Monty Woolley – Movie Musings

Overlong attempt to make an American Mrs Miniver which can’t sustain its focus over three hours

Director: James Cromwell

Cast: Claudette Colbert (Anne Hilton), Jennifer Jones (Jane Hilton), Joseph Cotton (Lt Tony Willett), Shirley Temple (Bridget Hilton), Monty Woolley (Colonel William G Smollett), Lionel Barrymore (Clergyman), Robert Walker (Corporal William G Smollett II), Hattie McDaniel (Fidelia), Agnes Moorehead (Emily Hawkins), Nazimova (Zofia Koslowska), Albert Basserman (Dr Golden), Keenan Wynn (Lt Solomon)

With America embroiled in the Second World War, David O. Selznick felt it was his duty to do his bit. And what better way than making a movie. So was born Since You Went Away, adapted by Selznick himself from Margaret Buell Wilder’s epistolary novel, about a woman writing letters to her husband while he fights the good fight abroad. It was nothing more or less than Selznick’s attempt to create a Mrs Miniver for America, to bring the tribulations of those left behind to the screen.

Our family is the Hiltons. Over the course of 1943, they wait for news of husband and father Tim as serves abroad. With Tim’s income gone, wife Anne (Claudette Colbert) needs to make economies and bring in a lodger, avuncular retired Colonel Smollett (Monty Woolley). This brings into their lives Smollett’s nephew Bill (Robert Walker), who begins a romance with Anne’s oldest daughter Jane (Jennifer Jones), while her younger daughter Bridget (Shirley Temple) builds a friendship with their lodger. The family is aided by friends, not least Tim’s best friend Tony Willett (Joseph Cotton), the subject of a long-standing crush of Jane’s and is himself in love with Anne. Over the year, the family does everything they can to support the war effort.

There is probably a fine couple of hours in Since You Went Away. Unfortunately, it’s buried in a film so long it sometimes feels like you are living a year in the life in real-time. It’s not helped by the film’s sentimental scope often repeating the same beats over and over again, a soapy message of the overwhelming importance of hearth and home and the unbreakable bonds of love that keep families faithfully together forever (it’s ironic that this paean to duty and fidelity was made while Selznick was breaking up his marriage for an affair with Jones, while she ended her marriage to Robert Walker).

Essentially, the film has made most of its points and observations by the half-way mark, and is reduced to repeating them again in the second half, all accompanied by Max Steiner’s overly insistent score (which won the film’s only Oscar) which hammers home every single emotional point with laboured riffs on songs like No Place Like Home or Come Let Us Adore Him. Much of the drama is undermined by having almost no sense of threat: unlike Mrs Miniver there is zero chance of any of the characters actually being bombed at home but, just like that film, there is also absolutely no chance at all that Anne will be tempted by the heavily suggestive flirtation of Tony.

Instead, there is a slightly cosy air of gentleness under Since You Went Away. We are told the war, and loss of Tim’s salary, has caused hardship for the family – but it’s the sort of hardship that sees a hugely wealthy family adjusting to merely being comfortably well-off. The main concessions seem to be setting up a vegetable patch and taking in a well-paying lodger (who, of course, becomes an honorary family member). Even their Black maid (Hattie McDaniel, in a truly thankless part) is so devoted that she continues to serve them during her time-off from her new job (for no pay). There is never even a suggestion they may need to move from their massive five-bedroomed house or stop moving in their affluent circle.

This circle is represented by Agnes Moorehead, sneering like a suburban witch wrapped in ostentatious furs, who scorns any idea of pulling her weight during the war and crows about how cleverly she’s exploiting rationing loopholes. This is contrasted with the families growing civic duty, embodied by Jennifer Jones’ Jane casting aside her giddy teenage years to devotedly work as a volunteer nurse with war wounded (much to the disgust of Moorehead) and Anne’s shift to training as a welder in a munitions factory. Since You Went Away heavily pushes the angle that everyone must do their bit, hammered home by refugee welder Nazimova who gives a misty eyed reading of the famous Statue of Liberty message.

