October 25, 1937 [The Awful Truth]

I bumped into a tough guy at the automat and made some kind of mumbled little joke about rubbing elbows or something and the guy growled, "Don't get cute." I pressed my lips together, deciding wisely not to give him the news: Nobody can get cute anymore because Irene Dunne and Cary Grant have cornered the market in The Awful Truth.

Now, I'm sure everybody wants to be cute sooner or later. Look at Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard--but look also at Dunne and Grant, working their divorce like a courtship--and there's the bit with the terrier and the hats, and the loud dame Dunne impersonates, and the trouble with the door--all of it suckering everybody in, Ralph Bellamy also cute, and Cecil Cunningham--and me, too, almost. But not in the Horn & Hardart, cutlet and coffee balanced in my hand, the three of us saved from getting cute.

And I'm glad of it: That kind of thing's best left to the professionals, and their dog.