E62 The Man Who Came to Dinner

Gladio Free Europe

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Bring out your cudgels, the midwestern barbarians are afoot! This week we delve into the massively underrated 1942 Christmas film The Man Who Came to Dinner starring Bette Davis and Monty Woolley, the story of the cranky proto-podcaster Sheridan Whiteside who seemingly breaks his hip on a speaking tour and is forced to recuperate in a podunk Ohio town. To contemporaries, Whiteside was obviously based on prolific critic and radio personality Alexander Woollcott, whose appraisal could make or break careers at the drop of a hat, even though his heft has largely been forgotten.

In this episode we explore the life of Woollcott as well as the famous social circle that surrounded him: the Algonquin Round Table, a collection of particularly gifted, galling, and gay young writers and comedians who met for lunch every day across the 20s and 30s. Members included Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker, even Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. This extended circle of friends dominated the American culture industry in Hollywood's early days, and this movie is an amazing window into this period, filled with nods to many different members of Manhattan's "Algonquin Round Table", alternatively known as the "Vicious Circle." By the end of this episode, you'll see why The Man Who Came to Dinner deserves the highest seat in the holiday movie pantheon.