. . . of that illustrious group is George S. Kaufman.

His 1936 collaboration w/ Moss Hart on "You Can't Take It With You" remains to this day one of the funniest indictments against Government intrusion on people's private lives. Their thinly~veiled depiction of Alexander Wollcott, portrayed by Monty Wooly, as Drama Critic Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner, is deliciously nasty.

With Edna Ferber he gave us (plays that later became movies) Stage Door & Dinner at Eight. A piece of dialogue, from the latter, that always slays me is at the very end of the film. As the characters are finally entering the dining room, Marie Dressler is walking~in next to Jean Harlow who says, "You know, I was reading a book the other day. {Which stops Marie Dressler dead in her tracks!} And it was saying how one day machines are gonna replace people in all sorts of jobs! " Dressler, after taking a long look at Harlow from toe to head, replies, "That, my dear, is something you need never worry about."

My favourite quote of Kaufman's comes from his critique of a comedy: "There was laughter coming from the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there." >;~}