I have revisited director William Wyler’s Dodsworth (1936), a film based on a Sinclair Lewis novel, many times over the years and the older I get, the richer it becomes. While any movie can change meaning with repeat viewings, this is a production that particularly reveals new facets with time. Now beautifully restored and available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive, I recently enjoyed this drama of aging, love, and loneliness anew.
Walter Huston stars as Sam Dodsworth, a small-town auto magnate who sells his factory and plans to settle into retirement with his wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton). His significant other is much younger than he is and not so eager to sink into old age. After years of provincial boredom in the proper social circles, she is ready for some excitement.
The pair embarks on a cruise to Europe, where Fran struggles with the politics of shipboard flirtations (David Niven is sleek and charming as her shipboard suitor) and Sam meets a friendly and frank divorcee named Edith (Mary Astor), who has been living on the cheap in Italy. Life on the Continent strains the already weakening bond between the Dodsworths. Fran wants to sow her oats, but she doesn’t fully understand her needs, nor does she live in a society that supports her desires. Sam is eager to explore the local culture and can’t understand his wife’s frantic behavior.
Though Sam initially tries to force Fran to return home to meet her new grandchild and accept the reality of her age, he eventually realizes that she must have her freedom. While she embarks on a shallow adventure among posh, but cash-poor hangers on, he tries to keep busy at home and abroad. A chance meeting with Edith starts to point him on the right track, but his sense of marital duty complicates matters.
When I first saw Dodsworth, I viewed Fran as the villain of the piece. I focused on the vain, snobbish, disloyal aspects of this woman who could so easily discard her husband at the first opportunity. In subsequent viewings I have developed more empathy for this unhappy character. Even as a wealthy white woman, she is limited by societal expectations that are at odds with her desire for a vibrant life. You can sense her feelings of imprisonment in the requirements of convention.
In a way it is understandable that the Dodsworths were once drawn to each other. Each of them possesses a big spirit; they’re both hungry for adventure. It’s just that their concept of what that means has changed over time. Sam loves his wife, but in his refusal to try to truly understand her perspective, he is as toxic for Fran as she is for him. Edith sees this relationship for what it is, and tries to coax both the Dodsworths to see themselves with more clarity.
It was, and still is rare for a film to so thoroughly and effectively explore these adult, existential matters. In an industry so often focused on youthful adventure and romance, there’s something deeply satisfying about looking at what happens after marriage, parenthood, and retirement. It is a process of facing the truth and finding it devastating, beautiful, and full of the complexities that make life fascinating.
The Blu-ray includes a Lux Radio Theater production of Dodsworth from 1937, co-starring Huston and his wife Ninetta “Nan” Sunderland.
Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.
As Warner Archive celebrates its tenth year, I have been looking back on the hundreds of films I’ve reviewed from the label over the years. I treasure so many of these releases, from the pre-codes to big budget Technicolor musicals. However, my favorites have been the underseen gems that have come to me out of nowhere. So many interesting discoveries have come to me from the Archive and The Star Witness (1931) is one of them.
After making Academy Award history with the first best picture win Wings (1927), and before A Star is Born (1937), Beau Geste (1939), and The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), director William Wellman had an exhilarating run in the pre-code era. He helped set the template for crime films with The Public Enemy (1931) and continued to explore the dark side of society with sensational flicks like Night Nurse (1931) and Heroes for Sale (1933).
Knowing all this, The Star Witness certainly pales in comparison, but it is still a fascinating flick, and unusual in the way it combines the sweetness of family life with the horror of a crime syndicate. There’s a lot of drama, humor, schmaltz and excitement packed into this barely hour-plus pre-code. It starts out tender, turns brutal and then roars to a heroic finish.
The Star Witness opens on the Leeds family cozily eating dinner: Ma (Frances Starr) and Pa (Grant Mitchell), their children Sue, Jackie Ned and Donny, and crusty, but energetic Grandpa Summerill (Charles “Chic” Sale) who is visiting from the Veteran’s home. They hear gunshots on the street and instead of hitting the floor, the whole family, including tiny Ned, runs to the window to check out the action. Here they watch a mob hit and realize in horror that the men are going to make an escape through their apartment. Unwillingly, they become witnesses who have been seen by the criminals, thus endangering their lives.
