This is the kind of movie that, in 1949, would have the producers, director, writer, actors, extras, gaffers, and best boy blacklisted and working under pseudonyms in Britain. Well, maybe a spell in the slams too.
Richard Barthelmess is a hero in World War I. Terribly wounded, he winds up in agony in a German hospital and is shot full of morphine, turning him into an addict. When he returns home, he has trouble at his bank job, his hands shaking, distracted by his need for morphine, and is fired before being sent to a hospital for two years.
This morphine business is kind of interesting. Pardon me for a moment while I put on my Sociology hat. Where did I put that thing? Ah, okay.
Barthelmess's experience is a good illustration of labeling theory. A study was done of wounded soldiers after World War II. Those with painful wounds received morphine long enough to develop a tolerance and addiction. When the narcotic was stopped, they underwent mild but uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. They had no explanation for their malaise. Those soldiers who were not told they were in morphine withdrawal recovered and went on with their lives. BUT -- those to whom the true explanation was given tended to become career addicts. The point is that if no one had ever told Barthelmess that his distress was due to morphine withdrawal, he might never have had a problem.
Well, not that particular problem anyway. Barthelmess walks into one disaster after another. He gets a job in a laundry, is promoted regularly because he's an industrious and inventive worker. He marries the gorgeous Loretta Young and they have a son. He invests in a laundry-processing machine that will make the work easier for the employees.
Everything seems rosy, but the new owners of the laundry use the labor-saving device as an excuse to fire three quarters of the workers. The jobless become enraged. Barthelmess is arrested while trying to stop the riot and spends five years in the Crowbar Hotel, after his wife has been accidentally killed in the mêlée. He gets out during the depression and is forced out of town by a committee that's keeping an eye on Reds. He leaves the payoff from the laundry machine behind, and asks the striking Aline MacMahon to look after his son with the money. Last scene: Barthelmess walking along with other homeless men, still hopeful. "Sure, the country's knocked down right now but it'll get back up, better and stronger than before." This summary may make the film sound like a typical early 30s B feature, but it's anything but that.
In "The Grapes of Wrath", the novel, there's a sharp and cynical exchange about "Reds" that uses a curse word I can't print. (A reference in the book to William Randolph Hearst is even worse.) John Ford's movie eliminates the Hearst reference and tones down the conversational exchange about "Reds." Tom Joad asks, "What is these Reds anyway?" His employer replies: "I ain't saying anything about that one way or the other." This film pulls no punches. One character, a German inventor, spouts the usual Marxist rhetoric, quotes Lenin, and rants comically about the exploited workers. (When he becomes rich from his invention, the laundry machine, he turns overnight into a Social Darwinist.) Richard Barthelmess's character is a gentle, forgiving humanist throughout the film. He becomes bitter and angry only in one scene. Barthelmess was a curious actor. Not handsome, and displaying only modest thespian talents, he seemed always hunched over, his head almost level with his shoulders.
There is no gainsaying Loretta Young's beauty. From certain angles she looks a bit like Blythe Danner. But Aline MacMahon takes the acting palm and she has a face that seems made for the camera -- not in any way stunning, the kind of face that one would like to do a portrait of -- fascinating and remarkably gripping in the arrangement of its features. Those eyes -- A daring and memorable movie.
Richard Barthelmess is a hero in World War I. Terribly wounded, he winds up in agony in a German hospital and is shot full of morphine, turning him into an addict. When he returns home, he has trouble at his bank job, his hands shaking, distracted by his need for morphine, and is fired before being sent to a hospital for two years.
This morphine business is kind of interesting. Pardon me for a moment while I put on my Sociology hat. Where did I put that thing? Ah, okay.
Barthelmess's experience is a good illustration of labeling theory. A study was done of wounded soldiers after World War II. Those with painful wounds received morphine long enough to develop a tolerance and addiction. When the narcotic was stopped, they underwent mild but uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. They had no explanation for their malaise. Those soldiers who were not told they were in morphine withdrawal recovered and went on with their lives. BUT -- those to whom the true explanation was given tended to become career addicts. The point is that if no one had ever told Barthelmess that his distress was due to morphine withdrawal, he might never have had a problem.
Well, not that particular problem anyway. Barthelmess walks into one disaster after another. He gets a job in a laundry, is promoted regularly because he's an industrious and inventive worker. He marries the gorgeous Loretta Young and they have a son. He invests in a laundry-processing machine that will make the work easier for the employees.
Everything seems rosy, but the new owners of the laundry use the labor-saving device as an excuse to fire three quarters of the workers. The jobless become enraged. Barthelmess is arrested while trying to stop the riot and spends five years in the Crowbar Hotel, after his wife has been accidentally killed in the mêlée. He gets out during the depression and is forced out of town by a committee that's keeping an eye on Reds. He leaves the payoff from the laundry machine behind, and asks the striking Aline MacMahon to look after his son with the money. Last scene: Barthelmess walking along with other homeless men, still hopeful. "Sure, the country's knocked down right now but it'll get back up, better and stronger than before." This summary may make the film sound like a typical early 30s B feature, but it's anything but that.
In "The Grapes of Wrath", the novel, there's a sharp and cynical exchange about "Reds" that uses a curse word I can't print. (A reference in the book to William Randolph Hearst is even worse.) John Ford's movie eliminates the Hearst reference and tones down the conversational exchange about "Reds." Tom Joad asks, "What is these Reds anyway?" His employer replies: "I ain't saying anything about that one way or the other." This film pulls no punches. One character, a German inventor, spouts the usual Marxist rhetoric, quotes Lenin, and rants comically about the exploited workers. (When he becomes rich from his invention, the laundry machine, he turns overnight into a Social Darwinist.) Richard Barthelmess's character is a gentle, forgiving humanist throughout the film. He becomes bitter and angry only in one scene. Barthelmess was a curious actor. Not handsome, and displaying only modest thespian talents, he seemed always hunched over, his head almost level with his shoulders.
There is no gainsaying Loretta Young's beauty. From certain angles she looks a bit like Blythe Danner. But Aline MacMahon takes the acting palm and she has a face that seems made for the camera -- not in any way stunning, the kind of face that one would like to do a portrait of -- fascinating and remarkably gripping in the arrangement of its features. Those eyes -- A daring and memorable movie.