This version of Lillian Hellman's play ("passed by the Board of National Review") is full of anguish, malice, self torture, heartbreak, stupidity, unrequited love, economic ruin, utter misery, and has a happy ending.
It's filled with stereotypes. There are the two young ladies, eager to establish a boarding school for girls, though they must start with virtually nothing. There is the doctor who is also handy around the house and lends them his aid. The zymic, lying brat who dominates everyone around her through falsehoods and manipulation. The bubble-headed, hystrionic auntie who lives in the school, never stops talking, and gets everyone in trouble, only to disappear when she has a chance to rectify matters. The haughty aristocrat who is the catalyst of doom.
The best role is that of the spoiled brat, Bonita Granville. Boy, is she mean. Of course she overacts, but then everyone overacts except maybe Joel McCrea as the doctor, who is his usual pleasant but earnest self throughout.
I was interested in seeing how a movie made in 1936 would handle the lesbian subtext of the play. It does so rather neatly. Instead of two dykes making out, Bonita Granville claims she peeked through a key hole and saw Miriam Hopkins getting it on with McCrea, the fiancé of Merle Oberon. Shocking enough, I suppose, at the time.
But Hellman's story is almost as manipulative and goal-oriented as Bonita Granville's brat. The stupidity runs riot throughout the script. A story that could avoid a calamity with a frank five-minute conversation, avoids the conversation instead. A remorseful old lady who begs forgiveness from the offended trio, is repulsed with a sneer and a curse. Everyone deserts everyone else for reasons that it would take second sight to discern.
Still, the story was a shocker in its time and I can enjoy seeing these formulaic elements unreeled. There's something reassuring about a vision of life that sees nothing in it but rot -- and yet ends with two lovers in a clinch while triumphant music swells in the background.
It's filled with stereotypes. There are the two young ladies, eager to establish a boarding school for girls, though they must start with virtually nothing. There is the doctor who is also handy around the house and lends them his aid. The zymic, lying brat who dominates everyone around her through falsehoods and manipulation. The bubble-headed, hystrionic auntie who lives in the school, never stops talking, and gets everyone in trouble, only to disappear when she has a chance to rectify matters. The haughty aristocrat who is the catalyst of doom.
The best role is that of the spoiled brat, Bonita Granville. Boy, is she mean. Of course she overacts, but then everyone overacts except maybe Joel McCrea as the doctor, who is his usual pleasant but earnest self throughout.
I was interested in seeing how a movie made in 1936 would handle the lesbian subtext of the play. It does so rather neatly. Instead of two dykes making out, Bonita Granville claims she peeked through a key hole and saw Miriam Hopkins getting it on with McCrea, the fiancé of Merle Oberon. Shocking enough, I suppose, at the time.
But Hellman's story is almost as manipulative and goal-oriented as Bonita Granville's brat. The stupidity runs riot throughout the script. A story that could avoid a calamity with a frank five-minute conversation, avoids the conversation instead. A remorseful old lady who begs forgiveness from the offended trio, is repulsed with a sneer and a curse. Everyone deserts everyone else for reasons that it would take second sight to discern.
Still, the story was a shocker in its time and I can enjoy seeing these formulaic elements unreeled. There's something reassuring about a vision of life that sees nothing in it but rot -- and yet ends with two lovers in a clinch while triumphant music swells in the background.