Robert is in the Park

After a glorious six-day honeymoon in the Plaza Hotel, newlyweds Paul (Robert Redford) and Corie Bratter (Jane Fonda) settle down to married life in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in New York City's Washington Square.  Dealing with the vagaries of life in the City (that we love!), Corie and Paul face broken windows, a bedroom that is actually a closet, plumbing that works backwards, a bathroom without a bathtub, and an upstairs neighbor who uses their bedroom window to get into his attic apartment.  Let's all go Barefoot in the Park (1967).

This was not the first time we'd seen this movie, though most had seen it many years ago. From my perspective, this has always been a movie I enjoyed. However, watching it with a more critical eye brought to all our attentions many issues with the film that we found, at the very least, to be annoying. Most of our irritation focused on Corie Bratter.

Corie is, by and large, a nitwit. She's gone from her mother's home to her husband's home. We've no indication that she has ever worked or even gone to college. We know her mother, Ethel Banks (Mildred Natwick) is a financially secure widow, living in New Jersey. Mrs. Banks has the money to send Corie costly - and frivolous - gifts from Bergdoff-Goodman (one of NYC's more expensive department stores). Corie has never wanted for anything. Nor it seems, has she ever been asked to use her brain. She sits around her new apartment all day; she's so bored that, at 5pm, she stands at the bus stop waiting for her husband to come home. And she has no concept of what is required to get ahead in the working world.  One wants to shake her periodically.

This is not Jane Fonda's fault - she is doing what the character was written to do.  If anyone is to blame for Corie, it is playwright Neil Simon, who really doesn't know much about women.  If you are familiar with his later film, The Goodbye Girl (1977), we have a similar ditzy woman. Paula McFadden could be seen as what could happen to Corie if Paul left her with a small child.  Mr. Simon writes about a woman whose only skill (and ambition in life) is to redecorate her apartment. At least Corie sticks to a budget. 

The role on Broadway had been played by Elizabeth Ashley, and Ms. Fonda was by no means the first choice.  Among the many actresses considered were Geraldine Chaplin, Elizabeth Hartman, Susan Saint James, Faye Dunaway, Yvette Mimieux, Sandra Dee, Suzanne Pleshette, Samantha Eggar, and Marlo Thomas (AFI Catalog). Though she is the focus of the story, Corie is the weakest character in the film, when viewed with 21st Century eyes.

Robert Redford reprises his role from the Broadway play.  He had to think long and hard before he took on the film - he didn't particularly like Paul, feeling the character was too uptight (TCM article). However, we found Paul to be likeable. Sure, he's not really open to new foods and he gripes a bit too much about the six flights of stairs to his apartment (he counts the stoop!), but he is also a responsible grown up. He's trying to build a law career and support his wife, while she spends all her time trying to get him to play, discouraging him from going to work, preventing him from preparing for a case, and keeping him out til 2am on a work night.  He is more sinned against than sinning. 

By far, the most interesting and enjoyable characters in the story are Ethel Banks and Victor Velasco (Charles Boyer). Ms. Natwick was reprising her role from the play, and received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. She's wonderfully delightful as a middle-aged matron tossed into the maelstrom that her daughter and Victor Velasco create. Despite their chaos, she tries to become part of the festivities, even though everything that they suggest (a ride on the Staten Island Ferry in the dead of winter, food that must be "popped" rather than nibbled, a selection of unfamiliar alcoholic beverages) are way out of her comfort zone. You can't help but love Ethel.

Charles Boyer serves as an excellent foil for Ms. Natwick. The older couple are very much like Corie and Paul - one irresponsible, and the other perhaps a tad too responsible.  Mr. Boyer brings a joie de vivre to the part to which the audience easily responds. Taking on the role that Kurt Kaszner had originated on stage, Mr. Boyer been working in films, both in America and in France, since the 1920s. His first English-language picture was 1931's The Magnificent Lie. He would become one of Hollywood's most popular leading men when he appeared with Marlene Dietrich in The Garden of Allah (1935). He worked on Broadway and on radio, had a career on television, working with partners Dick Powell and David Niven on Four Star Playhouse. He continued working in film and television well into the 1970s.  His only child died in 1965; following his wife's (of 44 years) death from cancer in 1978, Mr. Boyer committed suicide at the age of 78.  

Another cast member from the play is Herbert Edelman (later billed as Herb Edelman - you may remember him as Bea Arthur's husband, Stan on The Golden Girls), playing Harry Pepper, the telephone man. New characters in the film include Mabel Anderson as Aunt Harriet (she has one scene) and Fritz Feld as the owner of the peculiar Albanian restaurant on Staten Island. 

