There is a very narrow membrane between being tough and being mean, and as the protagonist in the play The Meanest Man in the World (a starring vehicle for writer-performer George M. Cohan in the 1920s) will attest, it is extremely easy to cross between the two without realising it – and sometimes, it can be beneficial to take a more harsh stance on the outside world, especially when one is in a profession where it pays to be slightly more dismissive. In his adaptation of this fascinating production, director Sidney Lanfield weaves together quite a captivating comedy that focuses on a small-town lawyer who is known for his kindness and compassion, which may have earned him several friends and allies, but which has proven to be bad for his business – and when a moment of empathy dawns on him during a trial, he is coerced into going to New York City by his fiancee’s father, not realizing that this was a plot to get him as far away from his intended as possible, the general perception being that someone so weak-willed should not be anywhere near marriage – and naturally, big city hijinx ensue when we see his tenacious efforts to convince everyone that he is not a failure, but rather someone willing to do anything to prove his dissenters wrong. The director, who worked across every medium and made a name for himself as a reliable person to helm just about any production, takes this delightful and quite revealing play, and with the help of George Seaton (one of the greatest screenwriters of his generation) concocts a delightful and upbeat comedy that is as hilarious as it is heartfelt, making what is quite possibly one of the funniest films of the 1940s, a statement that is not without substance, especially if we consider the collision between different elements (in terms of both conception and execution) that keep this film afloat, even when it veers towards conventions slightly more often than we would expect, which is only a minor flaw in an otherwise nearly perfect comedy.

Humour is subjective, but there is quite possibly a foundation within a comedy that is universally accepted as being objectively funny in one way or another – even if it’s not to one’s taste, it’s clear that some elements are just naturally humorous. The Meanest Man in the World follows a lot of conventions common in the genre at the time – a very stark title that only tells about half the story, but lures the audience in by seemingly offering a description of what the story will entail, but in reality turning that entire concept on its head once we realise what the film is truly about, which is not something that we see filmmakers attempting all that often anymore. The premise of this film is extremely simple, and a lot of the humour is plucked from the most obvious of places – the fish-out-of-water trope is common but reliable since it’s highly-relatable and usually very easy to find ways to evoke without needing to look too extensively. Placing someone from a small town in a bustling metropolis like New York City, surrounding him with eccentric characters and putting him in increasingly absurd situations is a tried-and-tested method of extracting genuine laughter, and its something that Lanfield makes sure to use as the foundation of The Meanest Man in the World, a film that relies on a lot of existing humour to make its point, but does so in a way that feels inventive and unique, even when it cannot avoid some moments where it feels slightly cliched. Various elements help push this film beyond being overly simplistic, and while the premise itself is not anything special when viewed objectively, the are components that elevate it, proving that a story doesn’t need to be wildly original and that a common narrative can be repurposed into something special with the right approach, something that becomes increasingly more clear when we see just how masterfully this film takes advantage of these smaller details that may seem straightforward, but help make a much more thorough comedy.

There has never been anyone like Jack Benny – the master of deadpan comedy who could make us laugh with seemingly minimal effort, he was the epitome of a 20th-century showman, the kind we rarely find these days. His persona was one of someone who is always just mildly annoyed, but never a curmudgeon, as well as being slightly eccentric but never entirely peculiar, and it led to him becoming one of the most beloved entertainers of his generation. He didn’t do much film work, since his greatest contributions were arguably on television (a medium which owes an enormous debt to the hard work Benny put in during its early years right until the end of his career), but the films he did made are some of the most important in the history of the medium – anyone who has To Be or Not to Be as part of their credits is already consolidated into the legacy of cinema, and that performance is often viewed as Benny’s greatest work outside of television. However, this wasn’t all he was capable of doing, and The Meanest Man in the World, while certainly much less historically important or culturally significant, is still worth our time almost entirely because of Benny’s performance. Not the most versatile of actors, and usually someone who relied on his carefully-cultivated persona when it came to playing various characters, Benny is nonetheless an absolute riot in this film – hilarious and charismatic in that unconventional way that he crafted throughout his career, he plays the titular lawyer, a kindhearted man who realises that he needs to make a change in his personality if he ever wants to succeed, superbly well. He is joined by a terrific ensemble, including Eddie “Rochester” Anderson as his right-hand man, the always reliable Anne Revere as his luckless personal assistant, Priscilla Lane as his beloved fiancee who finds herself questioning their relationship, and a small but fantastic supporting part by the always brilliant Edmund Gwenn as the catalyst for the character’s change in behaviour. The Meanest Man in the World doesn’t waste its ensemble, and using Benny as its anchor and the rest of the cast as supplements to his terrific performance, it becomes a tremendously captivating comedy built on a strong premise that delivers exactly what it offers at the outset.

