Category: Literary adaptation

The Good Earth (1937)

Seen at the time as an artistic statement, despite its worthiness today its a Hollywood embarrassment

Director: Sidney Franklin

Cast: Paul Muni (Wang Lung), Luise Rainer (O-Lan), Charley Grapewin (Old Father), Tilly Losch (White Lotus), Walter Connolly (Uncle), Jessie Ralph (Cuckoo), Soo Yong (Aunt), Keye Luke (Elder Son), Roland Lui (Younger Son), Suzanne Kim (Little fool), Ching Wah Lee (Ching), Harold Huber (Cousin), Olaf Hyten (Grain merchant)

Adapted from a best-selling, Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Pearl S Buck (who grew up the child of missionaries in China), The Good Earth introduced to many Americans a view of Chinese life they’d never imagined. The story’s basic structure was probably familiar: a hard-working, noble peasant Wang Lung (Paul Muni) marries O-Lan (Luise Rainer), slave of the Great House. Through hard work he increases his farm on the ‘good earth’, before famine drives him to desperation. Refusing to sell their land, the family go to the city, get caught up in revolution but O-Lan lucks out in finding a bundle of jewels. Now rich and powerful, Wang Lung buys the great house – but, of course, in his newfound pride casts aside O-Lan for concubine Lotus (Tilly Losch) and quarrels with his now adult sons. Will a plague of locusts bring everyone together again?

You can’t really go far when talking about The Good Earth without addressing the rather loud elephant in the room. This is the most infamous yellow-face production in Hollywood history. It had originally been planned to find Chinese-American leads, but producer Irving Thalberg – to whom the film was dedicated – decided America ‘wasn’t ready’ for that. You kinda wish he’d tried harder, especially as clearly America was ready for a load of Chinese actors in the film as long as they weren’t in main roles. It’s more-and-more egregious as the film goes on, especially since Muni’s make-up job is awful and the likes of Connolly and Grapewin lead the way in making no effort to act or sound even remotely Chinese, instead feeling like they’ve just wandered in from New York.

This didn’t stop The Good Earth from receiving critical acclaim and nominations for several Oscars including Best Picture. It even won Luise Rainer her second (back-to-back!) Oscar. In this muted performance, Rainer’s quiet, sad-eyed, perpetually suffering O-Lan is called on to spend almost every scene with eyes cast down while suffering poverty, starvation, humiliation or half a dozen other things with stoic resignation. A more deserved Oscar went to Karl Freund’s impressive photography (including creating a locust plague from coffee grains in the wind).

You’d argue The Good Earth also deserved recognition for its recreation of China in the fields of California. Thalberg originally hoped to film on location in China, only to find Ching Ka-shek’s government was less than thrilled with the film unless they had complete creative control over it. Instead, the film flawlessly recreated Chinese wheat and rice fields in the Californian heat, as well as a lusciously built ‘Grand House’. You can argue that, like all the rest of the design aesthetic in The Good Earth – costumes, hair, orientalist music – it’s really a very Victorian pastiche rather than anything you could call China (the same goes for the film’s pussy-footing around questions of communist rebellion and revolt), but at least it looks great.

It’s a reminder the film means well. At heart it’s a grand, middle-brow, prestige epic, directed by competent safe-hands (Sidney Franklin went on to make a career producing films like this). It tells a family story over two generations full of nobility, suffering and sacrifice with a hero who, for all his Chinese heritage, basically happily embraces the American Dream. There are sudden time-jumps – Wang Lung and O-Lan’s children go suddenly from babies to children then even more suddenly young adults – with time vaguely marked by the flourishing of a tree planted by O-Lan on her wedding night.

Despite this grand scope, or perhaps because of it, The Good Earth can feel slow and ponderous, a little too pleased at its own literary self-importance. That isn’t to say there are not some fine sequences. Its depiction of famine is very well drawn, as plants wither and vultures circle over fallen calves. From the sad regret of Wang Lung about butchering his beloved ox (something he rather selfishly delegates to the long-suffering duteous O-Lan) to the family’s near lynching by a mob convinced that they must be hording food. These sequences are very effective, not least because it’s hard not to sympathise with the unjust reward of hunger and poverty for our heroes hard work.

The film’s finest sequence is in the big city, after a mass migration shot like a Western land grab. In the city, with its mass of humanity and grinding poverty, the film gets embraces Eisenstein inspiration as the city bubbles with revolutionary resentment. A speaker on the street is gunned down, leading into a fast cut riot, with one striking shot seeing a man crushed under an overturned cannon. O-Lan is swept up into a mob ransacking a house, trampled in a panic before nearly being executed by the military. There is a sense of physical peril here, of genuine stakes – as well as moral quandaries in times of desperation (Wang Lung ferociously beats his starving son for stealing from a market stall) missing elsewhere in the earlier more worthy sequences.

The Good Earth however leaves such drama and stakes behind for a more conventional Victorian melodrama as Wang Lung, corrupted by money, turns on all around him in favour of concubine Lotus (Anna May Wong furiously refused to play this role, outraged that the leading Chinese American actress, was being offered the only flat-out unsympathetic part). It’s all as you would expect: Wang Lung behaves badly, O-Lan suffers silently, the viewer watches disapprovingly. Muni’s performance slumps by this point – always an overblown actor, his early youthful enthusiasm transforms into an overblown, over-emphatic display that feels more and more like a Yank thrown into a Chinese farm.

The Good Earth rallies in its final sequence with a striking running battle with a locust invasion – impressively shot by Freund and arguably deserving of a visual effects nomination – before its sentimental ending. But sadly, there isn’t enough solid maintained quality in The Good Earth to make it easy to look past the yellowface today. In a sign of how times change, what on release was considered by Hollywood a major artistic statement, is today seen as a skin-crawling embarrassment best forgotten.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Defining the public image of the novel, a sweeping romance that continues to win admirers

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff), Merle Oberon (Catherine Earnshaw), David Niven (Edgar Linton), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Isabella Linton), Flora Robson (Ellen Dean), Hugh Williams (Hindley Earnshaw), Donald Crisp (Dr Kenneth), Leo G Carroll (Joseph), Miles Mander (Mr Lockwood), Cecil Kellaway (Earnshaw), Cecil Humphreys (Judge Linton)

If there is a reason why Emily Brontë’s dark, Gothic revenge novel is now chiefly remembered as a sort of definitive Great Romance, it’s probably because of this movie. Wuthering Heights takes the bitter fury of the original novel and quite brilliantly boils it down into a frustrated, denied romance between two people who cannot be together rather than charting the self-destructive passion of two fundamentally selfish people. That caught on so much, nearly every adaptation that followed essentially copied this film, and many still dream of being swept up by Heathcliff.

Wuthering Heights achieves this by significantly hacking back Brontë’s novel. In fact, it pretty much only adapts half the book, scrapping all together the second volume charting the damaging impact on the characters children from their parents obsession. Instead, the focus is resolutely on the young orphan Heathcliff (Laurence Oliver), growing up in the home of the Earnshaws where is he hated by the jealous Hindley (Hugh Williams) but adored by Hindley’s sister Cathy (Merle Oberon). Humiliated once too often, and heartbroken after he mistakenly overhears Cathy feels he would be a disgrace as a husband compared to the wealthy Edgar Linton (David Niven), Heathcliff disappears. He returns, years later, wealthy and determined on revenge on those who wronged him while also claiming Cathy for his own.

