The Awful Truth - dated, but charming

On Andy's suggestion watched Cary Grant vehicle The Awful Truth (1937?), very stagey, very dated both cinematically and in the world it evokes (Manhattan of dance clubs and beautiful apartments with doormen and elevator boys, everyone "dresses" all the time, men in heavy wool suits, ugh, and hats - which become an important prop). Grant plays a fairly typical role for him, a witty, charming, somewhat goofy, quite irresponsible, lovable, wealthy guy, in contrast to the square, doltish, dull suitor/rival (Ralph Bellamy?). In fact, this role, for both actors I think, is a warm-up (maybe a reprise, I'm not sure of the dates) for the much better His Girl Friday. That movie's better largely because Grant has something to do in life, he's a newspaper editor, there's a big story breaking, and he wants his ex to come back to work as a "newspaperman" and not go off to Albany to marry the square. In The Awful Truth, nobody really has any work to do; the whole story is about the improbable divorce that we know will never come to be. Still, lots of great lines and some very funny slapstick (Grant breaking apart a chair and as he tries to sit down quietly during a private recital). And some great bits with a really cute dog. Some of the dialog and the end is Stoppard-like: Things would be different if you were just the same. I'm different now, and that's why everything's the same. And the like. Odd how the story is left morally open, a bit risque for its era: we never actually learn why Grant was pretending to be in Florida for a two-week spell. I was sure there'd be some exculpatory explanation but I guess, no, we just accept that he was in fact cheating on his wife. It's easy to forget what a great comic actor he was - and he could play the square, too (e.g., Bringing up Baby).