What follows is a uniquely blended drama of warm family time and horrific mob menace. There is one scene in particular where the father (Mitchell) is subject to a startling beating that hits the guts in an intensely visceral way. Often in a movie like this you are only left to imagine what tortures a criminal could inflict upon a menaced innocent, here you witness it and feel its horrific impact.
Walter Huston is perfectly cast as the straight shooting, but fearsomely ambitious district attorney. Though not completely insensitive to the suffering of the family, he dismisses their fear in his determination to convict the gangsters. With the exception of pre-Our Gang Dickie Moore, there are few other star names or remarkable performances in the nevertheless solid cast, though the family patriarch Grant Mitchell has some heart-wrenching moments.
The stand-out by far is Charles ‘Chic’ Sales, a 46-year-old man playing the sweet and salty Grandpa Summerhill, an elderly Civil War veteran. Though not well remembered today, at the time Sales had made quite a name for himself as a comic actor on the stage and screen.
I would not be surprised if Sale’s performance was the baseline for many an old prospector-style character. He waddles around talking about things that get his “dander up” and mutters that he knows it’s going to rain because his knee is bad. Viewed today, years after this kind of character has become a caricature of a caricature, it’s an especially amusing performance. The topper is that he’s still got fighting spirit and proficiency with firearms, which comes in handy when things get tough. Sadly, this charismatic performer would die of pneumonia at age 51 in 1936.
This is an entertaining flick, bizarrely balanced between sweetness and suspense, but always well-paced and lively.
Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. This is a Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVD. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.
When I settled in to watch the new Warner Archive Blu-ray of Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was expecting good, corny fun. Lively dance numbers, old-fashioned tunes--sweet-natured stuff. It had been several years since I'd seen it, and I had forgotten the emotional impact this deeply patriotic film could have. As I later snorted into a soggy tissue, I remembered.
There are several things that make this highly-fictionalized biopic of composer George M. Cohen good: legendary songs, straightforward, but energetically paced production numbers, smooth direction by Michael Curtiz and a cast including seventeen-year-old Joan Leslie and Walter Huston.
James Cagney makes it great though. It's a pleasure just to watch him move. He's made of springs, jelly and grasshopper legs. His dancing is great, he apparently did a fine impression of Cohan's stiff-legged style. However, it's just as much fun to watch him walk, turn his head or poke his finger in the air.
He was so alive, so explosive that you can see why he was cast as all those live-wire mobsters, but the actor also used that quality to great effect in Footlight Parade (1933). How could Warner Bros. have allowed nine years to pass before they cast Cagney in another musical? I always think of him as a great musical star, but sadly those were his two big opportunities to show what he could do in tap shoes, and so little at that in the earlier film.
Cagney was a life-long dancer though. In his autobiography, he talks about taking out his tap board whenever he felt the need to get a little exercise. He was always in good form and he proved that in Yankee Doodle Dandy.
What makes Cagney's performance a cut above the typical musical leading man was that he was also a deeply effective dramatic actor. That is what elevates this production beyond a simple fantasy about a famous man.
Of course there's more to this meticulously crafted film. The period details are strung together nicely, from the elaborate costumes to gas flames flickering from wall sconces in the vaudeville dressing rooms. One of the best thing about this Blu-ray edition is that you can enjoy all the craft that went into what you see on the screen.
By now I'm used to having my socks knocked off while newly appreciating a movie on Blu-ray, but I found I was especially appreciative of this one. I've always thought that this musical would have been more effective in color, but after seeing it in Blu, I no longer feel that way. I changed my mind in the middle of the famous Yankee Doodle Dandy number, when the camera scanned a line of chorus girls garbed in glamorous gowns.
You could see every strand of their swept up hairdos, each detail of their gowns. There was added sparkle in their jewelry. It elevated the whole experience.
Special features include a trailer, commentary by Warner Bros. film historian Rudy Behlmer, several audio clips of song rehearsals, a radio show, a cartoon, a short documentary of the making of the film, and a rather brutal wartime short starring Cagney, Ann Sothern and a very young Margaret O'Brien orating for dear life. Leonard Maltin also presents "Warner Night at the Movies" which adds a Casablanca trailer and newsreel to mimic a 1942 cinematic program. I was especially touched by a brief interview with John Travolta, in which he reminisced about his five year friendship with Cagney.
I'm delighted to have been reminded what a treasure this film is. I can just imagine how comforting its patriotism must have been to a country at war. Today that feeling of pride still rings true in an age of deeper cynicism.
Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.