This is the entrée to a romantic obsession Wyler’s film successfully dials up on a convincingly windswept reconstruction of the Yorkshire moors (actually California). It’s a film that works hard to smooth down its lead characters less sympathetic qualities – helped enormously by jettisoning that second half of the novel – and get us rooting for this lovestruck Romeo and Juliet, despite the obstacles put before them. Those obstacles are of course principally class-based, with the posh hats of Yorkshire (defined by David Niven’s suavely polite but relentlessly superior Linton) firmly glancing down their noses at Heathcliff’s tearaway qualities and poor background.

Mind you, Cathy seems rather torn as well. Merle Oberon’s version of Brontë’s heroine swerves between longing for the fiery romance Heathcliff promises and the security and comfort in the Linton’s home. The film’s attempt to make Cathy more sympathetic than her literary roots, is to stress this tearing between her heart and her head. Ironically, this actually tends to make her slightly less sympathetic today. Oberon frequently has to yo-yo between different emotional states, as Cathy juggles her longings and desires. What Oberon most comfortably takes on is the wind-swept passion of Cathy, her wild lack of common-sense that can frequently tip into blistering, jealous bitterness. Clearly, her unhappiness at love denied is what the film wants us to focus on, but Oberon can’t quite capture the inner pain that drives these actions here, making Cathy feel more selfish then intended.

Similarly, Heathcliff’s considerable rough edges (his original ruthless, malevolent force) are sanded down (the jettisoning of the second half of the novel is even better for him) to become a Byronic romantic hero. It’s further helped that Olivier is excellent, able to deliver both the romantic middle-distance starring, but also giving a real emotional weight to the turmoil and vulnerability in Heathcliff. Olivier can stare down the disapproving posh-nobs with calm defiance but also be driven into distraught shame and pain when he feels Cathy’s contempt. Few actors could do haughty coldness and arrogance as well as Olivier, but would have also made Heathcliff seem like a little-boy-lost, out-of-his-depth with the emotions around him.

Much is made to make Heathcliff sympathetic, in contrast with other characters. Linton – and Donald Crisp’s dismissively smug doctor – treat him with haughty contempt and don’t hesitate to label him as a force of evil for his treatment of the drunken Hindley. Something we can’t blame him for, after we’ve seen the casual meanness of Hugh William’s pathetic drunk or his snivelling cowardice when finally challenged by Heathcliff. To be fair, the film presents Linton surprisingly sympathetically – he adores Cathy and treats his servants well, it’s only Heathcliff’s awkward outsider status that riles him, like Niven’s gentlemanliness can’t process a man who doesn’t fit.

Flora Robson’s Nelly Dean – in the novel a far more critical figure of – is here a sympathetic ally. Wuthering Heights re-frames the vital Heathcliff overhearing scene – that motivates his departure and grievance – not as Nelly allowing him to hear the worst, but instead an accident she feels too embarrassed to prevent. At every point, the audience are invited excuse Heathcliff – to the extent we don’t even feel bad when Isabella Linton (a very fine performance by Geraldine Fitzgerald) insists she be allowed to marry him, despite Heathcliff’s clear using of her to provoke jealousy in Cathy. Poor Isabella seems only dimly aware of how much Heathcliff only has eyes for Cathy – and for that matter that Cathy’s protestations of indifference are far from convincing – but so powerfully faithful are our lovers presented, for all their betrayals of each other, it’s hard to berate them.

Wuthering Heights is also helped a great deal in its romantic mission by Wyler’s superbly atmospheric direction and the wonderfully brooding photography by Gregg Toland. Brontëland here is a place of looming shadows, with a real sense of the windswept coldness of the moor contrasted with the blazing passions of the leads. Alfred Newman’s score is full of luscious, rich themes adding to this effect. Wyler’s direction is pacey and draws excellent performances from the cast, while his superb framing and cutting adds tension throughout. The idea of the moor as somewhere outside societies rules, where Cathy and Heathcliff can live out a fantasy of full equality and romance, comes across so powerfully it’s now nearly the defining image of the novel.

Nearly. But for its lasting impact, it’s hard not to disagree with producer Sam Goldwyn’s claim that, while Wyler directed Wuthering Heights, Goldwyn made it. It was Goldwyn who pushed the development of the script towards romance and passion away from obsession and revenge. And it was Goldwyn who insisted on the final shot, a ghostly image of Heathcliff and Cathy walking away into the mist (a pair of extras with their backs to us, as Olivier and Oberon had moved on to other projects) that has had more impact than any other in cementing the idea this novel was about a love so strong it outreached death. It’s a far cry from Brontë’s view of a destructive obsession that ruined lives for generations– but then that would never have sold as many tickets would it?

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Gothic romance, wrongly remembered as a proto-horror, also has a dark sexual undercurrent

Director: Paul Leni

Cast: Conrad Veidt (Gwynplaine), Mary Philbin (Dea), Olga Baclanova (Duchess Josiana), Josephine Cowell (Queen Anne), George Siegmann (Dr Hardquanonne), Brandon Hurst (Barkilphedro), Sam De Grasse (James II), Stuart Holmes (Lord Dirry-Moir), Cesare Gravina (Ursus)

The Man Who Laughs often gets remembered as a horror film, which seems a bit odd when you actually watch this Victor Hugo adaptation. It’s really a sort of melodrama romance with a touch of conspiracy-tinged action. What possibly cements it as a comedy is the Glasgow-smile of its lead character Gwynplaine, played by that legend of silent cinema monsters Conrad Viedt. (It went on to inspire the look of The Joker, further cementing the film as horror in minds). But, far from a monster, Gwynplaine is a sweet-vulnerable figure who has find himself at the centre of an atmospheric drama with lashes of shadow and Gothic German expressionism from its director Paul Leni.

Gwynplaine has his twisted smile after his face was mutilated as a child, a punishment for his executed father, stripped of his lordship by order of James II (Sam De Grasse). Years later, in the reign of Queen Anne (Josephine Cowell), Gwynplaine is the leading figure of a travelling band of players, famous as the Man Who Smiles. He’s in love with the blind Dea (Mary Philbin) but disgusted and ashamed of his own appearance, which prevents him declaring his love. But his ancestry is discovered, as his (unwanted) claim to the title now held by the nymphomaniac Duchess Josiana (Olga Baclanova), and he becomes the centre of a scheme for power by the sinister Barkilphedro (Brandon Hurst).

The Man Who Laughs main focus is the gentle romance between Gwynplaine and Bea, which becomes absorbed into a tragic story of creeping gothic power. Gwynplaine wants nothing more than to be left alone. He hates being the centre of his attention, only really comfortable when disguised under theatrical make-up or with the blind Dea. Even then, Gwynplaine refuses to let her touch his face so terrified is he that she will reject the twisted facial features that she will find below her hands. This is told with a gentle, sympathetic sweetness by Leni, who dials down the misty misery and darkness that casts its shadow over the rest of the film, to allow this romance to spread hope.

It’s far different from the gloomy, gothic foreboding that covers the rest of the film in its frequently shadow and mist filled frame. From its opening in the bedroom of King James – lined with stony carvings that look like they’ve been peeled off the wall of an ancient Minster – it throws us into a grizzly execution for Gwynplaine’s father, locked into a spike-lined Iron Lady with a stoic look on his face. The banishment of Gwynplaine, along with the bizarre cult who deformed him, on a rickity ship passes through a frozen coast-line, where the young boy is cast aside the moment the going gets tough. From there, we see streets filled with hints of violence under the mists. Brandon Hurst’s darkly twisted Barkilphedro is the sort of man who thinks nothing of dispatching a witness to the torture chamber or dragging a victim in the middle of the night to who-knows-where. Hurst is an unsettling stand-out here, playing a man with no sense of loyalty or honour, happy to lie and manipulate as well as slimly ingratiate himself to anyone in power.

