Since you went away, 1944

I have just finished reading 'Come in Spinner', a giant of a novel written in 1951 about the experiences of a group of Australian women on the homefront during WWII. I haven't been able to get a copy of the mini-series  (it was a huge book), so instead I have been watching a few 'homefront' movies. The first one was the classic and well known 'Mrs Minniver' (1942), and then the less known 'Since You Went Away'(1944), which stars one of my favourite actresses, Claudette Colbert. A brief look at that one today.

Cast
Claudette Colbert as Mrs. Anne Hilton
Jennifer Jones as Jane Deborah Hilton
Joseph Cotten as Lieutenant Commander Tony Willett
Shirley Temple as Bridget 'Brig' Hilton
Monty Woolley as Colonel William G. Smollett
Hattie McDaniel as Fidelia (the maid)
Lionel Barrymore as Clergyman
Robert Walker as Corporal William G. 'Bill' Smollett II
Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Emily Hawkins
Alla Nazimova as Zofia Koslowska 
Albert Bassermann as Dr. Sigmund Gottlieb Golden 

The cast of the movie

This epic movie (almost 3 hours, and with an intermission) was directed by John Cromwell and produced by David O. Selznick (Gone with the wind), and based on the 1943 novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret Buell Wilder, which was in turn based on her newspaper column "Letters to a Soldier from His Wife" for the Dayton (OH) Journal Herald. Like the heroine of "Since You Went Away", Wilder was raising two teenage daughters and taking in boarders to make ends meet while her husband, Donald, was serving in Europe during World War II.

Missing you already

The story begins in small town America in January 1943, with the empty chair of of Mr Hilton, who has (finally) joined the war effort and left for training. His wife, Ann, is bereft, and her loneliness begins the moment he is gone, but she tries to be cheerful for her two teenage daughters, Jane and Brig. Without her husbands wage as an ad executive coming in, things are tight, and Ann has to sell the car, dismiss the maid and take in a lodger.  Fidelia the maid soon returns, and works for room and board in between her war work. The first applicant, a young marine, sees daughter Jane and immediately accepts the unseen room, but Ann tells him it's taken. Instead crusty retired Colonel Smollet moves in. He gets some lesson from courtesy from Brig, and turns out to be a nice guy after all.

Smollet and Brig hit it off

Smollet's almost pacifist grandson Bill soon appears and becomes Jane's love interest - once her crush on friend of the family, officer Tony, has run it's course. Jennifer Jones (Jane) and Robert Walker (Bill) were going through a horrible divorce when the movie was filmed, but on camera they have wonderful chemistry and play the parts of young love brilliantly.

Jane, Bill and Tony

It is a very sentimental, at times corny, movie, but there are some wonderful insights into the realities of life on the home front in America.  Perhaps they didn't have to worry about bombs dropping on them, but there was still the pain of separation, the loneliness and worry, the shortages and rationing, and the death of loved ones far from home.   The family and it's relationships are the main focus of the film, but there are some great scenes  that show how the war affects others. There is a scene on a train, in which Ann and her daughters are trying to get to town to see her husband before he leaves for the South Pacific, which shows wounded and limbless soldiers, a young woman with a baby who has never seen it's father, a young girl refugee, and an old lady whose nurse grand-daughter is missing in action. And then of course they just miss seeing him because their train had to wait for a supply train to go through.

The baby hasn't met his father yet

When Jane graduates high school she gets a summer job with the red-cross, and her work in the hospital prepares her for the possibility of Bill coming home injured. 

Jane in the rehabilitation room at the hospital

Brig meanwhile is helping the war effort by starting a salvage centre for paper and metal.

Unfortunately Bill doesn't  return home, and Ann has to break it to Jane - her own husband is already missing in action. She also has to tell his grandfather, the colonel, who feels guilty as he pressured Bill into being a soldier. "My grandson had to die for me to be proud of him."

Jane continues her work at the hospital, and assists psychiatrist Dr. Golden, who explains - "there's a whole wide broken world to mend". His is only a small role, but it shows that soldier
s psychiatric wounds were beginning to be taken seriously. Golden tells her to do her best to help the men rebuild their confidence in them selves.

'Agnes Moorhead plays Ann's friend Emily, who is slightly self-absorbed and pretentious, and shows us the evil and unpatriotic things that everyday people may be guilty of. When Emily tells Jane that she shouldn't be touching common young men at the hospital, Jane sets her straight, and Ann then feels so guilty for helping more with the war effort that she gets a job as a welder in a ship yard. "If Claudette Colbert can do it, you can too" seems to be the message. 

Ann meets refugee Zofia at the shipyard, and they become friends. Zofia recants the inscription on the Statue of Liberty - "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - and tell's Ann that she is what she thought America would be. Ann is floored by the compliment.

