Sheridan Whiteside is a notorious radio personality who’s on a cross country lecture tour when he slips and falls on the icy step of the Stanleys house in Ohio. He had been a guest for dinner, but he got hurt and insists on recuperation in their home during the Christmas Holiday, much to the dismay of Mr. Stanley. Sheridan is loud, arrogant and overbearing and as soon as he’s inside the house he dominates the place, taking the downstairs rooms for himself, including the room with the Christmas tree, in which most of the action takes place. He is so difficult that he drives the nurse who’s responsible for him to give up nursing as a career: I am leaving the nursing profession. I became a nurse because all my life, since I was a little girl… I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you, Mr. Whiteside I'm going to work in a munitions factory. Anything that I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure. Mr. Whiteside, if Florence Nightingale had ever nursed you, she would've married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross. Good day.
Sheridan has little consideration for and no patience with anyone other than himself, he’s overpowering and his ego can fill and entire house. He encourages the young adults in the house, Stanley’s son and daughter to follow their dreams in spite of what their bourgeois parents may think, and the kids – who were quick to befriend Sherridan – end up in hard places on account of his advice. In fact, he manages to mess everyone’s life up, including his competent secretary, Maggie (Bette Davies), whose new romance he goes to extreme lengths to damage by introducing a famous actress to Maggie’s young man in the hopes that she’ll steel him away.
And he seems to enjoy being this agent of chaos, for even after he recuperates from his injury he continues to pretend to be hurt to keep enjoying the hospitality of his unwilling hosts.
The man who came to dinner is not a traditional Christmas film. It’s undeniably a Christmas film, in the sense that it’s set around that time of the year, it mostly happens in a room with a Christmas tree, and there are wishes of Merry Christmas flying out and about. But there’s no hidden message about finding the true spirit of Christmas, being kind and fraternal to your fellow man. That idea is there. Sheridan’s overpowering ways are funny,, but even when he blackmails people to do as he wishes, there’s good intentions in his heart (deep down). But the film is mostly just a comedy, incredibly funny and a little all over the place. There are a lot of jokes, one after the other, and almost too many side stories to keep track off, but none of that makes the film less enjoyable.
The Man who came to dinner | 1942 | Directed by William Keighley | Written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein | Bette Davies, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley
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