I've been hearing for a very long time from all sorts of film critics and fans online about how great this film was. In the past, I'd only caught bits and pieces of it on TCM.
Background info from Wikipedia:
The film was critically praised and nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Huston, and Best Director for Wyler (the first of his record twelve nominations in that category), and won for Best Art Direction. In 1990, Dodsworth was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation. Dodsworth was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies in 1997 and 2007.
Last night it was scheduled on TCM, and---since I'd been told by the world that I must know this film---I made a distinct effort to watch it from beginning to end without moving from my seat on the couch, except to light a cig every now and then.
TCM host Alicia Malone, along with her 2 guests (former TCM execs), stressed that the ending of the film was very important. OK, I'm on alert...
A wealthy Detroit car exec (Walter Huston) retires and sails for Europe at the behest of his restless wife (Ruth Chatterton). The badinage with their rich friends before they leave and the badinage on-board the ship is the same that I've seen in many a 1930s picture. This time, though, the wife really does have an affair (not just flirting) with a foreigner on-board---just as Dodsworth has excited conversations with a lone woman on-board (Mary Astor). His wife continues to have affairs with various playboys once they get to Europe.
But her affairs are presented very glibly: A few pretty boys present themselves, and she goes out dancing with them, and then sulks when they break up with her. Mr. Dodsworth doesn't seem to pay much attention, until he does. At this point, he sails home to leave her to her European peccadilloes. Once he gets home, he bemoans the fact that his paper and drink aren't laid out each evening when he gets home, as his wife used to do... Disgruntled at home, he sails back to Europe to fetch his wife...
The Wife is still enamoured of a stereotypical Viennese playboy, whose mother rightly thinks she's too old for him... Since he's already there, Dodsworth decides to travel around Europe for 3 months, where he again runs in to Mary Astor at an American Express office and then promptly moves in with her. (She's much warmer than his wife.)
None of this is presented in any sort of mysterious way. Of course, since The Wife is so blatantly and continuously snotty and obnoxious, she's going to be left by her noble husband! I picked up on THAT "cue" within 15 minutes. Where was the subtlety and/or surprise?
When the TCM hosts said to look out for the ending, I thought: "Oh no! Mary Astor is going to kill herself before Dodsworth comes back to her!" But no, the fact that he was coming back to her was already signaled long before when she was portrayed as "kind and understanding" while The Wife was portrayed as a shallow dummy. (The "watch the ending" meant only to watch how wildly and smilingly Astor waved to Dodsworth as his tiny boat sailed back in to her harbor---which any viewer could have already seen coming...)
Why all the nominations and awards? I have no idea. It's a very basically shot film, and the emotions of all involved are very pretty basically played. You kind of like the exuberant Dodsworth, and kind of dislike the shallow wife and her stereotypical shallow lovers, and kind of hope he'll end up with Mary Astor---which the film makes sure he does. It ends as it should, with no real emotion involved.
There's nothing at all at stake here. (Wife/Lovers/Dodsworth---all have their own money and their own ill-examined emotions and nobody will be tragically forsaken.) Hardly a "great" film!
No comments:
Post a Comment