The gloomy sense of danger that this world is filled with is captured superbly in Leni’s film, which is stuffed with atmospheric compositions that only stress the unsettling sense of peril lurking around every corner. It’s also a world filled with perverse sexual longing. It’s hard to imagine The Man Who Laughs having a whisper of existing a few years later under the Hays Code, such is the dark sexual current flowing beneath it. Frequently sexual desire rears its head, from the coded glances Queen Anne gives the missing chair of the Duchess, to the base desires that drag Gwynplaine from his bed one night to explore a beguiling offer from the Duchess.

The Duchess is the heart of the sexual darkness in the film, an allusive seductress we are introduced to lazing practically naked on a bed, attempting to seduce Barkilphedro to follow her whims with him perching at the end of her bed and allowed a peek of her (possibly non-existent) underwear. Not until Basic Instinct would another villainous of such rampant, unabashed sexuality hit the screen. The Duchess is as sexually excited by the thought of men fighting over her on the street (and its implied would be more than happy to satisfy any number of winners) as she is hornily fascinated by Gwynplaine’s unusual features. She is able to puppet along Stuart Holmes’ clueless Lord, who can barely tear his eyes from her even while he knows she is treating him like dirt. Her sensuality even runs the risk of seducing our hero, and her unabashed revelling in her sexuality feels light years ahead of its time.

But the lasting impact of The Man Who Laughs comes from its lead character, wonderfully embodied by Conrad Veidt in one of the legendary silent performances. Labouring under the facial disfigurement make-up – which left his face and mouth sore and exhausted – Veidt belays the restrictive nature of his make-up to offer a parade of expressions, variations on the same smile. Devotion, shame, joy, excitement, fear and hope play across his face so clearly that, even with the lower part of his mouth rigidly fixed, it’s always certain exactly what he is feeling. Presented to the House of Lords at the film’s end, Veidt is given a marvellous set-piece of moral force, berating the crowing bewigged courtiers who turn on him and vigorously asserting his right to choose. It’s a crowning moment of a subtle and moving performance.

And it makes Gwynplaine so sympathetic, it’s even more unusual that it’s been remembered as a horror, for all the film ends in a gothic chase and the brutally bloody intervention of a loyal but fierce wolf hound. Because The Man Who Laughs is, in the end, a hopeful and undeniably romantic testimony to how love can in fact conquer all, which for all its gothic gloom, leaves us sailing into a sunset relieved that the future promises all the best for our heroes.

The House of Mirth (2000)

Masterful adaption of Wharton, beautifully judged, brilliantly acted and superbly filmed

Director: Terence Davies

Cast: Gillian Anderson (Lily Bart), Eric Stoltz (Lawrence Seldon), Dan Aykroyd (Gus Trenor), Anthony LaPaglia (Simon Rosedale), Laura Linney (Bertha Dorset), Terry Kinney (George Dorset), Eleanor Bron (Julia Peniston), Jodhi May (Grace Stepney), Elizabeth McGovern (Carry Fisher), Penny Downie (Judy Trenor), Pearce Quigley (Percy Glyde), Lorelei King (Mrs Hatch)

When Scorsese bought Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence to the screen, it was seen as a wild swing out in his career. You could have said the same thing when Terence Davies made The House of Mirth, an unlikely follow-up from a host of artistically constructed, meditative memory pieces. But in doing so, Davies executed perhaps one of the most perfectly executed translations of a novel to the screen, a gorgeous, beautifully moving film. Put simply, in its grace and magic glow, it’s pretty hard to imagine The House of Mirth being done better.

Our hero is Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson), a woman who feels she is at the heart of 1905 New York society but will discover her grip on life is far less secure than she believes. Dependent on her aunt (Eleanor Bron) for financial support, needing to marry for money, perhaps in love with not-quite-rich-enough bachelor Lawrence Seldon (Eric Stoltz), unwilling to compromise on her principles and desires, Lily will make a series of catastrophic decisions. Thee will leave her facing the brunt of the ruthlessness of her so-called friends such as banker Gus Trenor (Dan Aykroyd) or Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney) and her world falling apart with extraordinary speed.

Shot with a visual beauty inspired by a host of painters – most notably John Singer Sergeant, whose compositions are referenced throughout to breathtaking effect – Davies film is measured, wise and slowly unleashes a powerful emotional impact. Carefully adapted, Davies film is awash with the intricate, ornate dialogue of early twentieth century New York: speech that, it quickly becomes clear, is about disguising and obscuring the true meaning of what is being said. New York society is awash with lies, deceptions, selfishness and greed, all of it disguised with fine words and high-living – as Lily says “Why is it when we meet we always play this elaborate game?”

What’s tragic about Lily Bart is that it’s a game she believes herself to be skilled at, time revealing she is a novice stumbling in the big leagues. On top of which, as someone penniless, unmarried and reliant on others, she has a terrible lack of security. A lack of security meaning people like Trenor can demand a very personal reward in exchange for his financial services, without worrying about disgrace. Someone savvier would have seen through Ackroyd’s wonderful portrait of barely concealed greed under Trevnor’s avuncular pleasantness. Just as a more worldly figure would have seen that (the simply brilliant) Laura Linney’s gossipy Bertha sees Lily as nothing more than a simple soul ripe for manipulation, a pathetic fall-guy to hide her own infidelities.

It becomes clear there is a doomed, tragic quality to Lily. She’s introduced emerging from a blackened screen in a puff of train steam, an Anna Karenina-ish echo hinting at her eventual fate. In an extraordinarily complex, perfectly judged performance from Gillian Anderson, Lily emerges as a woman of far greater depth and principle than we (or she) suspects. But prone to terrible errors of judgment, often for the right reasons. She is too principled to marry for money, but not savvy enough to play the courting game, publicly humiliating the wealthy Percy Glyde (Pearce Quigley) who she dutifully woos, only to stand him up for a walk that is a clear proposal hint.

But she is too aware of her wordly needs to embrace the mutual love between her and Eric Stoltz’s charmingly enigmatic Lawrence Stern. These two conduct a dance of suggestive flirtation, without ever truly committing their feelings openly. Lily seems to be almost a tease, but Anderson beautifully demonstrates a hesitancy born from an attempt to be honest, to find love and money in one man. The heart-rending realisation later in the film that she has made a terrible mistake, out of a mix of principle, pride, foolishness and decency is captured in Anderson’s superbly pained expression – not to mention a late emotional out-pouring that is heart-breaking in its pain and honesty.

Slowly, Lily’s world falls apart, Davies capturing the tragedy with coolly observant camerawork gliding through society, echoing the photographic approach that defined his earlier work. In every sequence, and between every scene cut, Lily’s position slowly, at first imperceptibly, becomes worse and worse. Less and less secure, until eventually she’s lost to society, in a world of run-down bedsits and laudanum addictions. Where she brutally realises her life of society balls has made her a “useless person”, with no skills and utterly out-of-depth in a world where she must earn her living.

Anderson’s punctures Lily beautifully throughout with a naïve vulnerability. In a way, the undeserved social disgrace Lily suffers (wrongly seen as a slut and a home wrecker) makes her cling even more closely to her principles – even as they become more and more damaging to her. These principles can seem as inexplicable to us as they do to her few allies: she pays out a stock of her limited personal finances to cover up Bertha’s affair with Lawrence, continuing to cover for her even as Bertha burns her in front of all of New York (and barely considers using her evidence for blackmail). It’s part of what makes Lily an astonishingly admirable figure, even as her life spirals downward.

