Free for All - 1949

Free for All (1949) is a comedy set in postwar Washington, D.C. about a country bumpkin who comes to the U.S. Patent Office to register his formula for turning water into gasoline.  So many elements of this movie are timely today, including the suppression of the idea by a greedy Big Oil company, but the film, despite some clever aspects, never manages to fire on all pistons. It’s most egregious fault is putting Ann Blyth in a role (the daughter of the Patent Office manager) for which any young ingénue just starting out in her career would be appropriate.  She's just too good for this part.

Though Ann was around twenty-one when this movie was filmed, she already had an impressive string of strong dramatic and comedic achievements as an actress under her belt (Mildred Pierce; Swell Guy; Another Part of the Forest; A Woman’s Vengeance; Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid; Once More, My Darling) playing opposite Hollywood’s top actors.  She is simply wasted here as the secretary Bob Cummings doesn’t have the nerve to ask out on a date.  It’s really Bob’s movie, and she’s just along for the ride.

Second billing...to Bob Cummings.  

Mr. Cummings, though some eighteen years her senior, still manages to project a bumbling boyishness that is sweet and appealing, though I couldn’t help but think that somebody like Gary Cooper or James Stewart would really run away with a role like this.  Cummings plays it utterly without any sex appeal, and just sort of sad.  I’ve always preferred him in dramatic roles, though much of his career, especially his turn as the star of his own TV sitcoms, was spent in comedy.  It’s his sadness, his take-a-deep-swallow-and-face-it-like-a-man quality that I find poignant in dramatic roles, but in this, what is supposed to be a very silly romp, it just seems to slow down the movie, without any real chemistry between him and Ann Blyth.  However, she expressed in at least one interview her pleasure at working with him in the romantic scene at the end of the film when he gives her a few befuddled kisses, “Bob is boyish about it, laughing all the time and taking the seriousness out of it.”

By the way, they appeared together before this film in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations on the Lux Radio Theater in October 1947.

Bob comes to town from Ohio seeking to patent his idea.  Percy Kilbride, in a vacation from his Ma and Pa Kettle series, is the Patent Office manager and Ann’s pop.  Bob has no place to stay, so Mr. Kilbride, brings him home, which he opens as a rooming house to other inventors.  

Percy Helton, who we’ve seen in dozens of movies as sweet little men, here is very welcome as another daffy inventor.  They’re all daffy, apparently.

Bob meets Ann when the Rube Goldberg bathtub fixtures nearly drown him, and she comes to his rescue.  

She works as one of the girls in the office at the Big Oil company run by one of our favorite gruff businessmen, Ray Collins, who was so adept at both drama and comedy.  Here’s he’s purely comedic, but no less evil, greedily trying to steal Bob’s idea to quash it.

Donald Woods plays a junior executive in the oil company, who’s sweet on Ann.  His bumbling, rather bland style is almost a mirror of Bob Cummings’ character, and there’s really not much different between them, except Mr. Woods wears a wide-eyed look of surprise through most of this film that is a little strange.  He’s another fellow I prefer in dramas, most especially his turn in Watch on the Rhine (1943), and in one of my favorite Christmas-themed short subjects, Star in the Night (1945). 

When he comes to take Ann out, he hums the peppy, “You’re a Sweetheart”, the same song the dorky sodajerk sings in Sally and Saint Anne (1952) which we covered last week here.  Must the song of young men who don’t get the girl.  He wears a straw boater, so we’re not supposed to take him seriously.

Another minor characters are Dooley Wilson as Percy Kilbride’s butler, Russell Simpson as a farmer in a white linen suit and string tie, and Frank Ferguson, another fellow who I prefer in dramas, who made such a strong impression here in Caught (1949).

  

One bright spot is Willard Waterman, who plays a daffy naval commander.  He is unimpressed with the idea that a formula for turning water into gasoline would help the navy fuel its tankers at sea.  Percy Kilbride tries to convince him, “They could stay at sea for months at a time.”

