#god imagine this movie with greg or cary

[laurapetrie]

AUDREY HEPBURN in LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957)

[filmstruck]

A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN (’73) by Greg Ferrara

Over the last couple of years, I have been making my way through the catalog of director Jacques Demy. Fairly recently, on this site alone, I’ve written up both his first feature film, LOLA (’60), as well as one of his later musical works, UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE (’82), and I continue to sift through his works to celebrate the great director of THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (’64) and THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (’67). Alas, this endeavor has led me to A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN (’73), a movie that never quite makes the central joke work. Otherwise, as in any movie starring two of the international screen’s greatest stars, Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve, it’s enjoyable to watch. But the central joke thing is a problem because, well, it’s the central joke. As spelled out in the title, it’s about a man, Mastroianni, who gets pregnant by his wife, Deneuve.

The premise is roughly this: the world has become “adulterated” as the examining doctor observes and the food supply is poisoned. Our medicines are poisoned. Our culture is poisoned. Hormonal imbalances have been growing at an alarming rate and now a man has gotten pregnant. Millions more are expected to follow. It’s all served up in a very anti-progress, moral panic kind of a way, which is to say the opposite of what you would expect from Jacques Demy. The problem is that it isn’t served up in an extraordinary, jaws-agape kind of a way. The news that Mastroianni’s character is pregnant is not greeted with a “Oh my God, a man is pregnant!” but rather, “Hmm, you’re pregnant. Interesting.”

If you want to make a broad, farcically comical joke like a pregnant man work, you need to make it the biggest news the world ever heard. People need to have their eyes pop out of their heads. Think screwball comedies of the 1930s and then multiply them by ten. Yet, here we are, watching all of Paris, and the world, react with a sigh and a shrug. “Well, what do you know? A pregnant man… Say, what’s for dinner?”

And Marcello’s reaction? “Eh.” That’s about it. “Eh.” He’s pregnant and needs to cut back on salt. And get rest. Imagine Cary Grant, circa ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (’44) and BRINGING UP BABY (’38) being told he’s pregnant. Go ahead, I’ll wait. It works, right? Grant jumps up and down. His head tilts sideways, he can’t make the words come out of his mouth. Pretty soon Jean Arthur shows up as a top reporter who wants the inside scoop on the day to day existence of the world’s first pregnant man. James Gleason’s there too, offering his services as manager for Grant because he figures he can milk this thing for a fortune. And Irene Dunne is his wife, so flabbergasted at the whole affair that she takes on an entirely new persona and goes out clubbing each night with Roland Young, her befuddled next-door neighbor who can’t seem to shake her. And why? Because it’s a screwball comedy and that’s what you do with a screwball comedy!

Look, here’s the thing: A SLIGHTLY PREGNANT MAN is enjoyable enough to watch because it’s got Mastroianni and Deneuve and France in the 1970s looking just awesome. Mastroianni has a perm. Deneuve has super-teased wavy hair. I’m not going to lie to you, I’d watch it just for that. But it doesn’t quite get its own joke and as a result, doesn’t go nearly as far, or fly nearly as high, as it should have. Demy, ever the talented craftsman I so admire, held himself and his cast back. Going for broke could have made it great or produced a disaster. Demy played it safe and produced a reasonable rom-com instead. Nothing wrong with that, but it could have been so much more.