The powerful emotion of this, the deep investment Davies helps us feel for a woman who becomes more and more understandable to us as she is more and more stripped of privilege, is complemented by exquisite film-making. One breath-takingly superb transition sees Davies camera drift through a grand house with all its furniture and fittings carefully hidden under dustsheets, out into a rain-speckled stream, the camera swooping lower and faster until the water transitions into the sun-kissed waves of the Mediterranean: a gorgeously, masterfully simple transition that moves us across weeks and miles in a moment. Haunting images abound, a spilt ink pot in the film’s closing sequence like a gut punch of emotional rawness.

Really, what Davies understands, is that Wharton’s bitter comedy is set in a ‘vile’ world. In society, nothing matters other than the quality of homes and classiness of backgrounds. The finest people can lie, cheat and steal with no blowback. Nouveau riche like Simon Rosedale (a very good Anthony LaPaglia) are judged as vulgar when their actions reveal they are decent. It’s a world where you start to expect no one is happy: Lily’s cousin Grace (an excellent Jodhi May) is unloved, her aunt miserable, half of society are privately humiliated cuckolds, deeply bitter and unhappy.

The House of Mirth is a truly outstanding literary adaptation, beautifully assembled, wonderfully acted – Anderson, in particular, was and is an absolute revelation – and directed with a deeply powerful simplicity by Davies. It’s possibly his masterpiece.

A Tale of Two Cities (1936)

Well made Dickens adaptation, that manages to streamline the novel very successfully

Director: Jack Conway

Cast: Ronald Colman (Sydney Carton), Elizabeth Allan (Lucie Manette), Edna May Oliver (Miss Pross), Reginald Owen (C.J. Stryver), Basil Rathbone (Marquis St. Evremonde), Blanche Yurka (Madame Therese De Farge), Henry B. Walthall (Dr. Alexandre Manette), Donald Woods (Charles Darnay), Walter Catlett (John Barsad), Fritz Leiber (Gaspard), H. B. Warner (Theophile Gabelle), Mitchell Lewis (De Farge), Claude Gillingwater (Jarvis Lorry), Billy Bevan (Jerry Cruncher), Isabel Jewell (Seamstress)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and “It is a far, far better thing I do now…”. Are there more famous openings and closings in literature than these from Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities? The novel is bought marvellously to life by David O Selznick in his follow-up to David Copperfield. It still might just be definitive. With several impressive actors embodying some of Dicken’s most memorable characters, grand sets and a fabulous mix of faithfulness and pacey condensing, A Tale of Two Cities stands as one of the finest Dickens adaptations.

The plot sticks faithfully to the book: Lucie Manette’s (Elizabeth Allan) father Dr Manette (Henry B Walthall) is recalled to life and released from the Bastille in the 1780s. They travel to England where Lucie Manette falls in love with the heir to the Maquis St Evermonde (Basil Rathbone), Charle Darney (Donald Woods) who has forsaken his families wealth and cruelty. But she is also loved by dissolute-but-brilliant lawyer Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman). When the French Revolution strikes, Darney returns to France to rescue an old family retainer only to be arrested and condemned to death by a mob whipped up by the vengeful Madame De Farge (Blanche Yurka). How far will Carton go to save the man who has the wife and family he has dreamed of?

A Tale of Two Cities pretty much perfectly captures the atmosphere of Dickens’ novel, from its mist-filled opening with a carriage rattling through the French countryside via its vivid bringing to life of a gallery of Dickensian eccentrics through to its closing sections, deep in the heart of Revolutionary France. The novel has been skilfully condensed down by WP Lipscomb and SN Behrman’s script, so that every beat is recognisably in place without the film stretching out with overwhelming length.

It manages to capture the humour in many of Dickens side characters, from the corrupt chancer Barsard, the puffed-up lawyer Stryver to the surprisingly decent graverobber (or Resurrectionist as he prefers) the brilliantly-named Jerry Cruncher. Sequences, such as Darney’s early trial (on trumped up charges of treason) and his brilliant acquittal by Carton (working silently through Stryver) are perfectly executed. The homely gentleness of the Darney family life, that so crucially melts Carton’s cynical heart, are perfectly captured. The heart of the novel is very effectively bought to life.

So is its portrait of a France crammed with injustice, righteous anger and murderous, indiscriminate fury. The trampling of a young boy by the Maquis’ carriage (the Maquis a perfect portrait of imperious arrogance from Basil Rathbone) is shocking, echoed later when a cavalier’s horse tramples a woman at a food riot (an effect only marginally weakened by the fact it’s clearly a dummy). In impressive, Eisenstein-inspired sequences that cut between grand scale and enraged, impassioned faces, the revolution takes full effect with an impressive storming of the Bastille. (These grand sequences, were directed by Jaques Tourner and Val Lewton).

Among the French it’s easy to feel sympathy at first for the De Farges, Mitchell Lewis’ Ernest a genuinely decent man moved to violence after years of provocation. His wife, brilliantly played by Blanche Yurka, is a similarly impassioned witness to cruelty and abuse, but whose fanaticism and unbending fury tips her from a sympathetic if cold figure into a relentless killer who doesn’t care who pays the price of her quest for a personal revenge. Yurka’s grim-eyed obsession is perfectly portrayed in a low-key performance which bubbles with menace. She also has one of the most striking fights in 30s cinema with Edna May Oliver’s (who is outstanding as one of her patented Maiden Aunt figures) Miss Pross.

Finest of all is Ronald Colman, in a role he was so desperate to take he even agreed to shave off the iconic moustache. Colman superbly brings to life the cynical, sardonic lawyer with a real relish but gives his playful drunkenness a deeply melancholic sense of loneliness. When he speaks with Lucie, Colman’s sadly resigned pleasantness expertly communicates both his live, regret and acceptance that he can never speak of his feelings. Colman insisted that he not, as is often the case in adaptations, also play Darney (the book’s crucial plot point that the two men are all-but identical is completely written out) so he could focus on this crucial character, and it pays dividends with possibly a career-best performance.

Colman is essential to the film’s powerfully affecting final sequence, that follows the fate of those condemned to die at the guillotine, his brave acceptance of his fate, expertly tinged with a little touch of fear and a genuine contentment that in sacrifice his life finds meaning. Isabel Jewell makes a fine companion in this sequence as a wrongly condemned seamstress, she and Colman forging a tender and genuinely moving bond. The film finds a real nobility and tragic force in this sequence, while not shirking in the horror of mechanised death or mob rule.

Not everything works perfectly. Jack Conway, who directed most of the dialogue parts, is not the world’s most inspired visualist and while he draws fine performances from the cast, these sequences are strikingly flatter and more theatrical than the more epic Tourner and Lewton sequences. Donald Woods, admittedly given very little to work with (also from Dickens), makes a particularly bland Darney while Elizabeth Allan’s Lucie is also less of a dynamic presence than the story really needs.

But these are gripes in a production that is actually both an very effective film and has some striking performances of an expert Dickensian nature with Ronald Colman in particular outstandingly and richly humane, funny and moving. It’s telling that no adaptation since as ever managed to so effectively capture the tone of the novel, communicate the story so skilfully or carry as much pathos, tension and even humour as this one manages. As a Dickens adaptation, it is very much the best of times.