“That would be very boring.”  His first command was a tanker.  “Ah, I can still smell her,” he remembers fondly.  Taking potshots at Big Oil, and representing the military as a bunch of obtuse and lazy morons is rather daring for 1949 (only a few years before we wouldn’t think of it), but this film, for all it lacks, shows us a sea change in the postwar era.  I love the shots of them driving on the practically empty highways, the old roads just before the Eisenhower era gave us the Interstate Highway System and we milked it into eight lanes of chaos.

One of the pleasures of the film is seeing Ann Blyth and Bob Cummings strolling around Mount Vernon, and the Washington Monument on the Mall sightseeing.  Movies were beginning to leave Hollywood more and more.  We get a relaxing view of what life was like after the war, with none of the postwar angst the noirs were selling.  Strangely, the very mood of complacence gives this movie a certain otherworldly feeling.

But the problems with the film keep it from being all it could be.  The writing is hit-or-miss, with some clever lines, but many comic situations seem forced.  The funniest part of the movie to me, apart from Willard Waterman, was when Bob Cummings, a bit loopy from being injured, calls Ann Blyth by the wrong name.  Simple, but it’s a great delivery.  The end, a goofy kiss with Bob dressed in a woman’s flannel nightgown (because he had earlier fallen into a well) is a pointless and rather desperate attempt at a laugh.

The actors are all fine in their roles, gamely pushing through a very uneven script, but the direction is weak.  One of the most noticeable problems is very sloppy editing, and I have to wonder if the print I saw (which is a very poor copy as you can probably tell by these screen caps) might have been edited for television decades ago.  I don’t think this one has ever been released to VHS or DVD, and probably never will.  I would say the idea of the movie’s story is good, but the execution is weak.

It had a Screen Guild Theater version on radio in January 1951 with Ann reprising her role, but I’ve not heard it and am not aware if it is available.  

By the time this movie was released in November 1949, Ann had already been working on her next film, Our Very Own (1950), which we’ll discuss in a couple weeks as part of the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Fabulous Films of the Fifties blogathon. 

Free for All had its world premiere in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Ann appeared there for a four-day publicity tour.  I don’t know what particular connection Milwaukee might have had for this film, or if the studio shrewdly wanted to open this weak film out of town.  The New York and Hollywood press tended to come down rather hard on most films, but everyplace in between showed a gentler appreciation for movies, and were especially thrilled at visits from movie stars.  I expect the studio was trying to save Free for All with the good will Ann would generate by her visit.

She arrived by train Tuesday, November 1^st with her Aunt Catherine Tobin as chaperone.  You’ll recall from our intro post to the series here that Mr. and Mrs. Tobin came to Hollywood to look after Ann after the death of her mother. They were greeted by the Marquette University Band, the Homecoming Queen, and a crowd. She was given a bouquet of roses, and was taken from the train depot to the Schroeder Hotel (which is now a Hilton) in an open car while college boys trotted alongside and “tried to make dates.”  Reportedly, she “gushed” to her aunt, “Isn’t this exciting?”  

She was at the age to be a college student herself, but lived a very different life. One wonders what she made of that.  (In 1973 she would return to Marquette University to receive the McElligott Medallion, an award given to women of national prominence who advance the educational and cultural interest of women. She was presented the award by Jane Wyatt, who was the first recipient in 1963.  Miss Wyatt played her mother in Our Very Own.)

In 1949, her press was different.

“She said she particularly looked forward to riding in the Marquette University homecoming parade Thursday night.”

“A high voltage smile constantly plays across her face, but she does not affect the slinky movie screen appearance.  She is just a little Irish girl who sparkles with friendliness.”