It's Christmas time, and after a cheerful game of charades, Fidelia puts presents, those she has been safe keeping for Mr Hilton, under the tree. Ann opens hers and bursts into tears. 

But then, with perfect timing, the phone rings, and the message comes that Ann's husband is alive and coming home. She rushes upstairs to tell her daughters the good news, and the movie ends a happy note - one to give hope to wives and mothers everywhere. It is indeed a tear jerker!

Like Mrs Minniver, this movie was great propaganda for the war effort. Soon after some of the stars helped to promote war bonds as well.

16-year-old Temple in 1944 in Ottawa
 at a ceremony to raise money for Canadian Victory bonds

The music score was by Max Steiner, and won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. You just know that when you hear the dramatic music as Bill goes off on duty that it's not going to end well, but there are some musical snippets here and there of contemporary music. 

Max Stiener, right, with his award

It was also   nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Claudette Colbert), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Jones), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Monty Woolley), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Lee Garmes), Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (Mark-Lee Kirk, Victor A. Gangelin), and Best Effects, Special Effects. It lost out in most categories to the comedy 'Going My Way' starring Bing Crosby.

If you have time, you can watch the entire movie here.

Deb xx

Midnight, 1939

After a gloriously sunny weekend, it's raining again, so what better to do than stay in and watch a movie. Today, it's Midnight, a  movie that begins with rain - a rainy night in Paris, when gold-digging showgirl Eve Peabody(Claudette Colbert) arrives from Monte Carlo with only twenty-five cents, a packet of matches and a stunning gold lame dress.  Her handsome saviour is taxi driver,Tibor Czerney (Don Ameche), who drives her around for free while she hunts for a job and then buys her dinner. 

Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert share dinner

When he tries to take her home, she worries about her feelings towards him and skips, crashing a musical party for 'luscious, big heated millionaires'- still dressed as she is in her glamorous gown.  Her quiet entrance is ruined when she accidentally sits on a pomeranian, attracting the attention of wealthy Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore).

Georges helps Eve give the impression she is a Hungarian baroness (called Czerney), as he has an ulterior motive. He sees that his wife's lover Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer) is interested in Eve, and decides to use her to lure him away from his wife Helene (Mary Astor).

Mary Astor as Helene

Eve somehow snares a room at the Ritz, and meanwhile, Tibor has set up a dragnet with his fellow cabbies to search the streets of Paris for his lady love. After sending her a suitcase full of stunning clothes, Georges then does a deal with Eve to get his wife back, and invites the "Baroness" to a weekend party at their country estate in Versailles, much to his wife's disgust. She then of course has to do a little more shopping for the weekend, and there is a brilliant scene in a Pparisian Hat shop, in which Eve quips to Helene, "That hat does something for you...It gives you a chin". The shop owner, Simone, played by John Barrymore's fourth and last wife Elaine Barrie, is also brilliant.

That hat does something for you...

One of Tibor's cabbies rams into Eve's limousine on it's way to George's chateau, and finds that she is staying at the Ritz. Lovelorn Tibor discovers that she is at George's plush chateau and follows in pursuit. He arrives during a party, and plays his role as the baroness's Hungarian husband brilliantly, just in time to save Eve being exposed by Helene. They are then, of course, given a joint room and Tibor proclaims his love.  Having seen her parents poor, Eve doesn't want that for herself, and rejects Tibor's advances. For all the twists and turns of the plot, click here.

This 1939 romantic comedy has some elements of screwball comedy, as was popular at the time, but it still stands up well today. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, who began his Hollywood career as an art director and costume designer, Midnight has a lush, extravagant feel with luxurious sets and exquisite suits,gowns and hats. The screen-writing team of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder toss dialogue about and Eve sparkles with biting wit - its hard to find a favourite line. There are also references to 'Cinderella', when Eve calls Tibor her fairy godmother and his taxi cab the pumpkin, but really Georges' character is more that of the fairy god mother.

Francis Lederer and Colbert

The role of Eve was originally meant for Barbara Stanwyck, but Colbert uses her natural fun and sophistication to great advantage in this film. Don Ameche, on a rare loan out from 20th Century-Fox, is gorgeous in this role, and he and Colbert make a fine duo. Barrymore's performance is clever and funny - his telephone conversation with Colbert is hilarious, and Astor is brilliantly catty as the perfect socialite wife.  

The cast of Midnight

Not as well known as other Colbert comedies (like It Happened One Night, The Palm Beach Story or The Egg and I), Midnight is an excellent film, and worth watching a few times just for the clothes. I found my copy at the thrift shop, but you can find a copy here. Watch this scene set a Georges Versailles country house first.

Enjoy, Deb xx