A Farewell to Arms (1932)

Hemingway hated this lusciously made high romance version of this novel, very well-filmed

Director: Frank Borzage

Cast: Helen Hayes (Catherine Barkley), Gary Cooper (Lt Frederic Henry), Adolphe Menjou (Captain Rinaldi), Mary Philips (Helen Ferguson), Jack La Rue (Priest), Blanche Friderici (Head Nurse), Mary Forbes (Miss Van Campen)

If there was one thing Ernest Hemingway got out of David O Selznick’s A Farewell to Arms it was a lifelong mate in Gary Cooper. Presumably, they agreed never to discuss the film during their boozing sessions, as Hemingway loathed it. Probably because Selznick’s crowd-pleasing version carefully strips out the political and moral themes of Hemingway in favour of ramping up the romance. Of course, Selznick was right that it’s quite a damn big part of the book. But it’s not how Hemingway liked to see it.

In any case, a romance is what we get – and, of course,it’s tinged with tragedy. Lt Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) is an American serving during the First World War with the Italian Army ambulance corp. Returning to hospital, he encounters English nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), herself mourning the death of her fiancée. After an initial bad impression, they start a romance. One that’s hard to sustain across the vast distances of war and the jealous censoring of their mail by Henry’s friend Captain Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou) who hates his pal losing his head over a woman. When a pregnant Catherine has desperate news, fate conspires to keep them apart.

Hemingway was of course right that this version of his novel was more a tragic romance, rather than the sort of state-of-moral-consciousness story he felt it was. It almost wasn’t even a tragic romance, since Selznick had two endings shot, with the happy ending attacked to many out-of-city screenings. The film still struggled, cut down by ten minutes after its release to meet the stringent requirements of the production code. But I wonder, did Hemingway really prefer the more serious, self-important remake that followed? (Probably not, since he famously told Selznick to shove it up his ass).

At least with this Farewell to Arms he had the rich, imaginative camera work by Frank Borzage. There are several striking tracking shots, as Borzage follows in the wake of characters entering the grand houses converted into hospitals. There is also some gloriously imaginative work where the camera takes the place of Cooper as he is wheeled into hospital on a gurney in a sustained POV shot. Ceilings track past us, faces loom in over the frame and it culminates in an almost completely unclear close-up of Hayes as she looms tightly into shot to inspect him. Combine that with a striking filmic montage that plays out the horrors of combat in one well-edited montage (in addition the very first shot is a corpse on a hill – no doubt war is hell) and you’ve got some striking film-making throughout from a director with an impressive visual eye.

Farewell to Arms also has a perfectly cast lead for Hemingway. Cooper is everything you might want from this novelist’s hero: a man’s man without a shadow of a doubt but, in true Cooper style, also sensitive, innocent and strangely child-like and vulnerable. There is no relish for combat in him, he’s an architect who lingeringly chats about his ideas. He’s got a playful bashfulness with women – few other actors would have made their character seem more innocent when framed playing with a good-time-girl’s foot across a table in a bar. By the end of the film, Cooper genuinely feels like a lost soul, like a big kid waiting for an adult to come along and fix things.

It works particularly well, because it’s important to Farewell to Arms construction that Cooper should never feel like a rogue. It’s only awful circumstances and terrible deeds that keeps him apart from Hayes. Left to his own devices he would have course rushed to her side: the film using this moral fidelity to justify the pre-marital sex the couple engage in. Much of the content more openly addressing this was, of course, snipped in the post-code re-edit – but it’s hard to escape when the entire plot revolves around Catherine being pregnant in the end.

The romance element remains however the primary calling card. Borzage, who often favoured high romance (especially in the face of adversity), clearly felt A Farewell to Arms was made for him. He even manages to work around the vast height difference (nearly a foot!) between Hayes and Cooper (who towers over her in mid-shot). Much of A Farewell to Arms is given over to their courtship and romance: from a muddled first meeting, confusion over a kiss to the warm embraces of Henry’s sick leave under Catherine’s care. Hayes gives a decent performance as Catherine, even if she seems a little more forced and mannered than Cooper’s relaxed naturalness. The increasingly grand tragedy of the film’s closing moments also leads to her leaning in a little too much towards intense stares and breathy line-deliveries.

Perhaps most interestingly though, there is another unspoken romance at the heart of A Farewell to Arms. The adaptation dials up the importance of Adolphe Menjou’s spaghetti-accented Captain Rinaldi. Menjou does fine work as this fun-loving, irreverent surgeon, but by making him the jealous reason for the lovers’ separation, it’s hard not to infer a homoerotic element in his feelings for Cooper’s Henry. Surely, it’s more than friendship that cause Rinaldi to travel across country to treat his friend. It’s hard not to read something into his continued irritated complaints about how ‘unmanly’ Henry is by allowing himself to he wrapped up in a woman, or the casually spiteful way he prevents them writing to each other. There is more than a little of the jilted lover to Rinaldi, a fascinating sub-plot you wish the film could explore more.

Borzage’s film may have been despised by the novelist, but it has some fine moments. Sure it’s romance often seems to fit very naturally into a traditional Romeo and Juliet style-template and its frequently more inspired in its framing than it is in the pace and depth of its storytelling (there is also, as well, a faint lack of chemistry between the stars). But there is a fine performance by Cooper and much to enjoy in its tight, lean frame, even if it never manages to find true inspiration.

Hamnet (2025)

A powerful film about grief that works best in its smaller moments rather than its grand ending

Director: Chloé Zhao

Cast: Jessie Buckley (Agnes Shakespeare), Paul Mescal (Will Shakespeare), Emily Watson (Mary Shakespeare), Joe Alwyn (Bartholomew Hathaway), Jacopi Jupe (Hamnet Shakespeare), Olivia Lynes (Judith Shakespeare), Justine Mitchell (Joan Shakespeare), David Wilmot (John Shakespeare), Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Susanna Shakespeare), Noah Jupe (Hamlet)

“Grief fills the room up with my absent child”. It’s possibly one of the most profound things said about grief and loss. Naturally, it came from Shakespeare who, more than any other writer, could peer inside our souls and understand their inner workings. Grief can strike anyone, and overwhelm them, leaving them hollowed out husks, uncertain how to carry on. It’s a terrifying force that grows to dominate Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s literary best seller: how it creeps, unexpectantly, into lives that are contented and happy and works to tear down their foundations.

Hamnet imagines the emotional impact of the death of a young boy on his parents: those parents in this case being Will (Paul Mescal) and Agnes (Jessie Buckley) Shakespeare. The film takes us from courtship to marriage, Agnes pushing Will to follow his dreams in London, the birth of their children and death’s seizure of their son Hamnet (Jacopi Jupe). It will have a deep impact on their lives: for Agnes a world of grief and isolation, for Will a cathartic injection of his grief into his new play, Hamlet.

There are many things in Hamnet that work extremely well, not least it’s strong emotional force. Much of the film’s second half is extremely moving, a lot of that from the gentle build of its first half. Grief isn’t an expectant force – it bursts, unannounced into lives. The first half of Hamnet is romantic and optimistic. Will and Agnes’ courtship, two awkward outsiders in a small, rural town, is touchingly portrayed, full of awkward gestures and flashes of joy. Their marriage – over the objections of many, but with the endearing support of Agnes devoted brother, played with real heart by Joe Alwyn – is very happy and they have delightful children who they love very much.

There are tensions: it’s tough to live under the roof of Will’s parents. His father John (David Wilmot) is an abusive bully, his mother Mary (Emily Watson, on excellent empathetic form under a harsh exterior) judgemental. Will is desperate for something more than being a second-rate glove-maker. It’s actually sweet that Hamnet interprets their living apart not due to marital troubles, but a recognition that their love doesn’t need constant contact. Will’s need of London’s bustle is balanced by Agnes’ desire for nature and (ironically) to protect her children from the disease-ridden big city.

