Women in Love: A Review

WOMEN IN LOVE

I am unfamiliar with the works of one D.H. Lawrence. Therefore, I cannot offer any views on whether or not the film adaptation of Women in Love is a faithful adaptation. I can offer that the film version is slow, deadly dull and almost insufferably pretentious. Women in Love, I figure, was daring for its time. Now, it is a slog to sit through. 

Sisters Ursula (Jennie Linden) and Gudrun (Glenda Jackson) Brangwen are intelligent and artistic. They are as such, different from most of their community members, who are coal miners. Ursula is a schoolteacher and Gudrun a sculptress. The Brangwen sisters do travel in slightly elevated society circles despite not being either middle or upper class. They soon both become attracted to and are attracted by two distinct men.

School inspector Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) is a somewhat morose fellow, his high intellect more a curse than a blessing. He finds himself drawn to Ursula, who reciprocates the feeling. Rupert's bosom buddy is coal mining heir Gerald Critch (Oliver Reed), who starts eyeing Gudrun. Love, sex and death all start uniting them. Rupert gives up his liaison with wealthy heiress Hermione Roddice (Eleanor Bron), a woman with grand artistic pretensions. A local picnic has the foursome indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. It also ends in tragedy for Gerald's sister and new husband. 

As Rupert & Ursula and Gerald & Gudrun continue their mating dance, they take different approaches. Rupert convinces Gerald to release some of his pent-up anger and frustration with a little nude wrestling. While Rupert does not confess to being in love or desire for Gerald, their physical contact pretty much speaks for itself. Rupert and Ursula decide to get married. Gudrun becomes Gerald's mistress. Both couples, however, are not particularly happy with these arrangements.

A ski trip to Switzerland will have consequences and revelations for our pair of lovebirds. Will Rupert and Ursula find contentment in bourgeois marriage? Will Gerald and Gudrun continue their unhappily unmarried relationship? Will all four couples live to see the end of these Women in Love?  

If people vaguely recall Women in Love, it is due to a few reasons. Women in Love received four Academy Award nominations, winning one. That win is for Glenda Jackson, who won the first of her two Best Actress Academy Awards. It also features full frontal male nudity. That is rather rare nowadays. I figure that in 1970 such a thing was downright scandalous. 

The film may be titled Women in Love, but I would say that it is actually about one man in love with another. The male nude scene where Rupert and Gerald wrestle against each other naked makes Brokeback Mountain look downright virginal in comparison. It is as homoerotic as anything outside an adult film. I will concede that it is beautifully photographed, which explains its Best Cinematography nomination. I can also concede that Larry Kramer's Oscar-nominated screenplay makes it understood that Rupert wanted a romantic/sexual relationship with Gerald. Their wrestling match ends with Rupert running a finger up and down Gerald's arm, as naked a come-on as imaginable (no pun intended).  

I also think that much in Women in Love, the naked romp went on far too long. The audience had already endured a very long and almost pointless ballet scene. I understand that the ballet scene was meant to ridicule Hermione's artistic pretentions. However, it felt much longer and tedious to sit through. It does not help that after this danse erotique, Hermione reacts to being called out for her lack of spontaneity by whacking Rupert with a paperweight. That sequence is topped off with Rupert, stumbling about the forest, stripping off and falling into mud.  

Women in Love is a very long film, running close to two hours and fifteen minutes. I confess to nodding off more than once, never a good sign. I think that for myself, the biggest issue is that Women in Love feels excessively stylized. Again, I figure that such a thing was the intention. We get an early scene where Rupert uses figs to metaphorically discuss sex, particularly deflowering a woman. However, did we really need to see a long scene of Gudrun dancing to a group of cows? I was not sure at times if Women in Love was a drama or a comedy. Again, I put it down to the film's deliberately stylized manner. When, for example, Gerald's father Thomas (Alan Webb) dies, I was reminded of all things The Ruling Class. That film was meant as a comedy. I do not think that Women in Love was. It just played that way.

One can get the symbolism in Women in Love. "She killed him", Gerald says to Rupert when the nude bodies of Gerald's sister Laura (Sharon Gurney) and her luscious and horny husband Tibby (Christopher Gable) are found in the drained lake. She had killed him by pulling him down when she first began to struggle during a skinny dip at the house garden party. However, the entire sequence to me felt a bit like something out of Tom Jones or the aforementioned The Ruling Class. Those, again, were comedies. Was Women in Love also meant as one?  

The performances overall were acceptable. Glenda Jackson, as mentioned, won the first of her two Best Actress Oscars for Women in Love. I am puzzled over what exactly in her performance got her a nomination, let alone the win. Was it a weak year in the Best Actress race? It was not a terrible performance. Gudrun could be blunt with people. Did she win the Oscar for dancing with bulls? At a climactic moment, I was awake enough to shout, "KILL GLENDA JACKSON! PLEASE!", so I suppose that made her interesting to watch if I cared enough to see Gudrun strangled. Again, I do not think it was a terrible performance. It was acceptable. However, I do not think it is memorable or interesting.