A few months later, in February 1950, Ann took another public appearance trek to college and the Midwest with a visit to the two-day Mardi Gras carnival at Notre Dame University.  From their yearbook: 

“The successful 1950 Mardi Gras Carnival will always be remembered as the carnival at which glamorous Ann Blyth came, saw, and conquered the hearts of Notre Dame men. Miss Blyth ' s appearance on the final night, climaxed the two day Student Council  NFCCS affair held in a colorful Navy Drill Hall. Miss Blyth drew the winner of the Buick Riviera, visited several of the booths, and joined with the Glee Club in singing several numbers."

This was perhaps the occasion she sang with the glee club at a benefit before a crowd of 20,000 at the Chicago Stadium,with Pat O'Brien.

From the school paper, the Scholastic: 

"It isn't every day that a movie star visits the campus, and when Miss Ann Blyth appeared at the carnival last week, WND engineers were on hand with their brand new tape recorder. The machine was apparently in good shape that night, because Miss Blyth's interview by Ed Farrell, as well as her rendition of "Toora Loora" and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" were flawlessly recorded for posterity. The station is considering transferring the tape onto records, if enough souvenir hunters and/or Ann Blyth fans on the campus would want to acquire same."

I'd love to know if anybody still has any of these recordings. 

She wasn't through with college.  We mentioned the honorary doctoral degree she was awarded from St. Joseph's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland in our post here.  In 1969 she received an honorary degree from the University of Portland, Oregon.

But back in November 1949, her Milwaukee tour schedule included radio interviews, three performances at the Warner Theater on Friday where Free for All would premiere, and an appearance at the Wisconsin Education Association meeting at the Milwaukee Auditorium.  She attended a press conference at the old Schlitz Brown Bottle restaurant, which had been founded in the late 1930s and was a famous eatery in Milwaukee until it closed, I believe, some ten years ago.  We have a ringside seat courtesy of the Milwaukee Sentinel:

“Wearing a simple, light green tweed suit, the short jacket edged with a dark green braid, Ann Blyth, movie star, chatted with local folk…She’s mighty pretty, with a clean scrubbed look, minus all affectation, and not too excited about the usual things you expect a young girl to be interested in.

"Her exquisite mink coat was tossed lightly over her shoulders, and her hair, worn in a long bob, was topped by a small, deep red velour cloche with a tiny veil.”

Buck Herzog, syndicated film critic, gave a diplomatic good review to the film,

“There are moments when the action might have been stepped up, but for the most part, Free for All runs a merry course….”  He also notes that the funniest part of the film is when Percy Kilbride takes the idea to the military, “It kids Washington in an hilarious manner.”

Interestingly, Mr. Herzog shows us just how little the general public knew of Ann’s ability to sing at this time (having forgotten, apparently, about her early Universal teen musicals).  It would be another two years before she sang in The Great Caruso (1951) and launched her MGM makeover, and most of her singing was limited to benefits local to the Los Angeles area.

Ann “surprised capacity audiences who believe her talents to be limited to looking pretty and acting.  She sings, too, and pleasantly.  She sang several current hits, of which “Bali Bali” [sic] from South Pacific was most enthralling.”

That alone might have made the trip worth taking for Ann.

Come back next week when we drop back to 1946 and her first film after Mildred Pierce, and after her year-long hiatus due to injury.  She's the town tramp…in the sinister Swell Guy.

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Dome Yearbook, 1950, University of Notre Dame, p. 307.

Knight Digest, Knights of Columbus, Union Council 4504, Union, New Jersey, November 1969, p. 1.

Milwaukee Journal August 22, 1949, syndicated article by Sheilah Graham, “Much Kissed Ann Blyth Says She Has Never Felt Romantic”; November 1, 1949, “Official City Delegation Hails Western Mayor in Mink Coat”, p. 2; November 2, 1949, “Blythely She Floats to City, and City Bows to Irish Eye.”, p. 1; February 1, 1973, "Marquette Women to Honor Ann Blyth", part 2, p. 5; March 18, 1973 article by Beth Slocum, "Jane Wyatt a Spry Aunt Polly", 

Milwaukee Sentinel, “Free for All Premiere to Be in Milwaukee,” October 31, 1949, p. 6.; November 2, 1949, “Ann Blyth, Star of Film, Pretty Picture in Tweed,” p. 9., November 5, 1949, “Review of New Shows” by Buck Herzog, p. 6.