As is often the case with classic era comedies, The Meanest Man in the World is a film that doesn’t require much thought, but it does tend to reward those willing to take a few steps back to assess the story from a slight distance, looking at its deeper themes and trying to decode exactly what it meant in certain parts. Looking beneath the surface of the film, we find that Cohan’s play was designed primarily to be an upbeat, hilarious comedy-of-manners, but there is something slightly more complex that we don’t take note of until later in the film. The film adaptation, which does take enough liberties in terms of the narrative and how it is executed that we can view it on its own merits, rather than filtering it through the lens of being an adaptation, is much more than an effervescent comedy that is built on the premise of watching our protagonist scramble his way out of various precarious situations, and that beneath this delightful exterior, we find a stark and often slightly chilling class satire that is outrageously funny, but where the humour is used to not only evoke laughter, but show the differences between different social strata, and how society is often built on the arbitrary and myopic idea that economic success equates to a more worthwhile place in society. It’s a complex conversation, and one that the film is not fully-equipped to handle (hence why it always defaults back to wacky comedy that borders on slapstick), but it is clear enough to provoke some thought in eagle-eyed viewers that can spot these slightly more complex allusions scattered liberally throughout the film. Much more than the one-dimensional comedic romp that it was marketed as, but still a brilliant piece of cinema, The Meanest Man in the World offers us a slightly off-kilter view of society that isn’t afraid to underline the hypocrisy of the wealthy class, who are viewed as considerably less empathetic than they would have you believe, and which all ultimately circles back to the central premise of compassion, which is a central theme that this film explores, albeit in a suitably straightforward way, refusing to preach, but rather to stir some conversation, or at least evoke a bit of thought.

At the risk of sounding like someone who holds onto an inflated sense of nostalgia, it’s clear that they quite simply do not make films like The Meanest Man in the World anymore. We’ve seemingly lost the ability to make this kind of rapid-fire, outrageously funny comedy that tells a complete story that is neatly compressed into under an hour, and yet still feels entirely complete. It’s not entirely obscure, but it rarely comes up in conversations about classical comedies from this era, which is both inexplicable and wildly inappropriate – there is not a moment where this film resounds as anything close to inauthentic, and we can overlook some of the small narrative inconsistencies, which is a lot more than can be said about the canonical works. Running at less than an hour, but being undeniably brilliant and thorough in how it tackles some intimidating subjects without even a moment’s hesitation, this film is one of the most thoughtful and captivating of this era, which is when comedy in Hollywood was gradually taking new forms, primarily as a response to tensions surrounding the social and political state of the country, which is reflected in the deepest parts of the film, not entirely obvious but clear when we look slightly below the surface. Outrageously funny and oddly moving in some moments, The Meanest Man in the World is a tremendous discovery for anyone seeking something slightly off the beaten track, but still showcasing the best elements that the industry had to offer at the time. Despite being tied to a specific place and time, this film has aged superbly well – the humour (outside of a few off-colour moments, which are mainly negligible and don’t define the film as a whole) is still extremely funny, and considering our culture has become even more driven by capitalistic desire, several moments feel like they could fit into a contemporary setting, which proves that this film was far ahead of its time, despite its simplicity. Charming, effortlessly appealing and always hilariously irreverent in ways that are both lovable and unexpected, The Meanest Man in the World is a severely underrated film and a delight in both the story it tells and how it is told.