The same goes for Jennie Linden as Ursula. She made her character a bit of a dolt. How else to explain why she would be so unaware that Rupert was more into Gerald than into her? I thought better of Alan Bates as Rupert, the barely suppressed gay or bisexual man. He made Rupert's sometimes pompous musings on love and sex believable. Oliver Reed was also better than the material as Gerald, the cold and coldblooded mining tycoon who struggled with human emotion.

Women in Love is not a film that I think is that well-remembered. I found it far too stylized for its own good. Even in long shots, the nude wrestling came across as crazed to almost downright silly. Some editing would have done Women in Love a world of good.   

DECISION: D-

Network: A Review

NETWORK

When Network premiered, its director insisted that it was not a satire. Sidney Lumet called Network "reportage". Now, with almost fifty years since its release, Network seems actually quite tame in its depiction of the insanity of television. Cruel but horrifyingly accurate and prescient, Network dives into its tale with a mix of sharp wit and bitter cynicism.

Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is the highly respected evening news anchor of the Union Broadcast System (UBS). He also has the worst ratings of all four networks. His friend and boss, Max Schumacher (William Holden) tells Beale that he will be terminated in two weeks due to those poor ratings. Beale, a recent widower with no children, declares on the show that he will kill himself on air. The news barely causes a ripple in the disinterested production booth but by the time they realize exactly what Beale said, it is too late to stop the live broadcast.

Schumacher, albeit reluctantly, agrees to let Beale back on the air to make amends. Beale instead starts becoming unhinged, calling out the "bull****" live. This causes a national scandal. This scandal, however, is brilliant news for two people. The first is Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the Communication Corporation of America (CCA) hatchet man who wants to eliminate the news division, which is costing CCA millions. CCA owns UBS and sees this as the perfect opportunity to cut Beale and the moral Schumacher out.  UBS executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) sees Beale's rants differently. She believes that with some work, Beale's angry and erratic rants could be ratings gold. A revamped news show could be bigger than Mary Tyler Moore according to Diana. 

Some things are clear. Howard Beale is slowly going bonkers, convinced that he can hear otherworldly voices directing him to speak to the world "because he's on television". Max is desperate to keep Beale from humiliating himself and UBS. Hackett and Christensen don't care that Beale is pretty much insane. They are willing to use him to get profits and ratings. Eventually, Howard Beale goes on air in full unhinged mode, pleading with everyone to go out to their window and yell, "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Christensen has taken over the news division. The Network News Hour with Howard Beale is now a massive hit. It has various segments such as Sybil the Soothsayer (a psychic who will predict the news) and Vox Populi, where audience members can vote on a particular topic. The main draw, however, is "the mad prophet of the airwaves". Beale can beg audiences that they are the crazy ones for believing that television is real, but his words and fainting fits only seem to convince viewers that he speaks for them. Christen now uses The Network News Hour to create an even more insane series. Using Communist Party member Laureen Dobbs (Marlene Warfield) as a go-between, Christensen creates The Mao Tse-Tung Hour. The show will feature the crimes of the Ecumenical Liberation Army, a radical leftist group. They will supply footage of their crimes while UBS will craft a series around them. 

Despite all his sense, Max and Diana begin an affair. He leaves his wife Louise (Beatrice Straight) for her, though he knows that Diana has no heart or soul. Hackett has no heart and soul either, but now he fully controls UBS. It is not until Howard Beale starts ranting about a proposed merger of CCA to a Saudi-backed corporation that Hackett begins to look on Beale with fury. Christensen's only concerns are ratings. Those become affected after a by-now totally insane Beale meets CCA head Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty). Jensen convinces the delusional Beale to preach a message that Jensen favors. This new set of ramblings are depressing to audiences, who soon start tuning out. Schumacher has returned to his wife, but UBS has not returned to sanity. Jensen, Hackett informs UBS executives, flat-out refuses to cancel Howard Beale. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, Hackett, Christensen and other UBS executives come up with the perfect opening for The Mao Tse-Tung Hour's Season Two that will simultaneously cancel The Network News Hour.

Network is in retrospect rather frightening in how it predicted the devolution of television. "TV is showbiz, Max, and even the news has to have a little showmanship", Diana tells Max when she first attempts to work with him on revamping the UBS Evening News. Audiences at the time would have understood the conventions of national news broadcasts. Other elements would have been somewhat familiar. The Network News Hour with Howard Beale, complete with audiences shouting the catchphrase, would be in the style of something like the more benign human interest show That's Incredible! albeit That's Incredible! came later. 

Some of the programming that Network presented might have seemed outrageous. Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay makes clear that the title The Mao Tse-Tung Hour was meant as a joke. However, Network shows that it was adopted unironically. More outrageously, Network has television aiding and abetting criminals to draw in viewers. As shocking or outlandish as this premise is, it is not too far removed from how various other networks have done things in a similar spirit. From such shows as Keeping Up with the Kardashians to true crime series like Reelz Channel's Murder Made Me Famous, Network managed to predict how television shows would draw in audiences by presenting the most unimportant or salacious matters for our amusement. 

I find that there is a line connecting the amoral ratings-pursuing ruthlessness of Diana Christensen and the television dominance of Andy Cohen. "I want angry shows", Christensen tells her staff. Could one say that the various catfights on the myriads of Real Housewives shows are "angry" or at least showcase public displays of anger?