Notre Dame Scholastic, March 3, 1950, p. 5
Toledo Blade, September 28, 1949.

University of Portland online almanac: http://www.up.edu/almanac/print.aspx?cid=4117&pid=1467

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THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable:  EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

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UPDATE:  This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon, CreateSpace, and my Etsy shop: LynchTwinsPublishing.

 "Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey

"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films

"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''

"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 
by Jacqueline T. Lynch

The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.

The eBook and paperback are available from Amazon and CreateSpace, which is the printer.  You can also order it from my Etsy shop. 

If you wish a signed copy, then email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.

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Congratulations to John Greco on publishing his collection of film noir essays from his great blog in Film Noir at Twenty Four Frames Per Second, now available at Amazon.

Swamp Water - 1941

“Swamp Water” (1941) was what did it for Dana Andrews. After a few years in Hollywood bouncing between bit parts, an apprenticeship at the Pasadena Playhouse, and working as a gas station attendant, it took a trip to the Okefenokee to really launch his film career as a leading man.

This is part of the Dana Andrews Blogathon over at Classic Move Man, with links to other blogs posted this Saturday, July 28th.

Dana Andrews knew himself that ''Swamp Water" would be important to his career. In June 1941 he took “a fast cross country airliner,” to Waycross, Georgia to film on location according to the Waycross Journal-Herald of June 25, 1941. “‘It’s my big chance,’ laughed young Andrews a bit groggy after his first plane trip but fascinated by it all to such a degree he hadn’t been able to sleep.”

Thirty-three years later, in his mid-60s, in another phase of his career when performing dinner theatre in “Best of Friends” at the Alhambra Theatre, Jacksonville, Florida, Andrews took his wife on a side trip to the Okefenokee. He wanted to show her where he had filmed some scenes for “Swamp Water”. He was recognized in a Waycross diner. (Waycross Journal-Herald, February 13, 1974).

Dana Andrews had been the only principal actor to film in the Okefenokee, not counting his hound dog in the film, “Trouble.” According the Journal-Herald, Trouble also arrived on the same plane with Mr. Andrews, “‘sick as a dog’ from flying so high” in these days before jet planes with pressurized cabins.

Director Jean Renoir, in his first American film, and his assistant Irving Pinchel arrived as well, with Mr. Pinchel taking over the location shooting when Renoir went back to Hollywood, where of course most of the film was shot on sets.

It’s an unusual film, a precursor perhaps to Renoir’s “The Southerner” (1945) about Texas sharecroppers, which we’ll probably get around to sometime or other. In both, this esteemed French director, with an impressive body of work in French cinema behind him, and who was also the son of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, tackles a brooding American landscape. The swamp, with its gothic imagery, is a place of escape and freedom, but also a claustrophobic prison, a place of gruesome death.

Dana Andrews plays a backcountry youth who loses his hound dog, Trouble, in the Okefenokee swamp. He goes after him and meets Walter Brennan, who has been hiding in the swamp for five years, a fugitive from justice. Brennan had been wrongly accused of murdering a man, and he escaped before hanging.

His ragamuffin daughter, played by Anne Baxter, is taken in by storekeeper Russell Simpson as a hired girl. She is no-account by virtue of her father being no-account. She and Dana brave the community’s censure when he buys her a dress and takes her to the square dance.

Mr. Andrews has his own problems with run-ins with his domineering father, played by Walter Huston. There are a few subplots to round out this poor, isolated community -- Mary Howard plays Walter Huston’s young second wife, who is being romantically pursued by a smarmy John Carradine, who is given protection by the bullying brothers Ward Bond and Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, who are actually the ones who committed the murder of which Walter Brennan is wrongly accused.