It’s the first hour’s playful, graceful unfolding that makes much of the second half hit home. Zhao’s film has an ethereal romanticism, with the camera gliding with patient, unobtrusive warmth around Agnes and Will. While dealing with raw emotions, Zhao brings a sense of magical realism to the film without overplaying her hand. A large part of Agnes outsider status is based on perceptions of her as a witch, who spends her time in the forest building her herbal knowledge (Zhao introduces her with a phenomenal birds-eye shot, nestled womb-like in the roots of a large tree), trusts her dreams and has formed a deep link with a pet hawk. This other-worldly presence in Agnes, carries across in the film’s vibrant, dreamy nature – and shows why Agnes is so drawn to the shy, awkward poet, who similarly feels most alive in his own visions and dreams.

It makes the second half particularly impactful, as the truly shocking death of a child (surely one of the most traumatic child deaths put on screen, devoid of peaceful, Little Nell-like beauty and with Hamnet suffering in prolonged, agonising pain) rips into the happy haven of this life. Zhao’s compassionate distance works brilliantly here, as the film brings us into the pained lives of these bereaved parents, without every once making us feel like intruding voyeurs. Instead, we feel every blow of the film’s perfectly observed exploration of the mundane reality of grief.

A lot of that is also due to Jessie Buckley’s searing performance as Agnes. Buckley is perfect as this slightly jagged, eccentric but determined women who knows her own mind and refuses to bend to others, full of an earthy romanticism. Her vulnerability is there – there is a very moving moment during her twin’s birth, when Buckley rests her head on Watson’s shoulder and weeps pitifully for her (deceased) mummy. But it doesn’t prepare us for Buckley’s perfectly judged raw emotionality. From an agonised, near silent scream at Hamnet’s death, Buckley shifts brilliantly into a shocked quiet whisper that she must tidy up the mess. Over the next few scenes, she collapses into herself, berating her husband with cold fury, wanting him to feel as paralysed with grief as she is. This is a fabulous performance by Buckley, well-matched by Mescal, whose pained soulfulness is perfect for a man processing grief through drama.

But I found the transition of this grief into the creation of Hamlet strangely less moving and more contrived. I’ve always found the attempts to use Shakespeare’s work to fill historical gaps in his biography tiresome. Hamnet studiously ignores that the role was played first by the middle-aged Richard Burbage, rather than a young actor – Noah Jupe, brother to Jacobi playing Hamnet – resembling the late Hamnet. Hamnet carefully re-cuts and selectively stages scenes of Hamlet to present it solely as the tragedy of a lost, sensitive soul. Lord knows what the emotionally enthralled Agnes made of the parts of Hamlet the film doesn’t stage: Polonius’ murder, the abuse of Ophelia, Hamlet making “country matter” gags and so on. Fundamentally it’s a lazy conceit that art can only come by replicating someone’s real experience and is presented in an obvious way designed to score straight-forward emotional points.

Hamnet gets so much right, it hurts that it doesn’t always work. There is an emotional anachronism to the central concept that didn’t land with me: was Hamlet just an inspired, cathartic therapy session for Shakespeare (unlikely since he ripped the plot from an older Danish legend called Amleth)? It lifts me out of things, just as the production and costumes frequently feels a little too clean, a little heritage (even more so considering the raw emotions). Moments of dialogue don’t quite ring true and little things like Shakespeare’s swimming ability (a skill possessed by virtually no one in Tudor England) or its coy dance around confirming Agnes’ historical illiteracy that jar. I’ll also confess I’m irritated by the film’s carrying across of the books conceit in avoiding naming Shakespeare for as long as possible (for almost 100 minutes), while making it clear from quotes throughout exactly who Mescal is playing.

But of course, I know, it’s an emotional fantasia, so perhaps it doesn’t matter that it feels like something shot on a National Trust property. When Zhao’s poetic, observational realism works, it carries real impact. There is a moment at the film’s end when a mirrored overhead shot with the film’s opening, and a look of such radiant hope crosses Buckley’s face, you forgive the manipulative and obvious musical choice accompanying it. Hamnet works best, not in its final showboating act, but in the raw, quiet, everyday moments that show both happiness and grief it gets close to an emotional force that leaves a lasting impact.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Chaney establishes his own legend in this crowd-pleasing epic, shot on the grandest scale

Director: Wallace Worsley

Cast: Lon Chaney (Quasimodo), Patsy Ruth Miller (Esmeralda), Norman Kerry (Phoebus de Chateaupers), Kate Lester (Madame de Gondelaurier), Winifred Bryson (Fleur de Lys), Nigel de Brulier (Dom Claud), Brandon Hurst (Jehan), Ernest Torrance (Clopin), Tully Marshall (Louis XI), Harry van Meter (Mons. Neufchantel)

If any film cemented Lon Chaney’s reputation as ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ it was this. Chaney knew Quasimodo was a gift for him, securing the rights for himself and shipping them around the major studios until Universal Studios bit. Setting up the project as a ‘Super Jewel’ (with Chaney taking a handsome pay cheque), a near full scale reproduction of the exterior (and many of the interiors) of Notre Dame was built on the Universal set and the film became a smash hit.

Quasimodo (Lon Chaney) is the frightful bellringer of Notre Dame cathedral, a lonely hunchbacked man, mocked and scorned by Parisians. Half-deaf after years of bellringing, he is in thrall to his master Jehan (Brandon Hurst), brother of the saintly Dom Claud (Nigel de Brulier). Jehan tasks Quasimodo to kidnap the beautiful Roma girl Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller), adopted daughter of Clopin (Ernest Torrance), ‘king’ of the beggars. It fails, but the arrested Quasimodo is treated with kindness by Esmeralda and falls in love with her. Esmeralda though is in love with roguish captain Phoebus (Norman Kerry), only to be accused of attempted murder after the jealous Jehan stabs him. Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda as the city collapses into revolt.

Brilliantly assembled by producer Carl Laemmle, Hunchback looks amazingly impressive. The reconstruction of Notre Dame (and the square around it) is genuinely stunning in its scale and detail. (Surely thousands of viewers believed it’s the real thing!) The sets inside the cathedral skilfully use depth perception to create cloisters that seem to go on forever. Crowd scenes fill the film with vibrancy: from the off, with its medieval feast of fools, it’s a dynamic explosion of energy, with everything from men dressed as bears to dancing skeletons, full of raucous naughtiness. Later battle scenes (including a cavalry charge) before Notre Dame’s doors brilliantly use the sets striking height.

The film’s finest effect though is Chaney’s Quasimodo, a portrait of sadness and timidity under an aggressive frame. Chaney’s physical dexterity and ability to bend and twist his body is put to astonishingly good effect, as a he swings on bells, clambers up and down the set and contorts his body into a series of twisted shapes that drip of pathos. He finds a childlike innocence in this man who knows virtually nothing of the real world and latches onto those who show him affection with a puppy-like adoration.

The film’s finest sequences show-case Chaney: whether that’s following his graceful descent down the walls of Notre Dame or seeing his fear and vulnerability exposed in front of the crowd. In a film of such vastness, perhaps its most striking moment is one of genuine intimacy. Tied to a wheel for a public lashing (taking the rap for Jehan’s misdeeds), Chaney retreats into shame and fear and recoils in terror when Esmeralda approaches him – only to soften and almost collapse into a pool of gratitude when she tenderly offers him water rather than the abuse the crowd gives him.