The presentation of news also has become more spectacular and less informative. The graphics, the segments and sarcasm, the blending of news and opinion have found their ways onto the airwaves. Howard Beale may not have had biological children in Network. He does have spiritual children in Bill O'Reilly, in Keith Olbermann and the various shows on networks supposedly dedicated to news and information. The Howard Beale Show may have featured a psychic and "Ms. Mata Hari and her Skeletons in the Closet." It, however, did not imagine featuring child drag queens like Good Morning America did. Christensen talks about creating a "homosexual soap opera". The proposed series The Dykes is not too far removed from something like Pose or Boots.

What I find endlessly enjoyable about Network is how intelligent it is. Chayefsky crafted a brilliant, logical script that makes the story flow smoothly. An aspect of Chayefsky's screenplay that I do not think is comment on enough is how literate it is. Christensen tells Schumacher that Beale's initial spontaneous rants come across as curmudgeonly versus apocalyptic. "I think you should take on a couple of writers to write some jeremiads for him", Christensen tells him. Later, a devastated Louise tears into Max when he tells her of his affair. "This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me?! Is that my share? She gets the passion, and I get the dotage?"

What impresses me above all else is Chayefsky believes people would use words like "jeremiads", "emeritus" and "dotage" in regular conversation or in fits of rage. Chayefsky not only uses these words in ordinary conversation. He trusts that audiences will understand them. I have always found that aspect of Network brilliant. Paddy Chayefsky never dumbs down anything in Network. The words are intelligent. The plot is outlandish, but he trusts us to keep up. Chayefsky crafts some wonderful dialogue for his actors. 

Most people, even those who have never seen Network, know Peter Finch's "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" rant. However, after rewatching Network, I think there is more one meaning to the word "MAD". Howard Beale may be enraged. However, his declaration that he's "mad as hell" might indicate that he subconsciously knows that he's flat-out bonkers. This rant speaks to the frustrations that Americans were going through. This scene, punctuated by a fierce thunderstorm, brilliantly underscores the impending storm and chaos about to be unleashed.

However, Network is more than Howard Beale's completely insane but frighting accurate worldview. All the actors get great dialogue. Of particular note is William Holden's admission that he is frightened by the knowledge that he is "closer to the end than to the beginning". It's a deeply moving moment, the last sane man with feeling. 

Network is brilliantly acted, a major credit to director Sidney Lumet in guiding his cast to three Oscar-winning performances. Peter Finch became the first man to posthumously win an acting Oscar for his Howard Beale. He made Howard Beale into someone who has slipped into total lunacy. Finch managed to sound like an American, with the possible exception of how he pronounces "homicides" as "homo-sides" versus the more familiar "hah-ma-cides". Whether expressing a belief that he is truly in tune with otherworldly knowledge or having fainting fits, Finch goes in totally on the cray-cray. Despite his rantings, the mad prophet of the airwaves is correct in decrying how viewers have turned into the tube.

Faye Dunaway is ice personified as Diana Christensen. This is a woman who cannot achieve romantic or sexual pleasure but will thrill to being the ratings queen. Dunaway is brilliant in showing Diana's total moral blindness. "For God's sake Diana, we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television", Robert Duvall's Frank Hackett tells her early on. Dunaway's face reveals a woman who is almost possessed on the thought that there is nothing wrong with putting a mentally collapsing person like Howard Beale on the air. Even as she seduces Max Schumacher, we sense that she truly is incapable of love. Despite that, a sliver of humanity does come through in a small moment. As Max tells her that he's leaving her, she in a rage goes to the kitchen. Getting a cup and saucer, we see her trembling, perhaps expressing genuine shock at the human emotions that she is unfamiliar with.

Finch and Dunaway won Lead Actor and Actress for Network. A surprise winner was Beatrice Straight in Supporting Actress. Essentially consisting of one scene, Straight portrays the deep hurt and rage at being abandoned after twenty-five years of marriage. Technically, Straight has two scenes, but she dominates in her second. Her screentime of a little over five minutes remains as of this writing the shortest Oscar-winning performance in Academy Award history. 

Ned Beatty also received a Supporting Actor nomination for his single scene as Mr. Jensen. It is a brilliant scene both written and directed. Beatty was able to shift from almost preacher-like rage to almost cuddly. What surprised me is that Robert Duvall was not nominated for the appropriately named Frank Hackett. He delivered his lines with rapid-fire fury, making Hackett frightening and oddly amusing. Duvall is fiery, arrogant and coldblooded, making Hackett a perfect villain. Commenting to the USB executives early on, Hackett dismisses their sense of outrage when he proposes bringing Beale back on the air. "We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network. We have to take whatever we can get". Hackett has no principles. His unholy union with Christensen makes for frightening but electric viewing.

In all of this, we cannot forget William Holden. It is a fair argument that Finch is really a supporting character (he essentially disappears in the middle of Network). Holden, who received a Best Actor nomination for the film, is Network's moral core. He is able to show Max as the lone principled character. He too, however, is corrupted via his liaison with Diana. He, like Merlin, is aware that he is being taken advantage of. However, he does nothing to stop it. In his righteous anger and awareness of the changing world, Holden does an excellent job.

Network does not have any flaws. Perhaps one can quibble over the intermittent voiceover. That, however, works for the film, a little bit of information spaced through the film. Network, in its cynicism, really now looks quaint in how it shows modern television. Funny, dramatic, well-acted, you will not feel mad after watching Network. 

