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| So Long Letty - 1929 |
Coming up next we have 1929's "So Long Letty", a story about a pair of husbands and wives who have grown dissatisfied with each other and engineer a switch. The trouble is that one of the husbands has a wealthy uncle in town looking to meet his nephew's wife. Which one will it be?
The film's cast includes Charlotte Greenwood, Claude Gillingwater, Grant Withers, Patsy Ruth Miller, Bert Roach, Marion Byron, Helen Foster, and Lloyd Ingraham.
Tomato ketchup tycoon Claude Davis, accompanied by his two granddaughters, has arrived at the Ardmore Beach Hotel for a little peace and quiet. He's very insistent about that fact. He's also in town to visit with his nephew Tommy and his wife, whom he has never met.
Well, peace and quiet is the last thing Claude Davis gets when the beauty parlor representative, Letty Robbins, arrives on the scene and starts to peddle the merits of her trade. Claude's granddaughters are sufficiently thrilled, but he's not.
No, things don't go very well at all. Unbeknownst to both Letty and Claude, Letty is the wife of Claude's nephew Tommy. She is not the sort of woman that Claude envisioned for his nephew.
Uncle Claude comes to visit Tommy at the wrong address. Tommy is visiting his neighbors Harry and Gloria, only Harry isn't there and the whole thing smells to Uncle Claude like domestic bliss. He won't let them get a word in edgewise, so they can't tell them that Tommy is not married to Gloria.
Letty comes home and Tommy tells her who Uncle Claude is, and she is mortified. Looking around her messy, sloppy home, she knows that Uncle Claude doesn't want anything to do with her.
All that takes a back seat for a while, when each couple experiences a sort of rut in their relationship. The men's solution is simple: why don't they trade wives? An innocent swap, no funny business or monkeying around.
The girls decide to teach the guys a lesson and go for the whole idea with enthusiasm, which both shocks and delights the fellas.
Though saddened, the girls know that their marriages will either succeed or fail depending on their performance. Each plan on making the other's husbands completely miserable.
It works, too. At the end of the trial period, Letty is having a raucous party in her home. Lots of music and some booze, too. Gloria is at home. Suddenly, Uncle Claude comes calling. Hearing all that dreadful noise from next door, he immediately telephones the police. "They're breaking every law of the Constitution, including all of the Amendments," he tells the cops.
After they are arrested, they are taken to court and presented to the judge, who is appalled when the truth comes out about the marriage swap. He orders each couple to return to their rightful spouse. The judge isn't the only one appalled. Uncle Claude is near apoplectic!
He can't stand the fact that his nephew is married to that loud woman from the hotel. However, Letty whispers something in his ear that makes him change his tune completely.
Uncle Claude takes everyone out to celebrate. As they toast each other, the group joins in singing "So Long Letty".
Cast rundown:
Charlotte Greenwood...............................Letty Robbins
Claude Gillingwater..................................Uncle Claude Davis
Grant Withers.........................................Harry Miller
Patsy Ruth Miller......................................Gloria Miller
Bert Roach.............................................Tommy Robbins
Marion Byron..........................................Ruth Davis
Helen Foster............................................Sally Davis
Lloyd Ingraham.......................................Judge
And that's it for So Long Letty. The role of Letty was one that Charlotte Greenwood originated in the 1916 Broadway play of the same name. Greenwood was described as "gloriously rowdy" in her performance, and indeed she is. I think my favorite line of hers in the film comes when she is telling the judge that she wants her own husband back. "And I want Tommy back. He’s not much to look at, Judge, but he does lend atmosphere in the
home. He lends more sphere than atmos,
but I like it," she says.
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