James M. Cain's short story, Career in C Major had been purchased by Fox in 1937, and the novel published in American Magazine as Two Can Sing in 1938. It was first adapted for the screen by Nunnally Johnson as Wife, Husband and Friend in 1939, starring Loretta Young and Warner Baxter. Everybody Does It was a remake of the original film, with Johnson reworking his 1939 script with veteran comedy director Mal St. Clair helping with comedic routines. Edmund Goulding directed Everybody Does It, which had working titles of Her Master's Voice and Strange Bedfellows. Production began at the Twentieth Century-Fox lot on February 21, 1949 and lasted until March 31, with New York City Opera baritone Stephen Kemalyan dubbing Douglas and San Francisco Opera soprano Helen Spann dubbing Darnell. The opera Darnell sings, L'Amore di Fatima was written by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (whose real name appears on posters in the film) and the operatic staging was done by Vladimir Rosing.
Douglas, a former radio announcer who became a star on Broadway in 1946 with his debut performance as Harry Brock in Born Yesterday with Judy Holliday, became a movie star in his first film, A Letter to Three Wives, which resulted in him being voted (along with his A Letter to Three Wives co-star, Kirk Douglas) as one of the "Stars of Tomorrow" by movie distributors in the United States. Heavy-set and not classically handsome, Douglas was an unlikely leading man, but he made it on sheer acting talent and charisma.
Released on October 25, 1949, Everybody Does It got a stellar review from the normally curmudgeonly Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who saved the majority of his praise for Douglas' performance, "The robust comic talent which Paul Douglas nobly revealed in Twentieth Century-Fox's A Letter to Three Wives was obviously not to be neglected [...] A talent like that of Mr. Douglas is a rare and cherishable thing (we almost described it as fragile, but that wouldn't be precisely the word). So now it is not surprising that Mr. Douglas is triumphantly brought forth as the whole cheese in Everybody Does It [...] Nor is it resultantly surprising that Mr. Douglas, given his head and a very fat part on which to use it, turns in a highly funny job. [...] For finally Mr. Douglas [...] has an unlimited range for farce. He blusters and blows through the picture, growling in husbandly wrath, puckering his brows in dumb confusion and tearing his clothes in blank dismay. He tosses wry lines in hot profusion. And when he is suddenly convinced he has a voice, he puts it to shattering employment in some screamingly funny slapstick scenes."
Darnell and Douglas would reprise their roles on a March 2, 1950 radio broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater and would co-star once again in The Guy Who Came Back (1951).
Producer: Nunnally Johnson
Director: Edmund Goulding
Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson; James M. Cain (story)
Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle
Art Direction: Richard Irvine, Lyle Wheeler
Music: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Alfred Newman
Film Editing: Robert Fritch
Cast: Paul Douglas (Leonard Borland aka Logan Bennett), Linda Darnell (Cecil Carver), Celeste Holm (Doris Blair Borland), Charles Coburn (Major Blair), Millard Mitchell (Mike Craig), Lucile Watson (Mrs. Blair), John Hoyt (Wilkins), George Tobias (Rossi), Leon Belasco (Prof. Hugo), Tito Vuolo (Makeup man).
BW-98m.
by Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films: 1941-1950
Crowther, Bosley "Paul Douglas Stars in Roxy's 'Everybody Does It,' Film by Nunnally Johnson" The New York Times 26 Oct 49
Davis, Ronald L. Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream
The Internet Movie Database
"Love That Brute" Life 10 Oct 49