DECISION: A+

Coal Miner's Daughter: A Review

COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER

Loretta Lynn, the subject of Coal Miner's Daughter, lived a remarkable forty-two years after the release of her biopic. That should tell you not just how long Loretta Lynn lived, but how much she had lived when Coal Miner's Daughter premiered. The film is a perfect reflection of the subject: sincere, direct and deeply moving. 

Life is hard up in the hills of western Kentucky. Loretta Webb (Sissy Spacek) is the oldest daughter of coal miner Ted (Levon Helm) and housewife Clary (Phyllis Boyens). Loretty to her family, Loretta's life is filled with financial poverty but familial wealth. That hardscrabble but gentle life is interrupted by Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones). Like the Webbs, Doolittle is a country boy, but he has just returned from military service in the Second World War. Despite Loretta being a mere 13 years old, Doo is determined to make her his wife. Ted and Clary see Doolittle as nothing but trouble. Loretta sees him as her ideal man. With major misgivings, the Webbs let the marriage go.

The facts of life are a shock to the now-15-year-old Loretta Lynn. Doo is not the ideal man either. He hits Loretta at least once. He steps out on her. However, they do genuinely love each other. The babies pop out in quick succession and with a relocation to Washington State, things look to be slightly better. Loretta loves to sing around the house. Doo, recognizing her talent, gets her a guitar instead of the wedding ring that she still does not have. Soon, she starts, albeit reluctantly, to build up a small reputation for her singing and songwriting in the nearby honkytonks. A family tragedy devastates Loretta. However, she agrees to push on with Doo to start pursuing a singing career.

Through a mix of hard work, relentless promoting and her extraordinary skills, Loretta Lynn manages to get her songs on the radio. That leads her to appear at the temple of country music, Nashville's Grand Old Opry. She is astonished to become friends with reigning country queen Patsy Cline (Beverly D'Angelo). This friendship grows as they tour together, where Cline serves as both mentor and unofficial sister. Their bond is broken by Cline's untimely death, which breaks Loretta's heart.

The stresses of the road, the exhaustion physical and emotional, start to fray on the First Lady of Country Music. She starts forgetting the words to her own songs. She is attacked by her fans, who do not shrink from cutting off her hair as she walks past them. Eventually, she collapses and needs time to recuperate. Back home in her secluded Tennessee ranch, she can rest, recover and reflect. Now returning in triumph, the Queen of Country debuts the story of her life, Coal Miner's Daughter. 

I remember that my Mexican-born mother loved both Coal Miner's Daughter and Loretta Lynn. They were from distinctly different worlds and lived experiences. As such, why would my mother relate so much to this woman from the hills of Kentucky? I think it is because like my mom, Loretta was not ashamed of who she was and where she came from. Coal Miner's Daughter does more than reflect Loretta Lynn's world. It treats that world and those who live in it with respect. Right from the start, we see that the Webbs and their community are rural but good people. They may not have great education and certainly do not have wealth. Life is a struggle for them. However, they have other things to enrich their lives. They have a sincerity and love for each other. 

The film is clear that this is not an ideal world. "If you born in the mountains, you got three choices. Coal mine, moonshine, or movin' on down the line", Ted Webb's cousin Lee Dollarhide (William Sanderson) tells Mooney when attempting to recruit him into stealing some moonshine to keep up with demand. Director Michael Apted never romanticizes this world. However, he never diminishes or looks down on it. Instead, he keeps things simple and basic. Apted lets the scenes and situations flow smoothly and naturally. Coal Miner's Daughter is a little over two hours long. However, one does not notice the time because things flow so well.

The performances in Coal Miner's Daughter are absolutely excellent. It is cliche to say "so-and-so IS such-and-such" when talking about actors in biographical films. What Spacek did in Coal Miner's Daughter was to make Loretta Lynn into a fascinating woman. It stretches the imagination that Spacek could be a thirteen-year-old in the early part of the film. However, Spacek is blessed with an innocent face and eyes that make Loretta Webb's naivete believable. 

As Coal Miner's Daughter progresses, we see Loretta Lynn's evolution. She can be feisty and direct, unafraid to stand up for herself. We also see how shockingly naive and innocent she is. At one point, Doolittle taunts her by refusing to tell her what "horny" means. Unaware of its implications, she blurts out on a live radio interview how she and Mooney were all "horny", startling both the interviewer and Mooney listening on the car radio. Spacek does an absolutely fantastic job in having us believe that Loretta could genuinely believe that "horny" was something innocuous versus salacious.

Sissy Spacek could be amusing as well. A good scene is when she tears into a radio DJ who claimed to have played her first single, I'm a Honky Tonk Girl when it was still in the envelope. Her firm outrage at being lied to make her blistering tone both charming and a bit frightening. Spacek can charm you as Loretta Lynn even when saying curious things. Commenting on her rapid rise to going onto the Opry stage, she tells Doo, "I ain't paid my dues yet". This comes from a sincere place in her heart, a belief that somehow, she was either not ready or not talented enough to be among figures like Ernest Tubbs, Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl (who all make cameo appearances, with Tubbs having the most screentime). Doolittle, without missing a beat and adding a bit of country charm, tells her, "Well, we'll pay them later then". 

