Paul Lukas played a Russian intellectual making his living as a waiter in"Grand Slam," directed by William Dieterle (1933). It is a surprisingly funny satire of the building up of celebrity. The waiter and the Russian restaurant's hat-check girl played by Loretta Young become America's sweethearts as bridge partners who do no squabble. With the aid of publicist and ghost-writer 'Speed' McCann (the wonderfully deadpan Frank McHugh) they become walking advertisementsfor the "Stanislavsky system," a "system" of bidding whatever one feels like(since bids are not rational, there is no basis for recriminations about their stupidity).A duel with displaced bridge guru Cedric Van Dorn (sounds close to Goren, no? and I suspect the choice of the character's name "Stanislavsky" was also a slam at another kind of system), a puffed-up charlatan played very well by Ferdinand Gottschalk, is broadcast on radio stations across America like a prize-fight by Roscoe Karns (another great fast-talking deadpan comic actor of the 1930s).The bridge players are even in a roped-off square, though the audience isabove them, unlike in boxing "rings."The wide variety of American types prefigures the comedies of Preston Sturges, though for manufacturing celebrity, "Grand Slam" most calls to mind two better movies from the same (pre-Code) era with Lee Tracy playing fast-talkingpublicists: "The Half-Naked Truth" and "Bombshell," but "Grand Slam" has itsmoments, especially for anyone who has played bridge with serious pointcounters.Loretta Young was already a clothes horse. (To me, her face seems a bit longand horsey, too. Another era's notion of beauty, I guess...) The movieunfortunately all but drops Glenda Farrell, who plays McHugh's forgetfulgirlfriend.
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