy and, although he tries to woo her with his songs, her growing interest in Enright complicates the old courtship. She also suspects Billingsley mishandled her fortune and hopes Kate will help her take him to court.
Arizona Romance
Jane’s trip to the family mine gives this picture some of its best visual comedy. Dunne plays Jane’s frustration with a woman who expects the world to arrange itself around her; she then realizes she has to roll up her sleeves and get to work.
She’s spent years treating money as an inexhaustible family spigot, so watching her try to dig up a replacement fortune gives the comedy a nice, dusty kick.
Jane’s advances leave Enright in an awkward position because he’s her psychiatrist and still responsible for her care. Knowles keeps the doctor so straight-faced that some of her flirting seems to pass him by.
Bellamy brings songs and old courtship habits into the mix, and he gives the singing cowboy a goofy charm, although the serenades go on long enough to test everyone’s patience.
As a character, Jane takes some getting used to. She expects the people around her to solve the messes she makes; the script sometimes has her making the same demands over and over.
Still, Dunne finds comic turns in Jane’s rapid delivery and muttered asides. She makes simple lines sound like Jane has already grown bored with the expected answers, and moves on to a new scheme.
It can only be described as a restless performance that gives the film much of its personality.
Some of the picture’s lasting pleasures are Dunne’s impatient deliveries, Bellamy’s earnest cowboy songs, and the sight of a socialite discovering that money takes work to replace.
The romance with Enright feels undercooked, and the film doesn’t pull its comic threads into one coherent pattern. Yet its best scenes have a playfulness that suits the heroine.
As wartime escapist fare, it has a pleasant streak of old-fashioned absurdity. There are enough lively moments to make this uneven La Cava comedy worth the detour. “Lady in a Jam” is an amiable diversion worth visiting for Dunne’s performance and its many wacky situations.
“Lady in a Jam” is available on Amazon, YouTube, and Apple TV.
‘Lady in a Jam’
Director: Gregory La Cava
Starring: Irene Dunne, Patric Knowles, Ralph Bellamy
Not Rated
Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes
Release Date: June 19, 1942
Rated: 3 stars out of 5
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