It’s a striking testament to Chaney’s mastery of physical transformation, but also his ability to humanise those who appear as monsters. Quasimodo’s genuine love for Esmeralda is very sweet, as his bubbly excitement at experiencing such feelings for the first time. Chaney’s determination to protect Esmeralda at all costs (including misguidedly defending Notre Dame from a gang of beggars as bent on protecting her as he is) is very touching. It’s a genuinely great performance.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame cemented the public image of the novel – most of the (many) later versions that followed used it as an inspiration. For starters, it moved Quasimodo into the most prominent role. Forever more, the public image of the novel was a lonely, tragic man, swinging on bell ropes and shouting sanctuary. Not just that: this film started a trend of splitting the novel’s hypocritical churchman Frollo into two characters (here a noble priest and his villainous brother) to avoid making a man of the cloth a villain. It also started the ball rolling on re-interpretating the selfish Phoebus as more of a matinee-idol romantic figure. Not to mention seeing the film as a gothic-laden, semi-romance with Hugo’s social and political commentary utterly shorn off.

Today we only have a reduced road-show cut of the film. This does mean Hunchback sometimes rushes or abandons plot points, or swiftly cuts off scenes with an occasional abruptness. An entire plot strand of Eulalie Jensen’s deranged old woman (secretly the mother of Esmeralda) is utterly abandoned without any emotional conclusion. Tully Marshall’s Louis XI pops up for a few brief scenes only to be ditched with brutal abruptness. Phoebus’ initial fiancée Fleur du Lys and her mother emerge for a few key scenes to be all but forgotten by the close.

Hunchback ditches many of the novel’s complexities. As mentioned, Phoebus – in the book a creepy semi-rapist – becomes a conventional romantic leading man. Hunchback has echoes of his novel’s more ambiguous original: his first scene flirting with Esmeralda features a cut to a spider spinning a web and Louis XI openly calls him a rogue. But his affection for Esmeralda is treated as genuine, allowing the film to excuse his shabby treatment of Fleur de Lys. Norman Kerry does his best with all this, although the audience is far more invested in Quasimodo’s unrequited love for Esmeralda.

Similarly, the social commentary around the beggar’s, led by a charismatic Ernest Torrence as Clopin, gets shaved back. Hunchback throws in a snide comment about ‘justice’ under Louis in its title cards as Quasimodo is thrashed for Jehan’s crimes and Esmeralda’s receives a farcical trial for murder (despite her ‘victim’ Phoebus still being alive) concluding with an iron boot being screwed onto her foot to extract a confession. But the beggar’s campaign for justice gets short-changed in the cut, and it’s just as easy to see them as a gang of troublemakers (who need to be restrained from a lynching at one point by Esmeralda).

Hunchback was directed by Wallace Worsley after other options, including Erich von Stroheim, Tod Browning, Raoul Walsh and Frank Borzage were rejected over concerns about their lack of budget control (an odd concern, seeing as they built a 225-foot replica of the lower front of Notre Dame, including each individual carving and gargoyle). Worsley brings professionalism, marshalling the vast crowd with great skill – promotional material made huge play of him casting aside his megaphone in favour of a radio to control the huge cast. There are few moments of genuine visual originality or inspiration in Hunchback, but Worsley captures the scale with some fine camerawork (especially striking images looking down from the top of Notre Dame).

Hunchback is an epic drama, a grand melodrama with a brilliant performance by Chaney. However, you can argue its focus is on entertainment rather than cinematic skill. There are genuinely very few truly memorable shots. It feels like a producer’s film, where resources are expertly managed and the money spent is all up on screen. But when its’ put up there as entertainingly as this, who can complain about that?

King Solomon’s Mines (1950)

Travelogue journey through the jungle is the main appeal here, in an otherwise bog-standard adventure tale

Director: Compton Bennett, Andrew Marton

Cast: Deborah Kerr (Elizabeth Curtis), Stewart Granger (Allan Quatermain), Richard Carlson (John Goode), Hugo Haas (Van Brun), Lowell Gilmore (Eric Masters), Kimursi (Khiva), Siriaque (Umbopa), Sekaryongo (Gagool), Baziga (King Twala)

H Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines was one of the definitive ‘ripping yarns’, schoolboy tales of daring do in places far away from England’s cricket pavilions. This travelogue epic strips down Haggard’s story to a minimum, its main purpose being giving viewers over an hour of location footage from the African safari, all in glorious technicolour. It’s perhaps not a surprise that it was a massive box-office success, bit it is to think this very average adventure went up against All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard for Best Picture. Surely only its mega-bucks takings at the Box Office can explain that.

Allan Quatermain (Stewart Granger), the world’s most famous hunter, has made his life shepherding wealthy Europeans in front of exotic animals they can shoot. Tired of the life and sick of arrogant tourists, so he’s not interested in joining what he considers a damn-fool crusade – a trek through the jungle to find Henry Curtis, missing in search of the mythical treasure of King Solomon. Money talks however, if he can’t stand what he sees as the pampered arrogance of his new employer, Curtis’ wife Elizabeth (Deborah Kerr). She, in turn, is infuriated by his arrogance and rudeness. This odd couple trek off, accompanied by Elizabeth’s brother John Goode (Richard Carlson), Allan’s trusted bearer Khiva (Kimursi), picking up mysterious Umbopa (Siriaque) along the way.

King Solomon’s Mines already re-mixed the novel to introduce a (inevitable) female character: the novel has Henry Curtis searching for his brother. But you can’t have an adventure epic without a opposites-attract love story blooming, and it’s not the greatest surprise that’s what happens between Kerr and Granger’s. (Apparently, it also spilled over into real life as well). “You keep watching each other, what’s wrong” queries the clueless Goode halfway through as Kerr and Granger squabble, bicker and mentally undress each other for over an hour before a late-night clinch up a tree. That is, to be honest, kind of it in the film which otherwise is almost completely free of plot.

Instead it focuses overwhelmingly on the opening section of the novel, the actual journey to the mysterious mines. This swallows up over 70 of the film’s 108 minutes, showcasing the extensive location shooting across Uganda, Kenya and the Congo, with Richard Surtees’ (Oscar-winning) cinematography capturing a never-ending parade of animals, jungle foliage, crocodile-infested rivers, vast plains and a parade of indigenous tribes all happy to co-operate with the filming (as well as supplying much of the cast). So much footage was shot, that b-roll footage collected by Surtees found its way into dozens of MGM films for years-to-come.

And it was catnip for the punters, stunned by seeing the sights of the safari in glorious technicolour, soundtracked by brief bursts of tribal music (there is no orchestral score at all, rare for the time). King Solomon’s Mines feels like a National Geographic film with a plot very loosely attached. So gorgeous was the outside footage, the parts shot on studio sets do stick out (Hugo Haas, popping up as a rogue hunter with a villainous agenda, all too obviously never stepped foot out of California to shoot the film). The photography still looks impressive today, distressing as it is to find out an elephant gunned down in the opening (and mourned by his herd) was shot for real.

Did it matter that there is no real plot half the time? I guess not, when audiences are there for that photography. There is more than a whiff of colonialism about the whole thing, but Haggard’s attitudes were always more advanced than many give him credit for, carried across here. Like his novel version, Quartermain is respectful of (and genuinely likes) the indigenous people he encounters, learning their languages, forming friendships and mourning any deaths sincerely. Sure, he’s also an Edwardian paternalist, but it’s strikingly compared to the dripping contempt we see him treat most Westerners with. Granger plays him with a matinee-idol gruffness (Errol Flynn was the first choice).