One of the best and most moving scenes involves when Loretta and Ted are at the train station. Ted tells her that he will never see her again. She does not believe that, but it turns out to be true. I found myself getting emotional at this farewell scene. I laughed at Loretta's "horniness". I cheered when she told the floozy that Doo was fooling around with how she wasn't woman enough to take her man. Loretta's emotional and physical collapse on stage, in other hands, might have been overly dramatic. Spacek and Apted made it soft, which had a greater impact. 

While Sissy Spacek received the Academy Award for Coal Miner's Daughter, her costar Beverly D'Angelo more than held her own as Patsy Cline. Perhaps the Academy felt that her role was actually too small for consideration. She enters in the middle of Coal Miner's Daughter and exits long before the film ends. However, D'Angelo brought that mix of sophistication and sincere affection for Loretta as the glamorous Patsy Cline. D'Angelo made Cline into a perfect blend of sassy and sincerity. She was no fool, telling Lynn somewhat jokingly that she was worried that Lynn's rendition of I Fall to Pieces might end up being better than hers. However, as the film went on, we saw how Cline watched for Lynn like a sister. Patsy Cline had her own biopic years later with Sweet Dreams, which won Jessica Lange a Best Actress Oscar nomination as Cline. I still think that Beverly D'Angelo should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Coal Miner's Daughter. She made Patsy Cline beautiful in every way. 

It is a credit to how good Beverly D'Angelo was in Coal Miner's Daughter that when Patsy Cline's death was announced via radio in the film, there were audible gasps and sobs from the audience that I saw the film with at the Plaza Classic Film Festival. They were clearly unaware that Patsy Cline had a tragic and untimely death. 

Tommy Lee Jones also was not nominated for his performance. It may have been over where he should have been Lead or Supporting, I cannot say. I will say that Jones was excellent as Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Mooney being a nickname owing to his past with moonshine per Lynn in the film's telling). He was a rascal from the start, a bit arrogant and full of himself. He was also, in his way, loyal and protective of Lynn. It was not self-interest that motivated Doolittle Lynn into getting Loretta to sing. In fact, at a certain point, he willingly pulled himself away from life on the road. Coal Miner's Daughter shows rather that it was Doolittle's sincere faith in Loretta's talent that drove him. He could be less than ideal, even harsh. He was also fiercely protective, if not loyal.

We get song performances from both Sissy Spacek and Beverly D'Angelo as Lynn and Cline. They used their own voices instead of lip-synching the familiar songs. However, it is a credit to Apted and especially to Spacek and D'Angelo that they sound very close to how the real Lynn and Cline sound like. I admit to getting misty-eyed with D'Angelo's rendition of Sweet Dreams. Granted, the song itself is deeply moving, beautiful and emotional for me. However, D'Angelo delivered it so well. Sissy Spacek was also quite adept at singing from the Loretta Lynn songbook. In the beginning of the film, Spacek's Loretta sings a lullaby to her infant sibling that sounds so much like Lynn that it is almost indistinguishable. Sissy Spacek sounded a lot like the real Loretta Lynn when speaking. When singing, she did an exceptional job too. The film closes with a performance of Coal Miner's Daughter. Listening to her rendition, you know that it is not the real Lynn. However, it is so close that it is hard to tell them apart. Oddly, Sissy Spacek's version I find actually too polished due to her diction. Loretta Lynn keeps the country vernacular in her singing, such as saying "warshburd" for "washboard" and "tird" for "tired". Spacek pronounces the words as most people would. 

The song and film Coal Miner's Daughter work because both are simple, direct and universal. Loretta Lynn, the Queen of Country, may be gone. Her legacy and songbook will remain forever. "Not much left but the floor, nothing lives here anymore, except the memories of a Coal Miner's Daughter". So long as music has the power to move us, or take us back, the memories of Loretta Lynn and Coal Miner's Daughter (song and film) will never fade.

1932-2022

DECISION: A+

With Love, Meghan Episode Twelve: How 'Bout Them Apples

WITH LOVE, MEGHAN: HOW 'BOUT THEM APPLES

Original Airdate: August 26, 2025

Special Guest: Samin Nosrat

Mentions of "Joy": 0

Mentions of Edible Flower Sprinkles: No 

Passive-Aggressive Moments: 1

Gushing Praise for Markle:  "Also, your dress is so beautiful, and I love that you're not wearing shoes".

On a Golden Girls episode, Betty White's character of Rose has them sing a work song about stuffing a chicken. "Gonna stuff a chicken, like my mama taught, gonna take the chicken DOWN to Mississippi", she belts out. Her Royal Highness Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and her guest did not break out into song while preparing Mrs. Sussex's beloved roast chicken; they did do something that With Love, Meghan is not known for. They made a tolerable episode.  

Meghan Markle will be welcoming Samin Nosrat, a fellow Netflix star, to her rented Montecito home/studio for some joyful activities (even if "Joy" did not escape her lips). The Duchess Hostess with the Mostess first made some apple butter. Here, we learn that Meghan's unnamed husband does not like cinnamon. Once Nosrat arrives, this giant ball of Persian joy is astonished to receive lavashak, a traditional Persian treat that Meghan has so effortlessly prepared. Meghan showed us How to Make Lavashak, which thrilled Nosrat. 

