"Party Wire" Review

 

by Daniel White

Jean Arthur (October 17, 1900 - June 19, 1991) was the in-house leading lady at Columbia Pictures from the mid-thirties until the mid-forties. Frank Capra once said that she was his favorite actress, and the three films they made together are comedy classics.

Party Wire (1935) is no Mr. Deeds Goes to Town or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but it is a sweet, folksy comedy/drama about small town life and the damage that gossip can do when it's allowed to go unchecked.

Arthur plays Marge Oliver, part-time bank teller and full-time daughter to her father Will (Charley Grapewin), a good-natured soul who's a bit too fond of his homemade hooch. It's Will who inadvertently starts the tongues wagging about Marge when he's overheard on the communal telephone line (the "party wire" of the title). Assumed to be pregnant and deserted by a local swain, Marge loses her job and is ostracized by the community.

There's nothing special here, it's not a forgotten, overlooked gem that needs to resurrected. But it is a well made, well scripted, and most of all, excellently acted movie that shows why Jean Arthur is considered one of the most gifted, charming performers from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Arthur had been working in Hollywood for over ten years before she had her breakthrough role in John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking, the same year that Party Wire came out. Possessing a unique speaking voice (a throaty contralto that has both laughter and tears built into it), she's an all-American sweetheart. Honest, straight-forward, and unpretentious, a Cinderella with a fishing pole, Jean Arthur is the ideal companion for any leading man.

Party Wire also allows some great supporting actors a chance to shine. Besides Grapewin, Clara Blandick has a meaty role as Mathilda Sherman, the town's leading gossip monger. No Auntie Em, Mathilda is a vindictive shrew, determined to destroy Marge's reputation. What a gas it is to see Grapewin and Blandick in a movie together pre-Wizard, only this time they're adversaries, not kindly wards to an orphan girl.

With Victor Jory as Jean Arthur's love interest (I'm so used to seeing him as the villain!), Helen Lowell, and Walter Brennan, uncredited as the town's telegraph operator, Party Wire is available on YouTube.