A Classic Movie Review and Appreciation Site

You Should Read the Book

2/28/2014

The Egg and I movie poster, Betty MacDonald, Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main

I love Fred's maniacal grin.

The Egg and I (1947)

Our great family friend, Leslie, introduced us to the marvelous Betty MacDonald when we were pre-teens, starting with The Egg and I and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and flourishing out from there. The Egg and I was so funny and so cherished that I was really reluctant to see the movie version (when I learned there was one), particularly since it had the guy from My Three Sons playing Bob, and that seemed wrong to me (forgive me; I was only 11-ish). This film was directly responsible for my enduring lack of enthusiasm for Claudette Colbert and was probably the first time I ever considered that a book may be better than the movie. Consider that I have always been a comparatively lazy reader (compared to my mother and sister, that is, but they were voracious and unnatural), so that is saying something.

Now every time I see this picture, I have to pretend I never read the book and I can enjoy it just fine. I was quite wrong about Fred MacMurray not being right for Bob. His clueless enthusiasm is delightful. Once you get past the first half hour of Betty's madcap adjustment to rural farm life, complete with stupidities like sawing herself off a tree limb, falling in the pig pen, fighting with the cookstove, hyuk hyuk hyuk, it gets into a very good rhythm.

The Story: Bob informs Betty on their wedding night that it has always been his dream to run a chicken farm and that he has bought them one (isn't that great?!) in the middle of nowhere on the Olympic Peninsula ("No running water, no Frigidaire, just plenty of elbow room!"). The farm is a wreck, the neighbors are wacky, and the animals uncooperative. The wackiest neighbors of all are the Kettles, sweet, workhorsey Ma (Marjorie Main) and shiftless Pa (Percy Kilbride), with their zillions of children and animals in the kitchen. A very young Richard Long plays the unlikely eldest son of the Kettles, a non-farming type who yearns to go to college.

There is a complication in the form of a beautiful, wealthy neighbor called Harriet (Louise Allbritton) who runs the fancy farm and who can converse with Bob about livestock and such (while giving him the once-over). What are you going to do: it's basically a farce.

It's a fine vehicle for Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main, but Claudette Colbert is no Betty MacDonald.

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Birthday of the Week: Marjorie Main

2/24/2014

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Born Mary Tomlinson, Acton, IN, February 24, 1890

Biography

Marjorie Main: The Life and Films of Hollywood's "Ma Kettle"
By Michelle Vogel, McFarland, 2011

The Beautiful Foghorn

I am not a particular fan of the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series, or any of the "country folk are amusing idiots" genre of entertainment, but I do love Marjorie Main with all my heart. She called Ma Kettle "the grandest character role I ever played. She was frowzy, but not repulsive, tough, but never vicious, big-hearted, impulsive, maternal..." so perhaps I'll give more of the series a look.

Marjorie Main played dowagers, society matrons, maids, and slatterns, always with that raspy voice and, when called for, the bray of a fine mule. She was born on an Indiana farm in 1890 and attended drama school after a brief stint in college. Her father, a conservative minister, did not approve of drama, so out of respect to him, she used the stage name "Marjorie Main" lest someone link her vaudeville and Broadway work back to the name "Tomlinson."

She married Dr. Stanley Krebs (also a minister) in 1921, a man 25 years her senior, and briefly retired from the stage. Main took on character roles in film in the 1930s, then more visible, richer parts after her husband's death in 1935.

Main was a very private person and reportedly something of a germaphobe. I don't know if the latter is true, but I kind of hope it is. Another die hard Hollywood lore is that Marjorie Main and Spring Byington were long-time lovers, which would also be cool to confirm, because that partnership only makes sense the more you think about it; certainly not at first.

She must have been friendly with Dr. Krebs, though, as she was often "conversing" with him on movie sets, getting his opinion and so forth. Indeed, she had his remains moved to her adjacent burial plot at Forest Lawn Cemetery, saying "I've been lonely so much of my life, I'd like to be with him in death," which is terribly sweet and terribly sad.

I bet the book is a pretty good read, so I'm going to get right on that.

Marjorie Main died of lung cancer on April 10, 1975 at the age of 85, leaving behind a long list of excellent work in many classic motion pictures. Personally, I love her Lucy, the ranch owner in The Women most of all: "Dja ever see a horse laugh? Well, you're gonna."

Wonderful stuff.

Favorite Five

Dead End (1937)
The Women (1939)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
The Egg and I (1947)
Summer Stock (1950)

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What Mrs. Fowler's Friends Come in For

1/10/2014

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The other half of the 1%

The Women (1939)

The funny thing about this movie -- at least for me — is that I always look forward to seeing it (and I've seen it 65 million times) and always forget that there are a staggering number of cringe-worthy moments in it: racist (Butterfly McQueen has to hear some choice anachronisms), sexist, elitist, you name it.

But...

For all its faults, The Women is an infuriatingly well-written story about a bunch of rich, mean-spirited, unhappy white ladies who give horrible relationship advice to one another and treat each other terribly. Honestly. The best/worst character who does this is Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), the nasty cousin of sweet Mary Haines (Norma Shearer), the beautiful protagonist whose husband (it turns out) is having an affair with scheming shopgirl Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford).

All of New York Society has learned of Mr. Haines's dalliance by way of a gossiping manicurist named Olga (Dennie Moore), who knows the other woman in question: "She's got those eyes that run up and down a man like a searchlight." Unhappily married Sylvia has been sending all her friends to Olga so they can hear the story about how her cousin, whose marriage is considered by all (including Mary) to be idyllic, is living in a "Fool's Paradise." In a moment of spite, Sylvia sends Mary to Olga, where Mary finally learns the truth.

(Sylvia really puts the "Freud" in Schadenfreude.)

The remainder of the picture is about how Mary deals with her husband's infidelity and what the rest of her circle — Nancy, speaker of great lines (Florence Nash); Peggy, simpering, slouching newlywed (Joan Fontaine*); and Edith, bearer of many children (Phyllis Povah) -- do and think about it. Even her mother (Lucile Watson) gets in on the action and tries to explain that men are just funny that way when they reach a certain age. They want to feel young, so they mix it up a bit with other women. Don't take it personally. "I suppose a man could do over his office, but he never thinks of anything so simple," she says. A line I love, but wow.

They're so helpful, Mary winds up on the train to Reno to get a divorce, where she meets more helpful (rich) women: Flora, the Countess DeLave (the best Mary Boland role of all time); and Miriam, the chorus girl (Paulette Goddard). They wind up at the ranch of (not at all rich) Lucy (Marjorie Main), whose husband sounds like an abusive wretch, but she'd never divorce 'im, because she's simple farm folk, I guess.

It all works out in the end and not a man in sight, though as the posters say "It's all about MEN!" Contemporary PR reassurances notwithstanding, the film does pass the Bechdel Test — in letter, if not in spirit.

You could look at this picture a couple of ways: it either glorifies the idle rich and their bored, catty ways, or it sends them up. I am inclined to believe it's the latter. Some of the truest, most realistic expressions of "sisterhood" are between the working class women who serve and pamper these females. And of course, in the character and treatment of Little Mary (the excellent Virginia Weidler), the Haines's young daughter, there is more truth than comedy.

Oh yeah. There's a fashion show.

*I know she just died and everything, but honestly, how did someone with such terrible posture become such a huge movie star?

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