As "chef and author" Nosrat is, in Mrs. Saxe-Coburg & Gotha's own words, "such an accomplished author", Meghan will have the Salt Fat Acid Heat writer do some bookbinding. After that, they will cook with presumably more joy. First, we go back to My Guide to Roast Chicken, where we learn why the chicken legs are tied up.

I am so tempted to say something, but I will restrain myself.

Our new gal pal duo now tiptoes through the garden to gather passion fruit and other fruits and vegetables. We conclude our day with them enjoying the fruits of their labor, with Nosrat giving Mrs. Sussex the option to come to one of Nosrat's traditional Monday dinners.

As with Two Kids from L.A., what made How 'Bout Them Apples tolerable was not the host but the guest. The word "irrepressible" seems tailor-made for Samin Nosrat. Cheerful, upbeat, and enthusiastic about everything, I can imagine that Nosrat can liven up any setting. Right from the start, Nosrat has a ready laugh and a boisterous personality that makes her fun to watch. If she rattled on about "joy", I could believe it. No matter what Meghan had Nosrat do, Nosrat seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself. It takes a lot to make me believe that anyone would find bookbinding a fun activity. 

In fact, How 'Bout Them Apples gives us a glimpse of what With Love, Meghan could have been had the Duchess opted to not be the star. She could have followed Nosrat's example of hosting people over to dinner where they could have a relaxed chat. Granted, I would not be interested in Meg's Gab Blast. However, I found Nosrat an interesting mix. 

Unlike Markle, Nosrat looked professional and genuinely joyful. She did not mind looking silly. She dove in with both hands quite literally. She laughed generously. Moreover, her manner of speaking to Markle felt as though she genuinely was interested. Markle struggles with creating that fun, breezy atmosphere that she does desperately wants to craft. Her manner comes across as lecturing, sometimes belittling. Nosrat, on the other hand, seems to enjoy things.

A good way to compare and contrast the Markle and Nosrat manner is in their separate cooking sections. When Markle goes through My Guide to Roast Chicken, it feels almost defensive and hostile towards the viewer. She waxes rhapsodic about how she prepared this for "my husband" and "my now-husband". At one point, she says, "If you have an aversion to touching raw meat, this is probably not the dish you should make. You should just... (in a stage whisper) I don't know, order takeout". 

I was genuinely taken aback at this statement. It is not as if there weren't already curious turns of phrases in this segment. "You always want the breast side up because white meat is going to cook a little bit faster", she intones. Granted, it is in reference to the bird. However, a little sliver of me wonders if this is what she tells "my now-husband" whenever they go to the beach. Yet, I digress.

How exactly does one encourage viewers to try My Guide to Roast Chicken when you are telling them to instead order takeout? I know that Mrs. Sussex was aiming for a joke. It is the stage whisper that gives it a touch of condescending. There is no lightness in Markle's delivery of her proclamation. Instead, there is a tone of hostility, almost anger, as if we the viewers are wasting her time by not following her instructions. 

Nosrat, on the other hand, seemed delighted to be in the kitchen. She laughs when things go slightly askew. She does not mind laughing, even at herself for being a bit messy. I cannot imagine her telling people to order takeout if they do not want to handle the meat. In fact, at a certain point in How 'Bout Them Apples, Nosrat says that there is nothing wrong or gross with handling food with your hands. She does add that she is a compulsive hand washer. Nosrat is welcoming. Markle is not.

It is curious during the bookbinding session in How 'Bout Them Apples, Markle says that she feels like she is going back to teaching. "Back to teaching?!" I exclaimed. "B****, that's ALL you ever do!". With Love, Meghan is built entirely around how you are being the teacher. Almost every With Love, Meghan episode is about you teaching your guests how to do XYZ and do it perfectly, or at least joyfully. There are few times when you step back and let others do it. I can think of maybe three times when you were not teaching: with Roy Choi, with Ramon Velasquez and with Samin Nosrat. With Velasquez, you came close to murdering him on camera when he gently told you to use two forks to tear the meat. 

The more I think on How 'Bout Them Apples, I find myself like Samin Nosrat more. Her giant mop top of hair and tall height seem to compliment her larger-than-life personality. It is curious that Nosrat is listed as 5'4" and Markle at 5'6". Watching How 'Bout Them Apples, Nosrat seems to tower over Markle to where I would have thought the former was close to six feet. 

How 'Bout Them Apples had them in the apple butter, the lavashak and I presume the salad. Based on the chalkboard writing shown in the episode, I think the original title was How Do You Like Them Apples. I do not know if this is the case, or why the title was tweaked. 

There was a lot to like in How 'Bout Them Apples. Samir Nosrat was fun and engaging. The episode flew by despite being 35 minutes long.  

Some things, however, do not change. I do not get why With Love, Meghan has so much packed into it. It seems a bit haphazard. Did they use the apple butter? I cannot recall. I take it on face value that Nosrat really wanted to take part in a bookbinding craft. Gushing over Markle's lavashak, Nosrat proclaims, "This is the perfect, where I'm like, I can't stop eating. Wow. Delicious. Thank you. I cannot wait. I love a craft". That section seemed a bit dull despite Markle's efforts to be chatty. The segue way to the roasted chicken seemed at times a bit odd to watch. Markle's aversion to use Prince Harry's name is now almost farcical. She uses the phrase "my husband" or "my now-husband" four times by my count. Is saying "Harry" some sort of Montecito curse?

