Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Theodora Goes Wild is a 1936 American romantic comedy film that tells the story of a small town which is incensed by a risqué novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family. It stars Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas and was directed by Richard Boleslawski. The film was written by Mary McCarthy and Sidney Buchman. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Irene Dunne and Best Film Editing. It's often mentioned as a screwball comedy, due to a few of the elements in the story.

Prior to this film, Dunne had been cast in dramatic films. Theodora Goes Wild was her first comedy, and while it was reported in a biography of Cary Grant that she was unsure of herself in comedies, this extremely popular film proved to be the beginning of a new phase in her film career, as a screen comedienne.

Synopsis

Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne) is a Sunday school teacher and former church organist in Lynnfield, Connecticut, raised by two spinster aunts, Mary (Elisabeth Risdon) and Elsie Lynn (Margaret McWade). She also happens to be, under the pen name Caroline Adams, the secret author of a bestselling book that has the straitlaced Lynnfield Literary Circle in an uproar. The book is serialized in the local newspaper, and the Literary Circle, led by outraged busybody Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), forces the newspaper's owner, Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell), to stop printing the salacious installments.

Actors