The Awful Truth · reception & legacy

1937 · Leo McCarey

How The Awful Truth has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

No rescue story needed — it was a smash in 1937, earning six Oscar nominations and winning Leo McCarey Best Director. If anything it's the film that made 'Cary Grant' as we know him: the persona snapped into focus here and never left.

What's debated

The perennial screwball bar-fight: does The Awful Truth beat Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday as the best of Grant's comedies — and why does it remain the least-watched of the three?

Its footprint

The custody battle over Mr. Smith the dog is the endlessly screengrabbed bit — and the dog is Skippy, the same wire fox terrier who played Asta in The Thin Man. It's also ground zero for the 'comedy of remarriage,' the template Hollywood has been rerunning ever since.

Where it stands

Bedrock screwball canon and a Criterion staple — the cinephile's 'actually the best one,' beloved by those who've seen it and a standing homework assignment for those who haven't.

★ Did you know? Accepting his Best Director Oscar, McCarey said the Academy gave it to him 'for the wrong picture' — he meant Make Way for Tomorrow, the heartbreaker he made the same year. Meanwhile, McCarey's largely improvised, script-light method so unnerved Cary Grant that he tried to get off the picture early in production.