The Review: The Man Who Came To Dinner

The Man Who Came to Dinner 8/10

A few weeks ago L. and I watched this movie called The Man Who Came To Dinner. It was made in 1942 and in all honesty I fell asleep when we first started watching it because it was late as hell. We ended up finishing it the next day and I laughed way too much at this movie. This movie is about this jerk named Whiteside who is a radio personality who ends up breaking his hip when he falls down on the steps of this rich house. He pretty much forces them to let him stay there while he recuperates in his wheelchair and the whole time he is getting weird objects sent to the house from rich and famous people. I'm talking about penguins, octopus, and even an Egyptian sarcophagus. So while he's there his assistant Maggie is also there and she ends up falling for this dude who works at the newspaper named Bert. Bert is working on a play and he really wants Whiteside to read it but Whiteside doesn't want him dating his assistant because then she'll go away. Whiteside ends up scheming with this actress that he knows to take Bert away from his assistant so that she can't quit.

I already know that I'm not describing this movie very well but this movie had me cracking up laughing because Whiteside was such a jerk and would just say the longest insults but within three seconds. I even had to ask at one point if people talk like that back in the day because he was speaking so fast and in a lot of these older films people do talk that quickly. This also felt like a play and it turns out that to the actors in this were in the stage production of it which makes sense because they were perfect at their parts. This movie did not end the way that I thought it was going to end which is a nice, pleasant surprise considering how a lot of the Christmas films that we end up watching, particularly the Hallmark ones, have the same cheese ball ass endings to them. This is on HBO Max and you should really check it out. Oh God I just realized I need to review a Hallmark movie that we watched recently as well.

Bette Davis as Maggie Cutler

Ann Sheridan as Lorraine Sheldon

Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside

Richard Travis as Bert Jefferson

Jimmy Durante as Banjo

Billie Burke as Mrs. Ernest Stanley (Daisy)

Reginald Gardiner as Beverly Carlton

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