REVIEW: THE AWFUL TRUTH

In "The Awful Truth" Cary Grant and Irene Dunne decide to divorce because they can't trust each other.  Probably with very good reason - the film opens with Cary concocting an alibi, and Irene making weak excuses for being with a Frenchman.

IRENE: Could you explain things to my husband?  Convince him that everything I said was true?
FRENCHMAN: Of course.  It would be my pleasure.  Does he carry a gun?

The two separate and Irene hooks up with an oil millionaire from Oklahoma.  Cary is naturally jealous, but equally naturally refuses to say this.  Instead he lands himself a rich society girl and the scene is set for both partners to attempt to sabotage their respective new relationships and get back together before the decree comes through.  Will Cary realise his new girl is a snob?  Will Irene tire of a man who actually goes around singing "Home On The Range"?  You'll have to watch to find out.

This is good fun 1930's fun, by which I mean that Cary and Irene rattle out their lines with the speed of a touch-typist with a weasel up her bum.  The innuendos come thick and fast, sentences start with, "Say!  What's the big idea?" and Irene delivers her performance like Katharine Hepburn's naughty younger sister.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and wish Americans still talked like that.  They could deliver Hamlet's soliloquy in about 30 seconds flat.