The Great Garrick

In the eighteenth century David Garrick, the most famous actor on the English stage, is invited to play at the Comédie-Française in Paris. Word gets out that in a speech he implied he was coming to teach French actors their trade. The company plans revenge: they will empty the inn where he is to stay on the road, run it themselves and drive him out of his mind. The film is not interested in comic plotting. It is interested in a joke about acting itself: everyone at the inn is performing, Garrick works it out and starts performing back. Then a woman genuinely in trouble arrives at the inn and who is real becomes completely confused. The form is studio period comedy: an inn set, carriages, disguises and rapid entrances and exits. James Whale directed. He was known for horror, and this counts among his most successful attempts outside the genre; he wanted to move toward comedy of this kind, and the studio generally did not support it. Brian Aherne plays Garrick, Olivia de Havilland the woman and Edward Everett Horton the assistant. Who it is for: viewers who like period comedy and stories built on the theatre. Who it is not for: anyone wanting quick development. The setup takes a long time and the logic of the joke repeats itself after a while.