Making 'em laugh

January 29, 2009|Mark Griffin, Globe Correspondent

In 1964, Groucho Marx was asked which of his contemporaries he considered fastest on the draw in terms of "one-line impromptus." Marx replied, "George S. Kaufman, Oscar Levant, and Irving Brecher." Irving Brecher? Before his death last year, at 94, screenwriter and professional curmudgeon Brecher was one of Hollywood's best-kept secrets. Which is surprising when you consider that he turned out scripts for the likes of Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Dick Van Dyke, and Lucille Ball.

While even the most devout movie buffs may not know Brecher's name, his contributions to cinema are unforgettable. The sight of Groucho wooing matronly Margaret Dumont in "At the Circus" may have been a rib-tickler to begin with, but it was Brecher's inspired dialogue that made their pairing truly hilarious: "We were young, gay, reckless! That night I drank champagne from your slipper. Two quarts. It would have been more, but they were open-toed. Ah, Hildegard!"

Thankfully, that kind of irreverent brilliance is on ample display in "The Wicked Wit of the West," Brecher's entertaining memoir written in collaboration with erudite disciple Hank Rosenfeld. With chapters titled "The Angel of Death, in Yiddish" and "Girls! Berle! Catskills!," the reader is immediately alerted to the fact that this overview of Brecher's multifaceted career is far more Buddy Hackett than John Houseman in tone and, therefore, a lot more fun.

Brimming with delectable anecdotes and presented as a series of engaging interviews, Brecher's look back is like leafing through a scrapbook with your favorite crotchety uncle.

A sizable chunk of the memoir recounts the gag-master's friendship and screen collaborations with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx, and it's interesting to discover just how much of their sublime lunacy is attributable to their favorite scribe. For all his success with raucous comedies, it was Brecher's script for a sumptuous period musical that brought him his greatest acclaim and an Academy Award nomination. A slew of screenwriters had taken a crack at adapting Sally Benson's "Kensington Stories," which had been serialized in The New Yorker. Character driven and virtually plot free, Benson's nostalgic tales concerned her quirky family in turn-of-the-century St. Louis. Brecher not only distilled the essence of Benson's prose in his masterful screenplay for "Meet Me in St. Louis," he also persuaded a reluctant Judy Garland to star in the film. Released in 1945, the movie was both a critical and commercial triumph.