Opposite him, Kerr has the typical ‘woman’s’ role in such stories. Although much is made of her toughening up on the journey – casting off her corsets, going by foot and taking a gun – she’s still required to regularly shriek and faint when danger calls. There’s a hilarious moment (even the original audiences laughed but it had to be kept in) when we cut from Kerr chopping off her flowing locks with a pair of scissors, to shampooing, to luxuriating in the sun with a hairstyle that looks like she’s spent hours in the make-up chair. Kerr could, of course, play these prim-and-proper types who really love the bad boy standing on her head, and the role is hardly a stretch.

The focus on the wildlife footage leaves almost no time for the actual plot of King Solomon’s Mines which is crammed into the film’s final half-an-hour, as mysterious bearer Umbopa (one of the novel’s main characters, here reduced to an almost wordless plot device) reveals himself as rightful king of the mountains and our heroes discover, enter, get trapped in and escape the mine (this takes about 6 minutes of screen time). Whether the actual plot was so heavily cut-back because the producers didn’t trust the Indigenous actors they cast to carry it or it was felt the 50s audience wouldn’t be interested in seeing an African story led by actual African characters is entirely up to speculation. Not a single African character in the film is really given an individual personality let alone a plot arc, a major disappointment considering the strikingly memorable, rich African characters (both heroic and villainous) in Haggard’s original story.

The film suddenly turns into a mad, often tough to follow for newbies, rush after an elongated trek through the jungles (Hugo Haas’ sudden Act Two appearance as a mid-trek baddie was introduced, solely to give us an antagonist of sorts on the journey). It proves that the main appeal was that safari trek photography (with an opposites-attract romance as a bonus). King Solomon’s Mines, truthfully, isn’t nothing special – everything it attempts to do would be done infinitely better a year later in The African Queen – and it remains a truly odd entry in the list of Best Picture nominees.

Captains Courageous (1937)

Well-made, coming-of-age story with two very fine leads and a heart-tugging ending

Director: Victor Fleming

Cast: Freddie Bartholomew (Harvey Cheyne), Spencer Tracy (Manuel Fidello), Lionel Barrymore (Captain Disko Troop), Melvyn Douglas (Frank Burton Cheyne), Charley Grapewin (Uncle Salters), Mickey Rooney (Dan Troop), John Carradine (‘Uncle Jack’), Oscar O’Shea (Captain Walt Cushman)

Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is a hard kid to like. Scion of Henry Ford-like American tycoon Frank Burton Cheyne (Melvyn Douglas) he’s an arrogant, entitled snob who believes he is deserves anything he wants because Daddy has never-empty pockets. The servants in his father’s estate can’t stand him, his prep school classmates only pretend to like him and even his teachers think he needs to be taken down a peg or two. Suspended from school, his father (upset at what his son has become) hopes a trip to Europe will help Harvey grow-up. But, en route, Harvey is lost at sea and picked up by the fishing boat We’re Here. Despite his objections, they have no interest in cutting short fishing season by three months to take him straight back and slowly Harvey finds himself rather enjoying fishing life, helped by his growing bond with salt-of-the-Earth Portuguese fisherman Manuel (Spencer Tracy).

Adapted from a Rudyard Kipling novel – despite what you might think, Harvey and his father are also American in the original – Captains Courageous is a surprisingly sweet coming-of-age tale, mixed with a surrogate-father-son relationship, well-directed by Victor Fleming and strongly played by the cast. The cast spent months bobbing up-and-down in a giant water tank to bring the film to the screen, and it’s a tribute to Fleming’s direction and Harold Rossen’s sharp camerawork that it often genuinely feels like a film pulled in from the seas like Manuel’s fishes.

It also has some wonderful chemistry between its two leads. Freddie Bartholomew, one of the biggest (and most skilled) child stars of the 30s, had a hard task here: appearing in virtually every scene, he has to turn a character who most viewers would love to give a cuff around the ear too, into a kid we end up admiring. Captains Courageous doesn’t shirk at stressing Harvey’s arrogant, self-absorbed unpleasantness: he treats the servants like talking furniture, brags about his editorship of the school magazine (a position bought for him by his father’s purchasing of their printing press) which he feels with dull articles (essentially ‘what I did on my holidays’) and shamelessly uses his father’s money to bribe people (including his schoolmaster, who he loans $50 to then casually mentions it would be great if the history test could be made easier).

He is, in short, a total brat and that only starts to change on We’re Here. Bartholomew’s trick is to do just enough to suggest a decent kid buried under the surface here, even when he’s demanding the ship turn round to take him home or assuming his ship-mates will settle into playing servants for him. He and the film slowly reveal his childish enthusiasm waiting for an outlet. With a distant father, you get the feeling Harvey felt acting like the pampered, entitled wealthy man was the only way to impress him. Captains Courageous is rather endearing in showing how he flourishes when faced with pushback by someone (Manuel) who gives him genuine attention, teaches him things and won’t take his nonsense (in the way nearly every other employee in his life does).

Bartholomew’s thoughtfulness, vulnerability and eager-to-impress energy makes for a great combination with Spencer Tracy’s jovial warmth as Manuel. Tracy – who won an Oscar – was later rather self-critical of his curly-haired ‘liddle feesh’ accented-fisherman, generously claiming his success was partly due to Bartholomew. But Tracy’s work here is endearing, funny and unforced, making Manuel a mix of big brother and father, full of energy and joi d’vivre, with exactly the sort of easy-going happiness in small things (catching a big fish, playing music, even swabbing a deck) that Harvey never has. Tracy also brings out Manuel’s strong morals and his respect for others – it’s no surprise that he has no truck with Harvey’s cheating in a fishing competition.

In fact, Manuel’s response to this (deep disappointment, throwing the competition and firmly telling Harvey he’s no fisherman) is exactly the sort of firm-but-fair parenting, with a moral education, that Harvey needs. But Manuel is also a fierce defender of him when he admits his mistakes and also offers the sort of direct, in-person support and regard for Harvey that his own father failed to do. (There is a lovely reaction shot from Tracy – one of the best reactors in movies – of warm pride when Harvey admits blame). The two actors have a natural, easy bond which is genuinely endearing. Manuel even becomes as keen for the boy’s good opinion (bashfully clamming up when Harvey reacts with shock to his talk of ladies). Captains Courageous allows Tracy to be as playful, loose and fun as he ever has.

The staging and design of the fishing boat is marvellously done, the actors having clearly (and impressively) done their homework around the tying of knots, casting of lines and rowing of oars. Lionel Barrymore gives a fine salty sea-dog (with a hidden heart of gold) as the captain, with Mickey Rooney echoing him as his eager son and John Carradine scowling as Manuel’s rival fisherman. There is a genuine sense of energy and vibrancy in all the fishing and sailing scenes (despite some, at times, less than convincing back projection), with Captains Courageous more than holding its own with epics of the sea.

Of course, you are not perhaps surprised that the film is also heading towards a tragic end, as so many coming-of-age tales do. But it’s extremely well-done and, thanks to the playing of the cast carries real emotional impact, not least through Bartholomew’s and Tracy’s poignant performances. There is also a mature and tender coda to Captains Courageous about the nature (and difficulties) of fatherhood, adding further depth to a character study of a young boy that genuinely sees him grow and develop in a way that feels neither sickly sweet nor forced – and has a real warmth and joy to it. Full of impressive staging and with a wonderfully played relationship between Bartholomew and Tracy, it’s a fine, heart-warmer turned tear-jerker.