Did I mention there would be spoilers? No? Sorry.

It’s an interesting film both for Renoir’s perspective on American gothic, complete with the imagery of a skull atop a cross as a warning sign, and for it being Dana Andrews’ first leading role.

Andrews’s voice is what fascinates me most. He speaks his lines with his chin sunk into his chest, pushing the dialogue out of his body with a sound somewhere between growling and weeping. I know he was supposed to have a fine bass singing voice, but I never heard it. I can believe it listening to the fullness of his speech in this performance.

He doesn’t hunker down too much in a southern accent, though as a native southerner he could -- but that would make him stand out from everyone else in the community who do not speak with southern accents. Most especially the Massachusetts-bred Walter Brennan in his alligator skin clothing and his New England long vowels.

Andrews's emotions are raw and on the surface in this movie. In later roles he displayed that skillful knack of showing great depth of emotion under a surface of cool reserve, a man already burdened with too much baggage and afraid to acknowledge it. Here he conceals nothing. He is all joyful shout and angry bluster, yet it is not overacting. He is a young man of considerable pride who perhaps represents for Renoir the sunshine contrast to the dark swamp. His hair curling on his neck, his first bashful, then exuberant discovery of love for Anne Baxter, his physical energy in this film give us no foreshadowing of the haunted war vet, the gloomy private eye, the troubled police detective of future years.

Some of the scenes look straight out of a John Ford copybook -- the fiddle playing of “Red River Valley” at the square dance, and of course, the use of so many Ford regulars like Ward Bond, John Carradine and Russell Simpson.

Eugene Pallette is also along as the sheriff, whose otherwise jolly demeanor is a puzzle against the scene where he allows Ward Bond and “Big Boy” Williams to half drown Dana Andrews to force him to confess Walter Brennan’s whereabouts. It’s a bit of backcountry interrogation. Perhaps if he floats he will be declared a witch.

He and Walter Huston have a father-son reunion when Mr. Huston saves him.

Virginia Gilmore plays Mr. Andrews’s best girl, until she dumps him. Then her jealously over his attention to Anne Baxter drives her to accusing him of hiding the fugitive. She is smug, self-centered, manipulative, and dangerous.

The scenes at the dance are touching for the very way these folk observe courtly rules in contrast to their ragged best clothes and the rotting walls of the local meeting hall. I’ve been in swanky places where the manners were far worse.

They are proud people. It is pride that divides Dana Andrews from his Pa; pride that divides Walter Huston from his young wife, whom he thinks is seeing a man behind his back; pride which makes Dana shun his ratfink girlfriend; pride which makes him refuse to knuckle under Ward Bond. When his pal and surrogate father figure Walter Brennan accuses him of selling him out, it is his pride that makes Dana Andrews stand on purpose to take a bullet from Ward Bond to prove his innocence. More trial by ordeal.

And then back to gothic. There is a scene where “Big Boy” meets his demise in the swamp, slowly sucked up into a bog hole. It’s quite horrifying, and despite my fascination for bottomless pits in movies (see “Make Haste to Live” - 1954, here), I was amazed that the studio allowed Renoir’s fixed camera gaze on Williams screaming in terror as his disembodied head sinks into the mud. It’s something out of monster movie -- which would have been less terrifying because we do not believe in monsters -- than in a movie that has so far kept rigidly to unblinking reality.

Brennan lets a stunned Ward Bond live, to face the same hell he did as fugitive in the swamp. Their justice is crude, and final.

Another less horrifying, but cinematically striking scene is when John Carradine attempts to seduce Mary Howard, declaring his love for her while both are fairly tattooed with the mottled shadows of leaves that mask their expressions.

