The Good Fairy

William Wyler's 1935 comedy was made from Ferenc Molnar's play, adapted for the screen by Preston Sturges. Margaret Sullavan plays Luisa, who leaves an orphanage in Budapest and begins work as a cinema usherette. She assigns herself the task of doing good for others, and that good intention turns into a chain of compounding lies. Sturges's script already contains everything we later see in the films he directed himself: fast talk, one misunderstanding breeding the next, the moral arriving at the last possible moment and in a mocking tone. The wealthy man played by Frank Morgan sends the film off the rails by pursuing a husband Luisa has invented. Wyler was not yet known for the dramas that came later, and he knows how to keep the comedy light. Sullavan and Wyler married during the shoot; the marriage did not last. Who it's for: anyone curious about thirties American drawing-room comedy and Preston Sturges's early work. Who it's not for: viewers who would now find humour built on a woman's naivety uncomfortable.