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June 04, 2008

Since You Went Away

Miranda Rose Smith reviewed So Proudly We Hail (1943) a few weeks ago. Now, our movie-loving friend from Israel writes about another patriotic Hollywood movie, David O. Selznick's Since You Went Away (1944). Selznick's vision for this movie was a domestic Gone With the Wind whose subject matter he labeled, “The Unconquerable Fortress: Home.”

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Claudette Colbert plays Anne Hilton, a wife and mother, valiantly holding things together while her husband is away at war. Colbert tries to keep up a brave front for her two daughters, Jane, Jennifer Jones, and Bridget "Brig," played by a luminous 16-year old Shirley Temple.

Jennifer Jones, Claudette Colbert and Shirley Temple in
Since You Went Away.

Colbert's husband abandoned a promising job in advertising to join the army. Colbert embarks on a Keep-It-Strictly-Platonic flirtation with an old family friend, Tony Willett, played by the durable and charming Joseph Cotten. Simultaneously, Colbert copes with catty neighbor Agnes Moorehead, the only major character who hoards food and deals in the black market.

Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Joseph Cotton in
Since You Went Away.

Academy Award winning Hattie McDaniel is the no-nonsense housekeeper, Fidelia. At Brig's suggestion, Anne takes in a lodger, the pompous Colonel William G. Smollett, Monty Woolley. Smollett is not the jingoistic military nut so favored by today's Hollywood elite. This character is carefully shaded with human layers. Beneath the boastful exterior lies a sensitive soul. The Colonel suffers a painful estrangement from his grandson, Bill, Robert Walker, expelled from West Point, now an enlisted man.

Bill and Jane, a beautifully doomed movie couple, fall in love and get engaged—only to have Bill killed in action.

The unfortunate Colonel is unable to express his grief and rage. On Christmas Eve, he paces around bitterly sputtering, "Peace on earth. Goodwill towards men."

Thoughts on the great black actress Hattie McDaniel: If McDaniel were alive today and looking for work in Hollywood, she would have to contend with Hollywood's anti-overweightism, a prejudice more deeply entrenched than past Hollywood racism. She would never, or almost never, be asked to play a romantic lead. She would be playing tediously heroic, Oprah-style black women: teachers, social workers, principals, welfare mothers, and nurses—Mammy with an education, Aunt Jemima, R.N.

Hattie McDaniel (center), Chairman of the Negro Division of the
Hollywood Victory Committee, poses with a group of entertainers and
hostesses before a performance and dance for soldiers stationed in
Minter Field.

Jennifer Jones volunteers as a Red Cross nurse's aide in a veteran's hospital. Here she meets combat fatigue victim Craig Stephens. Jones gives a lovely and nuanced performance as a young woman slowly recovering from the loss of a beloved fiance. By the end of the picture, Stephens, gradually healing from his breakdown, leaves Jones to reenlist. Duty before love. The film lovingly hints that something will develop between these two damaged people after the war.

This is one of Jennifer Jones' greatest performances. Unfortunately, she was so beautiful and so allergic to fame and publicity, that even with an Oscar to her credit, she's never been recognized as the superb and versatile actress she truly was.

Jennifer Jones reads Margaret Buell Wilder's Since You Went Away,
the novel on which the film is based.

Working in a shipyard, Anne meets refugee Zofia Koslowska, Nazimova, who tells Anne about her little boy. The two of them longed to come to America, but tragically the boy died before they could both emigrate. Zofia recites the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. Anne doesn't even know the poem, thus suggesting that immigrants appreciate this country in ways that many natural American-born citizens cannot.

Nazimova, one of the leading stars of the silent era, turns in a performance of great depth. It's gratifying to see silent players working in sound films. Too many silent stars were unfairly discarded by short-sighted sound engineers and studio executives when sound took over.

Except for Robert Walker's Bill, who is a little too aw' shucks in places, the performances are all superior. Need I point out that they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Joseph Cotton and Shirley Temple, Since You Went Away

We experience the heartache of families who lose loved ones—without blaming the U.S. government or cooking up delusional conspiracy theories. Mr. Mahoney, the local grocer, is proud that his son serves in the Air Force and burns indignant when several customers suggest that he trade in the black market.

Patriotic Americans are honest, decent and sane in this picture. Anne and Tony meet the grocer's son, Johnny, at a U.S.O. dance. Not long afterwards, Johnny is killed in a plane crash. Later, the elder Mahoney walks out of a movie when a newsreel announces a home town welcome for a returning hero. The pain is just too much for the father to bear.

This movie does not shrink from the unbearable tragedy of lost sons. The cost of war is great, says the film, but there is no choice in the face of evil rampant.

Everybody connected with this epic movie—it's three-hours long—sincerely believed that America was a force for good in the world.

Such sentiments have all but disappeared from contemporary Hollywood films—and we are all diminished by this cynical, post-modern attitude.

Robert Walker, Jennifer Jones, and David O. Selznick. Jones and Walker were married as “Since You Went Away” went into production. But the marriage was rocky. Jones and Selznick were having an affair. Cast and crew reported that the tension in the studio was unbearable as Jones and Walker worked before the camera, with Selznick behind the lights, insisting that Walker and Jones perform take after take of their love scenes. Jones and Walker separated during production in 1943. Selznick was angrily kicked out of the home he shared with wife Irene Mayer, daughter of powerful MGM chief, Louis B. Mayer. Robert Walker was never the same afterwards. He became an alcoholic and his career nose-dived. Walker pulled himself together for one last absolutely brilliant performance as Bruno, the oddly sympathetic killer in Hitchcock's classic, “Strangers on a Train.” Sadly, Walker did not receive the Oscar he so richly deserved. Robert Walker died, age 32, just seven years after separating from Jones. Selznick and Jones stayed together until Selznick's death in 1965. Jones' only child with Selznick, Mary Jennifer Selznick (born in 1954), committed suicide in 1976. In 1971 Jones married Los Angeles millionaire art collector Norton Simon. When she was in her eighties, Jones conducted tours of her husband's art collection. The couple remained married until Simon's death in 1993. Currently, Jennifer Jones is on the board of directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Jones hates publicity and refuses all movie related interviews. She handed the Oscar she received for Song of Bernadette to her hairdresser. With good grace, a few days later, the hairdresser returned the precious statue.

Poster art of Jennifer Jones by the great American artist Norman Rockwell for “The Song of Bernadette.”

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at June 4, 2008 08:05 AM

Comments

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Posted by: cruisin-mom at June 4, 2008 08:20 AM

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Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 4, 2008 03:51 PM

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Posted by: gregg at June 5, 2008 02:09 AM

Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 5, 2008 10:39 AM

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