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I seem to be in the minority in finding the movie version of A&OL nearly perfect. Almost everything about it works for me, and I'm not always the easiest guy to please. The movie is sort of a package, put together by Warners and Capra, and I buy the whole thing. A hundred percent perfect? No, but close enough.



It's sort of a miracle that it works so well. They could have made it too horror movie-like or gone in the other direction and made it overly goofy, like a two reel comedy. Jack Benny would be okay for Mortimer but he lacked Grant's charisma. He'd probably have been funnier than Grant a lot of the time but the danger in casting Benny is that the movie might feel like an extended version of the Jack Benny Program. I can see them finding roles for Don Wilson and Dennis Day, maybe use Rochester as the cab driver. It would have been awfully tempting to have drawn on Benny's radio persona.

Bob Hope had already done a couple of horror-based comedies in the two years prior to A&OL, The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers. Since the movie wouldn't come out till 1944 that would leave some breathing space, but still. Also, as with Benny, Hope's radio persona would have affected the way the movie looked and felt. Grant was a trained actor, expert in comedy but not a comedian. In his romantic scenes and early on generally he plays the "straight" Mortimer very well. I can't see Hope doing this, not at the same level. As soon as you saw his face you'd know it would be a comedy, everything would turn out fine. With Grant in the male lead, there's room for doubt. The menace intensifies somewhat with a straight actor, would be diluted with a "professional comedian" as Mortimer.