Some critics referred to Marcia Davenport's massive 1942 best-seller as an American "Forsyte Saga" and Hollywood, not surprisingly, quickly bought up the film rights. What should have emerged as a grand family drama, however -- the sort of thing spanning decades and generations -- wound up in a shrunken and trivialized form which covered only the first half of the book and then in an abbreviated fashion. It's as if, somewhere along the way, everyone lost enthusiasm for the project. This is unfortunate since the book, though it tends to weaken in its final section covering the years from World War I to Pearl Harbor, tells an attention-keeping story filled with vibrant characters who manage to change and even surprise as the plot unfolds.
While, at first glance, Greer Garson might seem a good choice to play Mary Rafferty, she's at least ten years too old for her part and this makes it a bit difficult to accept her romantic attachment to an obviously-younger Gregory Peck.
Peck's siblings, so strong a force in the book, are here reduced to minor characters, though Marsha Hunt at least hints at what a fully-realized "Constance" might have been. One regrets at how much of their stories have been lost, particularly Constance's years in Europe.
Curiously, the adaptors have chosen to create a character not in the book, (here played by Preston Foster), but this character does little to fill in the gaps caused by all the deletions.
Donald Crisp seems slightly miscast as William Scott but he delivers the movie's best performance and is in pleasing contrast to the hammy Lionel Barrymore whose part has been clumsily expanded from that in the book.
Davenport's book may today be found only in libraries and used-book stores but it's worth finding and reading and it would make a splendid basis for a multi-part mini-series which would have the time to tell the complete story. This mini-series, it is hoped, would do justice to the relationship between scion Paul Scott and housemaid Mary Rafferty -- a relationship more complex and unexpected than the one depicted in the movie and one which does not lend itself to the happy "fadeout" imposed by the writers at MGM.
While, at first glance, Greer Garson might seem a good choice to play Mary Rafferty, she's at least ten years too old for her part and this makes it a bit difficult to accept her romantic attachment to an obviously-younger Gregory Peck.
Peck's siblings, so strong a force in the book, are here reduced to minor characters, though Marsha Hunt at least hints at what a fully-realized "Constance" might have been. One regrets at how much of their stories have been lost, particularly Constance's years in Europe.
Curiously, the adaptors have chosen to create a character not in the book, (here played by Preston Foster), but this character does little to fill in the gaps caused by all the deletions.
Donald Crisp seems slightly miscast as William Scott but he delivers the movie's best performance and is in pleasing contrast to the hammy Lionel Barrymore whose part has been clumsily expanded from that in the book.
Davenport's book may today be found only in libraries and used-book stores but it's worth finding and reading and it would make a splendid basis for a multi-part mini-series which would have the time to tell the complete story. This mini-series, it is hoped, would do justice to the relationship between scion Paul Scott and housemaid Mary Rafferty -- a relationship more complex and unexpected than the one depicted in the movie and one which does not lend itself to the happy "fadeout" imposed by the writers at MGM.