Ralph Bellamy

Do yourself a favor: watch The Awful Truth on TCM, Friday morning, at 9:15. Don't even TiVo it. Call in sick. Stay home. All about an unfaithful couple who divorces and then finally falls in love, it's the real marvel of the ‘30s screwballs, more human and less ridiculous than Bringing Up Baby, as brawling and romantic as It Happened One Night, funnier even than His Girl Friday, though not as wild and fast. We could blow a couple of, maybe ten thousand, words recounting some of the best jokes: what happens when Irene Dunne pretends to be Cary Grant's slutty, sublimely stupid sister instead of his jealous ex-wife; or the duet Grant does with their joint-custody fox terrier, Mr. Smith.

Instead let's praise Ralph Bellamy, who has the misfortune in The Awful Truth, as he does in His Girl Friday, of competing with Cary Grant for a lady's affections. Bellamy is as tall as Grant but in every other way a photonegative: blond, not dark; open, not Mata-Hari veiled; honest and hopeful, not conniving and cunning and cynical. He's got a little bit of a Herman Munster face, and here, playing an Oklahoma oil man, his hammy broad accent makes him sound like he's always singing "Home on the Range."  read more »