Recalling La Cava’s Legacy at LACMA

Director Gregory La Cava isn’t widely remembered these days, but in the mid-1930s he was one of the most in-demand directors in Hollywood--and one of the highest paid. In fact, when he directed Carole Lombard and William Powell in the screwball comedy classic “My Man Godfrey” in 1936 it was La Cava, not his high-profile stars, who pulled down the highest salary. And the following year, he earned more money directing “Stage Door,” than the comedy-drama’s two major stars, Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.

Though the former cartoonist was one of the most respected comedy directors in the 1920s and ‘30s--considered a peer of such esteemed craftsman as Ernst Lubitsch, Leo McCarey, George Cukor and Howard Hawks--La Cava’s legacy hasn’t stood the test of time. “My Man Godfrey” and “Stage Door” are widely seen on television and video, but the majority of his films have largely disappeared from view.

But La Cava has recently gone through a renaissance in Europe thanks to film festivals and television tributes and now the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is giving the director his just due with a three-week celebration, “Feel His Pulse: Twelve Comedies by Gregory La Cava.” The festival kicks off today with two silent comedies, 1928’s “Feel My Pulse,” starring Bebe Daniels, and 1925’s “Womanhandled,” with Richard Dix.

Also included in the festival are such rarities as 1926’s “So’s Your Old Man” with W.C. Fields and La Cava’s 1933 skewering of the American Dream, “The Half-Naked Truth” (both next Friday); the 1934 bedroom romp, “The Affairs of Cellini” with Constance Bennett, Fredric March, Fay Wray and Frank Morgan and 1933’s “Bed of Roses,” a pre-Hays code comedy about two prostitutes starring Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea (both May 12).

Cesare Petrillo, a critic and distributor from Rome who curated the LACMA series, says one of the reasons that La Cava has drifted into semi-obscurity is that very few of his films have been preserved. “Some major studios like MGM have been so good with conservation and preservation and selling those movies to television and video, whereas LaCava worked for Paramount in the ‘20s which was the worst studio for conservation,” says Petrillo.

“Most Paramount prints [from the ‘20s] have been lost. There are at least five by La Cava which are lost. There is a Gary Cooper picture called ‘House of Brides,’ which was lost and some others. But there are still good prints of some of his best film films like ‘Feel My Pulse.’ ”

Petrillo credits La Cava for creating W.C. Fields’ irascible screen persona. In “So’s Your Old Man,” he explains, Fields plays a man who hates his family. Then he encounters a Spanish princess who brings him luck. “He goes wild and becomes aggressive and nasty and what you’d expect from W.C. Fields. The idea that W.C. Fields hated children is La Cava’s idea.”

La Cava, a former boxer and Hearst cartoonist, got his start in animated films in the teens--the festival will also highlight several of these silent animated films--and then segued to two-reel comedies in the 1920s. During the ‘30s La Cava proved to be one of the masters of the daffy, insane screwball comedies. His films centered on the fallacies of the American Dream and were populated with outcasts like fakes, drunks, prostitutes, crazy folks and poor people who ended up reorganizing rich people’s lives.

“My Man Godfrey” ended up receiving six Oscar nominations including one for La Cava for best director; “Stage Door” garnered four Oscar nomination, including another for La Cava.

La Cava was known for rewriting and rewriting scripts sometimes on a daily basis. He also allowed his actors, like Fields, Lombard and Powell, to improvise.

With “Stage Door,” La Cava completely threw out the George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber play. “If you read the original play of ‘Stage Door,’ it’s horrible,” says Petrillo. “The Ginger Rogers character didn’t exist. It was completely made up by La Cava. There is a romance in the original ‘Stage Door’ and he didn’t put any romance in the movie.”

Before production began, La Cava rounded up the film’s supporting players--Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Eve Arden, Gail Patrick and Andrea Leeds--and put them in a room and let them discuss their lives and careers. “There was a script girl writing down whatever they were saying about their lives. They were completely free [to talk] in this room for 15 days.” La Cava then refashioned the script based on what was said in that room.

But La Cava’s output dwindled to next to nothing in the 1940s. All the films he made during the decade--’Primrose Path,” “Unfinished Business,” “Lady in a Jam” and “Living in a Big Way”--flopped.

According to Petrillo, La Cava went into a deep depression when Lombard died in a plane crash in 1942. The two had formed a production company the year before to make a sequel to “My Man Godfrey.”

In 1948, he started production on the Ava Gardner film “One Touch of Venus.” Mary Pickford, the film’s producer, fired him because he didn’t have a completed script to show her. “She hired William Seiter,” says Petrillo,” “and the film was a flop anyway.”

He never made another movie. La Cava died four years after the “One Touch of Venus” fiasco. He was only 60.

* “Feel His Pulse: Twelve Comedies by Gregory La Cava” screens at the Leo S. Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Screenings are at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $7 general; $5 for museum and AFI members, seniors and students with I.D. Information: (323) 522-6225.

The Schedule

Tonight: “Feel My Pulse” (1928) and “Womanhandled” (1925). Special guest: Cesare Petrillo.

Saturday: “My Man Godfrey” (1936) and “Lady in a Jam” (1942).

Next Friday: “So’s Your Old Man” (1926) and “The Half-Naked Truth” (1933).

May 12: “The Affairs of Cellini” (1934) and “Bed of Roses” (1933). Special guest: Fay Wray.

May 18: “She Married Her Boss” (1935) and “Fifth Avenue Girl” (1939).

May 19: “Stage Door” (1937) and “The Primose Path” (1940).