You Gotta Stay Happy (1948)

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Though "You Gotta Stay Happy" came after the heyday of screwball comedies, it follows the recipe well enough: take one zany heiress, mix up with earnest hero, add wise-cracking best friend, toss in some comic stereotypes for support, add a dash of innocent deception to get the plot rolling, then a pinch of mistaken identity (or something like it) to keep things stirred up, and top off with some chaste romance. Bake (or half-bake) for a little over an hour and a half, garnish with a cigar-smoking chimpanzee, and... voilà! Enjoyable light entertainment. You may be hungry an hour later, but it's fun while it lasts.Jimmy Stewart's Marvin Payne is a variation on the actor's patented good-guy persona: a decent if sometimes cranky pilot, he's trying to keep his ramshackle airline *and* his carefully crafted life-plan running smoothly. Joan Fontaine, proving surprisingly proficient at comedy, plays indecisive rich girl Dee-Dee Dillwood, whose antics seem calculated to throw Marvin off schedule in both arenas. And Eddie Albert, as "Bullets" Baker, shines in an early and excellent incarnation of what would become his trademark 1950s character-- the lovable sidekick.It's hard to outline the plot without giving it all away-- partly because all the pieces are intertwined, and partly because there aren't all that many pieces-- but I'll try. Fontaine's running from the altar, and Stewart, not fully aware of her circumstances, is somehow persuaded to let her aboard his cargo plane. Meanwhile, co-pilot Albert has enterprisingly sold seats to a few other unauthorized personnel. Will our intrepid fly-boys manage to steer their two-engine plane through stormy weather to complete all deliveries and stave off bankruptcy, or will they be too distracted by the fact that the police seem to be looking for one of their illicit passengers? And how about Stewart's heart, which seems to be flip-flopping for Fontaine a full six years ahead of schedule (he's penciled in "love" for 1954)? Will he be relieved or upset, if and when he learns her full story? It'd be too much to say that "the plane lifts off and hilarity ensues," but I was both amused by the proceedings and invested enough in the leads to care whether they got their happy ending. A warning: some of the aforementioned comic stereotypes-- naive Native Americans, women content to stay in their place-- haven't aged as well as others, so put on your 1940s hat before popping in the DVD.

This movie is certainly not a deep or memorable movie. In fact, I just saw it again for the second time and I had forgotten so much of it--even though I saw if for the first time only a couple years ago.Jimmy Stewart is the owner of a very tiny freight airline. During a stopover, he is accidentally united with Joan Fontaine who is running from a brand new marriage she hasn't yet consummated to a man she didn't love. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that sooner or later, Stewart and Fontaine will be a couple, though the rest of the movie consists of a series of wacky adventures until the ultimate conclusion.So why give the movie only an 8? Well, first, Fontaine's character is rather annoying and highly reminiscent of Julie Roberts' character in RUNAWAY BRIDE. Someone that ditsy and self-centered, for me, is a little hard to really care about and you aren't really pulling for the leading man to take this shallow woman. Secondly, and more importantly, the movie has way too many contrived and "wacky" subplots--a guy running off with his company's funds, the chimpanzee who loved Fontaine and smokes cigars, the Southern-fried humor supplied by the young couple from Georgia, etc. It just seemed REALLY, REALLY contrived. Plus, the dialog itself was rather forced.So, overall it's just an adequate film--best enjoyed by old movie and Jimmy Stewart buffs.

By the time "You Gotta Stay Happy" rolled around, the motion picture career of James Stewart (my personal favorite actor) was in a slump, and this picture did nothing to alter that. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that screwball comedy had been a trend a decade earlier in the late 1930s. What's more, Joan Fontaine, who admittedly did not want to do the picture at all, was ill throughout the filming and discovered she was pregnant. She fondly remembered how Stewart was the only one who visited her at the hospital.Be that as it may, "You Gotta Stay Happy" is nevertheless an entertaining film, and here are the highlights (watch the film first before you read on). Twice in this picture, pilot Marvin Payne (Stewart) has a run-in with attorney Henry Benson (Willard Parker); the camera does not focus on Henry, but a punch is heard, and the camera shifts to Marvin lying flat on his back. The cigar-smoking chimpanzee named Joe (quite a bizarre spectacle on film) puts on a show while Marvin and his happy-go-lucky copilot Bullets Baker (a perfect role for Eddie Albert) make preparations to get their freight plane out of the mud. The night of the wedding, Henry and Diana "Dee Dee" Dilwood (Fontaine) come into conflict in their hotel room, and their loud bickering and clumsy chasing disturb Marvin, who is trying to sleep next door; Dee Dee escapes and flees into Marvin's room, where she develops amorous feelings for him, but the next morning things get complicated for Marvin when both Bullets and hotel manager Dick Hebert (William Bakewell) enter the room to find Dee Dee doped up by a strong sleeping pill. There is perhaps a slight touch of suspense as Marvin and Bullets make their emergency landing on the farm belonging to Mr. Racknell (Percy Kilbride); he is kind enough to let the stranded crew of six spend the night at his farmhouse with his expansive family. While they do, Bullets joins in a lively dance with a few others and Dee Dee is especially thrilled at the sight of the eight or ten little children lining up to kiss their mother (Edith Evanson) good night."You Gotta Stay Happy" failed to turn in a profit for the box office and did not give James Stewart the career boost he needed. But it is still a pleasant little comedy, and Stewart need not have worried much longer, for his next picture, "The Stratton Story" (1949), became a big hit and a precursor for the most successful decade of Stewart's career: the 1950s.

Though screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby and It Happened One Night had run their cycle by World Way II, Universal was persuaded to try it again with this frothy story about runaway heiress Fontaine escaping her stuffy groom for the charms of pilot Jimmy Stewart who is running a shoestring flying service. Stewart's finesse with this genre shows as does Eddie Albert's as yet another snappy best friend. Fontaine is more sweet than brittle with a comedic line, but thanks to a great supporting cast like Porter Hall, Roland Young, Percy Kilbride, and a cigar-smoking chimp,You Gotta works pretty well. The frantic pace relaxes more than it should when the cast gets airborne, but this is a very entertaining film of its kind with more than a few laughs.