It’s an unusual film where character actors tell the tale. There are no stars, really, in this movie though certainly Walter Huston had a big name in film and theatre. The only star was the one yet to be -- Dana Andrews.

My Darling Clementine (1946)

This week we’ll discuss a couple of movies that, while both of wildly different subjects and settings, are similar in the poetic way they tell their stories. The poetic quality in the first, “My Darling Clementine” (1946) is blatant and on purpose. Director John Ford, however hard-nosed he preferred to appear in real life, had a romantic view of the West. He does not trouble to conceal the rhapsody of his storytelling. He exploits it.

In the second film that we’ll save for Thursday, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945), novice director Elia Kazan tells a gritty, unsentimental story in a manner that is both beautiful and memorable. Curiously and ironically, he later expressed disappointment in what he felt was a lack of realism.

Beginning with the weathered signpost style credits in “My Darling Clementine”, and the song played as part of a medley of American folk music and hymns we will hear in the background of this film, Ford launches a tale of the Old West that uses familiar themes and settings, but is never cliché.

The true story of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton gang facing off in a gunfight at the OK Corral is gussied up with a lot of incidents and subplots that are not true. Ford is a storyteller, not an historian. We might note here with tongue in cheek on behalf of Mr. Ford’s Irish roots that a word for both storyteller and historian in Irish (and Scots) Gaelic is Shanachie, an economy of language which might intimate the ability to get the facts right is not necessarily held higher than the ability to tell a story.

Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, a famous lawman who for the moment has given up being a sheriff for driving cattle with his three brothers on their way to California. We are shown a large herd of cattle crossing the favorite Ford setting of Monument Valley, a harsh and barren country Fonda remarks is “like no country I ever seen.” We have the chuck wagon, the guitar plucking in the background, the sage brush, and the raucous town of Tombstone, Arizona, where three of the Earp brothers head for a shave.

We get a first glimpse of the fastidious barber at the Bon Ton Tonsorial Parlor who will return later in the film for a funny bit with Fonda. While they are gone, their cattle are rustled and their brother who remained guard is murdered. Now Wyatt Earp takes for himself the job of sheriff of Tombstone to get some justice.


Gunslinger Doc Holliday haunts a local gambling parlor. He is played very well by Victor Mature, whose performance as the doomed man is understated, brooding, and emotional despite the mask of fatalistic acceptance. He and Fonda have a relationship that is adversarial and also one of comradeship, a terrific balance of male bonding and suspicion of each other. When Mature and Fonda share their first drink together at the saloon, Mature erupts into a coughing fit, whipping out a white handkerchief and hacking ferociously into it. This is our signal that he is a dying man.

Whenever somebody coughs into a hanky in the movies, they’re going to die. It happened to Greta Garbo in “Camille”, it happened to Victor Mature in “My Darling Clementine.” Just make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

Mr. Ford treats us to long slow shots of the wide open spaces, the clear sky, and a western town with growing pains. The town actually looks authentic, without that movie set look that a lot of towns have in western films. We are also treated to a lot of wonderful close-ups, studies of grizzled beards in the rain, of the complex emotions of Victor Mature and Henry Fonda, and of the simmering Linda Darnell, who plays a feisty saloon singer with the irresistibly funny name of Chihuahua.

Miss Darnell, who is Doc Holliday’s lover, gets some competition when his former love arrives, a respectable lady from Boston, whose name is Clementine. Mr. Mature, knowing his ultimate fate from coughing into his hanky, tries to save Clementine, played by Kathy Downs, by driving her away. Mr. Fonda, meanwhile, is smitten with her.

In between all the justice seeking and whiskey drinking and poker playing and wooing of females, there is the subliminal message that the West is changing. Towns like Tombstone are becoming civilized. As much as the inhabitants of these towns long for the same stability they had Back East, there is a mournful note as well. The irony is that the West represents individualism and freedom, but without laws and rules, it is also seen as a cesspool of anarchy.


