By the time "You Gotta Stay Happy" rolled around, the motion picture career of James Stewart (my personal favorite actor) was in a slump, and this picture did nothing to alter that. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that screwball comedy had been a trend a decade earlier in the late 1930s. What's more, Joan Fontaine, who admittedly did not want to do the picture at all, was ill throughout the filming and discovered she was pregnant. She fondly remembered how Stewart was the only one who visited her at the hospital.
Be that as it may, "You Gotta Stay Happy" is nevertheless an entertaining film, and here are the highlights (watch the film first before you read on). Twice in this picture, pilot Marvin Payne (Stewart) has a run-in with attorney Henry Benson (Willard Parker); the camera does not focus on Henry, but a punch is heard, and the camera shifts to Marvin lying flat on his back. The cigar-smoking chimpanzee named Joe (quite a bizarre spectacle on film) puts on a show while Marvin and his happy-go-lucky copilot Bullets Baker (a perfect role for Eddie Albert) make preparations to get their freight plane out of the mud. The night of the wedding, Henry and Diana "Dee Dee" Dilwood (Fontaine) come into conflict in their hotel room, and their loud bickering and clumsy chasing disturb Marvin, who is trying to sleep next door; Dee Dee escapes and flees into Marvin's room, where she develops amorous feelings for him, but the next morning things get complicated for Marvin when both Bullets and hotel manager Dick Hebert (William Bakewell) enter the room to find Dee Dee doped up by a strong sleeping pill. There is perhaps a slight touch of suspense as Marvin and Bullets make their emergency landing on the farm belonging to Mr. Racknell (Percy Kilbride); he is kind enough to let the stranded crew of six spend the night at his farmhouse with his expansive family. While they do, Bullets joins in a lively dance with a few others and Dee Dee is especially thrilled at the sight of the eight or ten little children lining up to kiss their mother (Edith Evanson) good night.
"You Gotta Stay Happy" failed to turn in a profit for the box office and did not give James Stewart the career boost he needed. But it is still a pleasant little comedy, and Stewart need not have worried much longer, for his next picture, "The Stratton Story" (1949), became a big hit and a precursor for the most successful decade of Stewart's career: the 1950s.
Be that as it may, "You Gotta Stay Happy" is nevertheless an entertaining film, and here are the highlights (watch the film first before you read on). Twice in this picture, pilot Marvin Payne (Stewart) has a run-in with attorney Henry Benson (Willard Parker); the camera does not focus on Henry, but a punch is heard, and the camera shifts to Marvin lying flat on his back. The cigar-smoking chimpanzee named Joe (quite a bizarre spectacle on film) puts on a show while Marvin and his happy-go-lucky copilot Bullets Baker (a perfect role for Eddie Albert) make preparations to get their freight plane out of the mud. The night of the wedding, Henry and Diana "Dee Dee" Dilwood (Fontaine) come into conflict in their hotel room, and their loud bickering and clumsy chasing disturb Marvin, who is trying to sleep next door; Dee Dee escapes and flees into Marvin's room, where she develops amorous feelings for him, but the next morning things get complicated for Marvin when both Bullets and hotel manager Dick Hebert (William Bakewell) enter the room to find Dee Dee doped up by a strong sleeping pill. There is perhaps a slight touch of suspense as Marvin and Bullets make their emergency landing on the farm belonging to Mr. Racknell (Percy Kilbride); he is kind enough to let the stranded crew of six spend the night at his farmhouse with his expansive family. While they do, Bullets joins in a lively dance with a few others and Dee Dee is especially thrilled at the sight of the eight or ten little children lining up to kiss their mother (Edith Evanson) good night.
"You Gotta Stay Happy" failed to turn in a profit for the box office and did not give James Stewart the career boost he needed. But it is still a pleasant little comedy, and Stewart need not have worried much longer, for his next picture, "The Stratton Story" (1949), became a big hit and a precursor for the most successful decade of Stewart's career: the 1950s.