The story has been redone several times. Broadway saw a new production in 2006, with Jill Clayburgh as Ethel, Tony Roberts as Victor, and Amanda Peet as Corie. It was made into a 1970 TV series with Scoey and Tracy Reed as the Bratters. In1982, a TV movie (based on a stage play) was aired, starring Richard Thomas and Bess Armstrong as the newlyweds.

When the film opened at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, the New York Times review was not complimentary, calling it a "carelessly knocked-together film". While the story hasn't aged well, it is still worth seeing, if only to see Mildred Natwick and Charles Boyer working together. We'll leave you with a trailer from the movie. 

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Dorothy is Homely

On the New England shore is a cottage which the locals believe is haunted. To Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire), a pennyless waif who is described by young Danny Hillgrove (Alec Englander) as homely, it is The Enchanted Cottage (1945). Laura is thrilled when she is asked to work there as a maid by the owner, Abigail Minnett (Mildred Natwick), a reclusive widow. Before Mrs. Minnett settled in the house, it was rented to honeymoon couples; Oliver Bradford (Robert Young) discovers the house and convinces Mrs. Minnett to allow him and his bride-to-be, Beatrice Alexander (Hillary Brooke), to honeymoon there. But their visit is delayed by the start of World War II, and when he does arrive, Oliver comes alone - a shell of a man, disfigured in a wartime accident.

Told in flashback by Laura and Oliver's mutual friend, composer John Hillgrove (Herbert Marshall), we know from the beginning that Oliver and Laura are a couple. We also know that they are well-liked in their community.  What the story brings is the long road they must travel to feel themselves worthy to be with other people. One particularly telling scene in the story of Laura's yearning for love occurs at a Canteen dance. Filled with airmen, Laura is ignored by everyone; men start to approach her, but when they see her, they turn back or avert their gaze. It's a heartbreaking moment, and one with which every young woman can identify. Because of this, Laura retreats back to the cottage where she hides with Mrs. Minnett, who herself bears scars that have caused her to secrete herself within the safe precepts of the house.

What the film is NOT is sensational (one wonders what film the designer of the poster above was watching when he created the tag line!) This is a sensitive and moving film, based on a play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. The play was written in 1922 as a morale booster for soldiers who were disfigured during the First World War (TCM article). That it would be redone as the Second World War ended is not surprising - sadly, it still had a tale to tell to GIs returning from Europe and the Pacific (a similar story is told by Homer Price in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). 

Robert Young is excellent as an exuberant young man plunged into depression by his family's reactions to his injuries. The revulsion displayed by Violet Price (Spring Byington), Frederick Price (Richard Gaines) - Oliver's mother and stepfather - and Beatrice all combine to drive Oliver to consider suicide. Mr. Young shows us the hatred that he has for his family, for himself, and for the world that robbed him of his secure vision of the future. Joseph Cotton was briefly considered for the part of Oliver (he'd previously played battle-scarred vets in I'll Be Seeing You (1944) and Love Letters (1945)) (AFI catalog). Mr. Cotton would surely have been excellent, but it is hard to imagine anyone but Mr. Young in the part.

It's hard to make Dorothy McGuire plain. She is an exquisite woman, with a radiance that make her pretty face even more beautiful. In prior productions of the piece, Laura was given a real physical defect - buck teeth, a crooked nose, a limp - but this film makes Laura homely with a bad hairdo, no makeup, and dull lighting. As Bosley Crowther points out in his (unfavorable)  New York Times review, "a girl of moderate features (and fair intelligence) can make herself look very sweet." But herein Mr. Crowther misses the point that Ms. McGuire fully understands. Laura is homely because she feels that she is homely and undeserving of love. Ms. McGuire enacts a woman who has grown to fear the world; she's been told so many times that she is plain that she feels it is hopeless to even try to be appealing. It's a masterful stroke - one that makes the viewer identify with Laura even more. Like Mr. Young, Ms. McGuire was not the first choice for the part - both Ginger Rogers and Teresa Wright were considered.

Herbert Marshall as the pianist blinded in the last war is superb as the man who slowly leads Oliver back to the land of the living. And Mildred Natwick - it's impossible for her to ever make a wrong turn. Her love for Laura, her sympathy for Oliver, and her belief that they can have for each other the love that she lost when her husband died is moving beyond imagining. Hillary Brooke is also convincing in her major scene - asked by Oliver's mother to try to get him to come home, she does so reluctantly. Her horror at the changes in him are matched only by her disgust with herself for this reaction to the man that she believed she loved.  

Also worth noting is the brief appearance by Josephine Whittell as the thoughtless Canteen manager who forces the delicate Laura onto the dance floor with the cruel and uncaring soldiers. Ms. Whittell's career extended from 1917 to 1948. Many of her appearances were uncredited  and unnamed (like this part). She also appeared in several Broadway plays between 1911 and 1926 (including No, No Nanette). She died in 1961, three years after her final film appearance in The Buccaneer. 