What Since You Went Away starts to feel like at times is an over-inflated, Little Women-ish drama, with war as a backdrop. There are moments of loss: Tim is reported missing, cause for much stoic resilience and heartbreak and the son of the local store is killed early on. The film has a tragic romance in the form of Jones and Walker’s Smollett Jnr, which goes through a gentle flirtation, playful hay-rolling into an overly empathetic departing train goodbye (expertly parodied in Airplane!), that holds together due to the charm of the actors. But the main message is one of cosy reassurance: it’s a million miles away from the more doubtful The Best Years of Our Lives – there’s no doubt Tim will settle straight back into a world unchanged from that he left behind.

The characters are pretty uniformly predictable and conventional, but are delivered effectively. Colbert, in many ways with a rather dull part, effectively underplays as the endlessly patient, dutiful and calm Anne, bottling up her doubts and fears into her diary. She makes a generous still centre of the film, even if the film doesn’t call for one minute of playfulness for her as an actor. She cedes much of the best ground to Jones (Selznick’s complete control of the film surely played a role in this), who is full of radiant sparkiness, even if her teenage giddiness gets a little wearing. Jones, looking in her twenties, plays the role as if she was in her teens while Shirley Temple, looking in her early teens, plays her like she was still at elementary school. Needless to say, there is no chance of either of these girls causing serious trouble or going off the rails.

Opposite them, Monty Woolley delivers exactly what is required as the outwardly gruff Colonel whose frosty exterior inevitably melts over time. Woolley does bring a lot of depth to Smollett’s quiet grief and playfulness from Smollett’s love-hate relationship with the families pet bulldog. Joseph Cotton just about manages to make Tony charming – charming enough that his hanging around and constantly flirtation with both mother and daughter isn’t too reminiscent of his psychopathic uncle in Shadow of Doubt. (In many ways, Tony is an overly insistent creep).

But the successes of the film are drowned by its absurd length and overly insistent sentimental hammering home of every single point. It does look fabulous – the shadow-laden photography of Lee Garmes and Stanley Cortez adds a great deal of noirish emotional depth – but it’s flatly directed (Cromwell was one of many directors on the project, including Selznick himself) and lacks pace. In trying to present a reassuring celebration of all-American family values, it frequently lets character and drama drift and never presents a plot development that surprises or challenges. It’s no Mrs Miniver.

Charming Christmas enjoyment in this rather odd angel comedy that wins you over

Director: Henry Koster

Cast: Cary Grant (Dudley), Loretta Young (Julia Brougham), David Niven (Bishop Henry Brougham), Monty Woolley (Professor Wutheridge), James Gleason (Sylvester), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Agnes Hamilton), Elsa Lanchester (Matilda), Sara Haden (Mildred Cassaway), Karolyn Grimes (Debby Brougham)

Newly appointed Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) is forgetting who he is. Now spending all his time with the hoi-polloi (led by Gladys Cooper’s grande dame Mrs Hamilton) trying to secure funding for a new cathedral he’s rather lost sight of things at home with his devoted wife Julia (Loretta Young). Enter, seemingly in answer to his prayers, angel Dudley (Cary Grant). Taking up a role as Henry’s new assistant – with only Henry knowing the Heavenly background of his guest – Dudley sets about helping those around Henry rediscover their spiritual joy in life.

The Bishop’s Wife is a gentle, unassuming film, all taking place in the week before Christmas. It’s heart-warming, seasonal stuff, competently directed by Henry Koster, who efficiently juggles gentle character conflicts with a reassuring moral message. There are some rather charmingly done magical special effects sprinkled across the film: Dudley uses his angelic powers to instantly sort reference cards, fly decorations onto a chair, dictate to a self-operating typewriter and guide a snowball through the air with all the dexterity of Oliver Stone’s magic bullet. As a gentle piece of seasonal viewing, it gives you everything you could want.