How 'Bout Them Apples is actually not bad. I cannot call it good. I can say that it is the first episode of With Love, Meghan that has not made me want to tear my hair out. I put that on the authentically joyful personality of Samin Nosrat. She brought the salt, fat, acid and heat to With Love, Meghan. The Duchess of Sussex, to be fair, has the saltiness and acid already. They just do not blend well, not even with edible flower sprinkles. 

5/10

Next Episode: Spice Up Your Life

Norma Rae: A Review (Review #2095)

NORMA RAE

It Goes Like It Goes, we are sung at the beginning and end of Norma Rae. Based on a true story, Norma Rae starts out weak but slowly starts rising, much like the title character herself.

Summer, 1978. Norma Rae (Sally Field) is a third-generation employee at the O.P. Henley Textile Mill. Both her father Vernon (Pat Hingle) and her mother Leona (Barbara Baxley) work with her. Norma has had a checkered life which the film reveals over its runtime. Norma married young, had a child and became a widow. She had a second child, who is illegitimate. Norma is frustrated by her working conditions at the mill, but there is nothing that she can do about it.

As she goes through life, in comes brash Jewish New Yorker Reuben Warshawsky (Ron Leibman). He is a union organizer for the Textile Workers Union of America. The TWUA has targeted the Henley Mill for unionizing. However, the mix of a union and a Yankee Jew is toxic in this small Southern town. Both whites and blacks mistrust this outsider. Circumstances bring Reuben and Norma together, though not romantically. 

After a brief and disastrous turn as a spot-checker at the mill, circumstances bring Norma together with Sonny Webster (Beau Bridges). They become romantic and eventually marry, blending their three children together. Reuben is having a hard time getting people to unionize. He does what he can but meets resistance from both employer and employee. It is not until a shocking tragedy at the mill occurs that Norma Rae loses her fear of job loss to join Reuben in his cause. Norma Rae soon becomes a union zealot, putting the cause above all. Sometimes, even Reuben has to tell her to pull back. She discovers such figures as Dylan Thomas and discovers her own worth. Norma eventually finds that management's intransigence will come at a heavy personal cost. That, however, will lead to a firm act of defiance that will inspire others to join in the crusade. Will Norma Rae find balance? Will the TWUA find a new chapter in the deep South?

Sally Field, despite her long and varied career, is still seen as a perky personality. She is Gidget. She is The Flying Nun (and for the record, I think she has nothing to be ashamed of with regards the latter). She is also a two-time Oscar winner, placing her in very august company. She has as many Best Actress Oscars as Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Still, people forget that detail. Norma Rae, the first of her Oscar-winning films, was a change of pace for Field. Norma Rae is sometimes a hard woman to like. She can be prickly. She can be defensive. She can be belligerent. She is loose. However, Norma Rae shows her to be a woman growing in self-worth.

We see her start off as someone who waits around the local motel for her married lover. She already has a child out of wedlock. When going to her local Baptist minister, she asks if he thinks she is a good Christian. He looks up and says, "With a lapse or two, I'd say yes". As she finds metaphorical salvation through the TWUA, we see that Norma Rae is coming into her own. This is a woman who will fight for what she believes to be right. Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.'s Oscar-nominated screenplay gives us hints of Norma's world when she is unceremoniously promoted to spot-checker. While the position is better paid, it also would make her highly unpopular. She tells them that she wanted a Kotex machine in the restroom and longer smoking breaks. Rather than give these token concessions, management would bump her up. This reveals much in Norma Rae. It reveals the poor condition conditions. It reveals Norma Rae's blunt manner. When she returns to the line shortly after, she is reproached for it. "I was greedy and I was dumb", she replies. 

Sally Field is deeply impressive in the title role. As Norma Rae goes on, we see her evolution into someone stronger than she herself would have thought. One of the most iconic scenes from Norma Rae is near the end. After the mill management has gotten the police to come and haul her away, we see Norma Rae in full-on defiant mode. Declaring that she will not be moved, she stands on a table and holds up a hurriedly written sign reading "UNION". This firm act of defiance and strength is impressive enough. That such a physically small woman like Sally Field does it makes it more so. Norma Rae is someone who will not be moved.

However, she is no firm tower of strength. The entirety of Field's performance is more than when she metaphorically and literally stands up to larger and stronger people. Her terror at being sent to jail, the agony of that experience also come through. Norma Rae is strong but also deeply vulnerable. One of her best scenes, I think, is not when she firmly takes her stand. Instead, I think Field's best moment in Norma Rae is when she is soft and quiet. After coming home from her brief stay in jail, she wakes her two children and stepdaughter. She explains to them what happened and how their schoolfriends will taunt them. Norma Rae tells them, quietly but directly, the truth about everything. I found myself deeply moved by this scene.