 

As we mentioned before, The New York Times was dismissive of the film (Mr. Crowther also thought that simple plastic surgery could heal what is obviously severe neurological damage that causes Oliver's face to droop on one side, and his arm to be unusable); Variety, however was complimentary.  In 2014, this film was Robert Osborne's pick for his evening of films, and was one of Whoopi Goldberg's picks when she was guest  programmer in 2007. The film did get one Academy Award nomination - the score by Roy Webb was nominated (but lost to Miklos Rozsa's Spellbound).

This is the second film version of the play - the first was in 1924, with Richard Barthelmess and May McAvoy as Oliver and Laura; in 2016, it was filmed again, this time Paul D. Masterson and Sarah Navratil in the leads (the war in this case is in Iraq).  Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire reprised their roles in the Lux Radio Theatre edition of the story in September of 1945. Academy Award Theatre did a radioplay in December 1946, with Peter Lawford, Joan Loring, and Herbert Marshall.  September of 1953 saw a General Electric Theatre version with Joan Fontaine and Dan O'Herlihy; and in September of 1955, Lux Video Theatre presented the story, with Teresa Wright, Dan O'Herlihy, and Sara Haden. It was even spoofed by Carol Burnett in her version entitled The Enchanted Hovel.

We'll leave you with the film's trailer and a hearty recommendation to view this lovely movie:

Ronald is from Boston

George Apley (Ronald Colman) is from Boston. He believes the world revolves around Boston, and that only Boston manners - as decided on by him, of course - are the proper ones. His life becomes problematic, however when his son John (Richard Ney) falls in love with a "foreigner" from Wooster, MA and his daughter Eleanor (Peggy Cummins) becomes involved with an English professor, Howard Bolder (Charles Russell) who believes that Ralph Waldo Emerson was a radical; he also has the temerity to be a Yale graduate.  Welcome to the world of The Late George Apley (1947).

In a sense, one of the biggest problems with the film is the title. The LATE George Apley? George Apley isn't dead! But in the play (which ran for a year on Broadway, and featured Leo G. Carroll as George) from which the film is taken, the story is related by Horatio Willing (here played by Richard Hayden) after George's death in 1924. As a result, you spend much of the movie waiting for George to leave this world. The action of the film instead centers around events in 1912, with George dealing with the romantic relationships of his children. Neither has chosen a potential spouse that fits George's notion of appropriate. The film looks at his ability to accept his children adults, able to make choices about their own futures. It never gets to the end of the play.

Ronald Colman is perhaps the best part of this film; he is able to make George wry and amusing. Mr. Colman had an excellent sense of comedic timing; he also understood character distance - he keeps George ever so slightly removed from the action, until such time that it is imperative that he become deeply involved.  It is something Mr. Colman used to superb effect in The Talk of the Town (1942), and it works well in this film. He and screenwriter Philip Dunne are thus able to make George sympathetic, which would not be an easy task with a a lesser actor. (AFI catalog)

Making George and company sympathetic is a tricky task. He adoration of Boston and his disregard of any other part of the world can become trying. Though we never meet Myrtle Dole (John's love), we do meet her father. And while we first accept Julian Dole (Paul Harvey) as being wiser than George, we wondered if we should have done so. Mr. Dole proposes exactly what George's father did to George, and what George wants to do to Ellie - separate her from her lover for an extended period to break up the relationship. Mr. Dole's reasoning certainly seems rational - Myrtle will never be happy in Boston, while John will never be happy outside of it. In the end, we are looking at two fathers who infantilize their children, rather than letting them decide the future for themselves.

Perhaps the most interesting character in the film is Agnes Willing (as portrayed by Vanessa Brown).  Agnes sees herself as plain and dull, primarily because John - her intended husband according to the Apley and the Willing seniors - is totally uninterested in her. However, after conversations with Catherine Apley (Edna Best) and Ellie, Agnes begins to see herself and her power differently. We are treated to the growth of this character, as she learns display herself differently and push back when others try to make her a walking mat. A late scene with Howard goes on a bit too long, but it does give Ms. Brown an opportunity to show off the new Agnes.

We were also pleased to see Mildred Natwick (as Amelia Newcombe, George's sister). Though Amelia is, quite frankly, a harridan, Ms. Natwick is always enjoyable in any part she plays. She works well with Mr. Colman, and with Percy Waram, who plays her husband Roger. And it is quite pleasurable to see the always excellent Peggy Cummins in a film. With only 26 film credits, it's a novel experience to be able to see something other than Gun Crazy (1950).

If the The New York Times review is an example of the reception the film received, it did not really wow the critics. The Late George Apley is by no means a bad movie; it's just not one of Ronald Colman's best films, even if his performance is top notch. Certainly consider it if you have a chance to see it.