Fonda sits at the grave of his murdered younger brother and says to the name carved on the wooden grave marker, “Maybe when we leave this country young kids like you will be able to grow up and live safe.” This could be a cheesy scene, but Ford handles it beautifully, with the help of cinematographer Joseph MacDonald. In their hands, this is not a saccharine sentiment. Intentionally poetic perhaps, but also realistic. How many of us have spoken aloud our thoughts to headstones in moments of grief? It’s a cheesy thing to do, but we do it.

There are many moments of humor interspersed as well, when Mr. Fonda dumps his poker chips into his hat, and then puts the hat on, and then proceeds to his first encounter with Doc Holliday. The scene where the barber, played by Ben Hall, sprays a startled Fonda with cologne, and when anyone thereafter remarks about the scent of honeysuckle in the springtime air, Fonda must abashedly confess that the lovely smell is him.

Later, when walking with Clementine on his arm, Fonda passes the barber who gives him a brief but very funny “I told you so” look of satisfied superiority, as if the cologne is responsible for Fonda’s success with females.

One comic moment turns in to a powerful scene of longing, and sadness, and pondering the meaning of life. A traveling actor drinks a bit too much, and then stands upon a poker table in the saloon while the wonderful Walter Brennan, father of the Clanton thugs, and his mean spirited boys, who all seem to resemble Bluto, threaten the actor into entertaining them. The drunken tragedian proudly launches into Hamlet's soliloquy.

Mature and Fonda come to rescue him, and watch. We see that Mature is fascinated by the actor’s performance. When the tired old Hamlet cannot remember the rest of his lines, Mr. Mature takes over, delivering Shakespeare’s words with simple dignity. Since we have already seen him cough into his hanky, we know that the lines about whether it is nobler to take arms against of sea of troubles, about dying and sleeping, has a deeper and more profound meaning for the doomed Doc Holliday. Fonda sees it, too.

More reminders that the West is changing occur when a flurry of activity assembles at the new church in town. Just the floor is completed, and a dance is held to raise money for the rest. After a bit of square dancing, Fonda leads Clementine in a spirited Texas two-step, while a couple of American flags flutter in the breeze. It is pure American tableau, and Mr. Ford knows that, that’s why he does it.

“Church bells in Tombstone!” is exclaimed with disbelief, another sign of the encroaching civilization.

Mac the bartender, played by J. Farrell MacDonald, who we’ve seen in a number of films, is one of those stalwart character actors without whom no film of Hollywood’s heyday could have been made. There are a number of them in the Ford gang, including Ward Bond, Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson, and former silent star Mae Marsh in a brief scene. We will see Mr. MacDonald in another bit part on Thursday in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” where he played Carney the junkman.

“You ever been in love, Mac?” lovelorn Fonda asks the bartender.

“No, I been a bartender all me life.” Not quite. Mr. MacDonald’s been a lot people, in a lot of movies but only for bits of screen time in each one. Still, he is noticeable and we remember him when we see him.


Judgment day at last arrives, and a showdown between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and their men against mean old Walter Brennan and his boys. When Victor Mature is shot down, his hanky, which he always carries in his right hand, gets snagged on the rail fence, and hangs there, fluttering in the breeze like a flag of truce.


When peace is restored, Fonda bids goodbye to Clementine with a chaste kiss on the cheek and the hope of returning someday. She will remain here, this transplanted Bostonian who was told earlier that her kind did not belong here. She is to be the new schoolma'arm. Another sign of encroaching civilization. Clementine brings an end to the roughness of Tombstone not with a pair of six shooters, but with perfumed toilet water and soft spoken manners.

It is not an historically accurate film, but it is a tidy story, well told, and at times, quite beautiful.

We will see on Thursday that though the veteran director Ford seems to embrace poetry; the novice Kazan, whose films will launch a new style of movies in the coming decade, eschews it, yet manages to create a most beautiful film himself.