Such is its easy charm and seasonal sweetness, it almost doesn’t matter that it’s quite an odd film. It’s no real surprise Dudley isn’t on Earth to help Henry secure mega-bucks he to build a grand cathedral (especially since principle doner Mrs Hamilton is more interested in making it a tribute to her late-husband rather God) but to help Henry work out his real focus should be the ordinary joes of his community and his marriage. That he should make sure he prioritises a humble choir at small local church St Sylvester’s and keep in touch with the parishioners he used to dedicate his time to. And, above all, that he should find time in his bustling calendar to keep the love in his marriage.

But the methods used by Dudley – away from angelic magic over inanimate objects and his ability to know everyone’s names before they even open their mouths and cross roads in bustling traffic without fear – are a little odd. Aside from shoring up a few people’s spiritual strength, he essentially begins a campaign of seduction, giving Julia the sort of loving attention Henry hasn’t given her in ages. It’s a slightly bizarre holy campaign – the angel who uses the temptations of the flesh to save a marriage – but it’s done with such innocence a viewer almost forgets the odd idea.

It also just about makes a virtue of casting of Cary Grant as Dudley. In a part that feels tailor-made for Bing Crosby, surely Cary Grant is no-one’s idea of an angel (a slightly abashed, heart-of-gold, demon perhaps). Grant, to be honest, slightly struggles with the role – at times the complete decency of Dudley leaves him rather stiff and the Grant twinkle gets one of its most subdued outings in cinematic history. However, Grant’s naughty charm does make us accept a little bit more that Dudley might just feel a little more than he’s saying with his attraction to Julia (even if, the rules of films, tell us there is zero chance of an angel being a seducer).

It still manages to get the goat of Niven’s Bishop, who increasingly resents this overly efficient new presence in his life more focused on charming his wife than getting on with what he presumes he’s there for – securing funds for the Cathedral. Niven (originally cast as the Angel – but his raffish charm would have been as unnatural a fit as Grant’s), does rather well as a decent man crushed under expectations and duty who has forgotten the things that really matter. Niven has a very neat line in quietly exasperated fury, so buttoned-up and English (despite being American!) he can’t give vent to his real feelings but hides it under genteel passive aggression. He also sells a neat joke that he is constantly rendered literally incapable of saying out loud that Dudley is an angel.

Loretta Young, between these two, has the least interesting part, trickly written. It goes without saying that a feel-good product of 1940s Hollywood is not going to have the wife of a Bishop actually, genuinely considering straying from her husband (just as, I suppose, it can only go so far in suggesting Grant’s Dudley is sorely tempted to leave his wings behind). Young’s role leans a little too much into the patient housewife, just eager for her husband to embrace day-to-day joys at home and not lose himself so much in work, but she manages to make it work.

These three lead a cast made up of experienced pros who know exactly how to pitch a fairly gentle comedy like this. Monty Woolley is great fun as a slightly over-the-hill professor, who needs to be befuddled by a never-emptying glass to stop him wondering why he doesn’t remember Dudley from the lectures he claims to have attended all those years ago. James Gleason offers cheeky, down-to-earth humour and sensibility as a friendly taxi-driver, while Gladys Cooper once again proves she can give austere grande dames more depth than anyone else in the business.

It all makes for a gentle, rather sweet and charming film despite that fact that almost nothing in it really make sense. In fact, it frequently falters as soon as you consider any of the plot at all or any of the actions and motivations of its characters. But then, this is basically a sort of Christmas Carol where the Angel arrives to re-focus the (not particularly imperilled) soul of one man, with wit, charm and warmth – and if it feels odd that also involves inspiring envy and jealousy (deadly sins right?!) in a Bishop, I suppose we should go with it. After all, it’s Christmas.