Joan Crawford initiated this project, but there’s plenty of blame to go around. Starting with moving Keith Winter’s British play (city gal weds wealthy country farmer, then falls for his married brother) from Yorkshire to Wisconsin. The whole class & culture concept something of a dramatic stretch for the MidWest (or needing a rethink), while the shifting relationships between Joan & new husband Melvyn Douglas versus saintly sister-in-law Margaret Sullavan & her husband, dissatisfied younger brother Robert Young, wax & wane without motivation or warning. (The film's short running time hinting at missing pieces from the play.) Add on older sister, Fay Bainter, a termagant of a spinster who conveniently goes mad for a fiery second act climax only to show up in the very next scene sane as a bell, benevolently pouring tea for everyone. Producer Joseph Mankiewicz and director Frank Borzage, each with better Crawford outings before & after, seem to have thrown in the towel on this one. How else to explain them not reshooting Margaret Sullavan’s parting close-up, wrapped like a mummy as she recovers from Bainter’s blaze. A 'bad laugh' cut for the ages.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Crawford juggled similar ideas on the moving tides of love & marriage to slightly better effect working against Robert Taylor, Greer Garson & Herbert Marshall in WHEN LADIES MEET/’44. (Anita Loos script from the Rachel Crothers play.) Though far more effective in 1933 with Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy & Frank Morgan. (both versions squibbed below)
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