If I found something to criticize about Sally Field's performance in Norma Rae, it was her Southern tones. It felt at times too exaggerated, almost farcical. This, however, was pretty much the same for many of Norma Rae's cast. I thought Pat Hingle also tried too hard to be a son of the South as Vernon. I do not know if director Martin Ritt was like Ron Liebman's Reuben: a New Yorker who struggled to mix with these rednecks. Still, on the whole I think the cast did well minus the issue of Southern accents.

Ron Liebman as Reuben would not have that issue. He was strong as the Jewish Yankee whose efforts to blend it with the townsfolk sometimes met with humorous results. He delighted in taunting his "brothers" when under court order he went into the textile mill to see if the union flyer was properly located. Beau Bridges, oddly, did not struggle with a broad Southern accent. If he had one, it was not as big or as noticeable as everyone else. He played Sonny Webster as a bit of a good ol' boy, but one with a more compassionate and loving heart. Sonny is hurt that Norma Rae called Reuben rather than him to bail her out. She admits that while she has never slept with him, Reuben is in her head. Sonny, quietly and lovingly, tells her that he will stand by her through it all. "And there is nobody else in my head. Just you". It is a deeply moving confession of love.

I think the Ravetch and Frank, Jr. screenplay did well as previously mentioned. "What do I get if I do (join the union)?" a fearful Norma Rae asks. "You don't get nothing if you don't", is Reuben's reply. Like Ritt, I do not know if Ravetch & Frank, Jr. liked Southerners. They were portrayed as mostly dimwitted and racists. On their first interactions, Norma Rae tells Reuben that she thought that Jews had horns. I cannot say that the real-life figures based on this story genuinely or not believed that. I am just shocked that in 1978, people anywhere would believe that, let alone say it.

Norma Rae received two Oscars out of its four nominations. One was for Sally Field. The other was for its theme song, It Goes Like It Goes, which opens and closes the films. It is pretty. It is soft. The lyrics are simple and optimistic. It is also deeply forgettable. I rarely don't comment on other nominees when discussing a particular film. However, which song do people remember nowadays: It Goes Like It Goes or Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie? I think people remember Sally Field's performance in Norma Rae. I strongly doubt people remember It Goes Like It Goes, let alone think that it is one of Norma Rae's best aspects. I cannot fault the song itself, which is fine. I just wonder what Academy members found in It Goes Like It Goes that made them think it was superior to Rainbow Connection. 

Unions have fallen a bit by the wayside. When people do think of them, it is either in terms of corruption or in excessive power. Norma Rae, while strongly pro-union, is also a portrait of a woman growing in strength and courage. It is a strong film that does make you cheer for this small woman who is armed with only the power of her convictions. 

DECISION: B-

Suspicion: A Review

SUSPICION

Would you believe Cary Grant could be a murderer? Such is the case in Suspicion, the Alfred Hitchcock film which won Joan Fontaine the Best Actress Oscar. While a lesser Hitchcock film than what would come after, Suspicion is better than I had originally remembered.

British spinsterish Lina McLaidlaw (Fontaine) is not initially impressed with rakish but charming ne'er-do-well Johnnie Aysgarth (Grant). However, Johnnie slowly keeps pressing his charms to Lina. Her parents, General and Mrs. McLaidlaw (Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Dame May Whitty) express private concerns that Lina will end up an old maid. That is one of the prompts for her to pursue and pine for Johnnie.

Eventually, they elope and set up house in London. It is here that Lina finds that Johnnie has an aversion to work and the truth. He easily squanders whatever money comes his way, including hers. Johnnie even sells two antique chairs that are McLaidlaw family heirlooms that Lina loves. Johnnie has at least one friend: the dimwitted but kind-hearted Gordon "Beaky" Thwaite (Nigel Bruce). Beaky loves Johnnie, overlooking to quietly cheering on his duplicitous nature.

That duplicitous nature caused Johnnie's own cousin, Captain Melbeck (Leo G. Carroll) to fire him for embezzlement. Melbeck informs the unknowing Lina that he agreed not to press charges but had to terminate Johnnie's employment. Despite his repeated actions, Johnnie always manages to scrape by enough to keep things going. He also starts talking the naive Beaky into a real estate venture. Lina, however, begins to wonder if Johnnie would not shrink from murdering Beaky for the money. Could Johnnie also plan to murder Lina? Will Lina's Suspicion be proven true or fantasy? 

Suspicion is not held up as one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's better films. However, it holds a very unique distinction in film history. It is the only Hitchcock film to have an Oscar-winning performance in it. Looking back, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was rather parsimonious with Hitchcock films overall. Some of his greatest films received few nominations. Psycho received only four nominations, North by Northwest just three and Vertigo a mere two nods. Almost all of those nominations were in technical categories, with Psycho the only one of those three to receive above-the-line recognition. Compare the nine combined nominations for Psycho, North by Northwest and Vertigo to Emilia Perez's near-record thirteen nods and you wonder if people should measure quality by Academy recognition. Yet, I digress.

Suspicion, I suspect, earned Joan Fontaine the Best Actress Oscar in part as consolation for having lost the year before for Rebecca. The roles are not dissimilar, but it unfair to say that Fontaine's win is based solely on her previous loss. I found her performance good as Lina. In the latter part of the film, Fontaine was not as dramatic or theatrical as she was in the first part. Her growing fear and/or paranoia was well-portrayed. Of particular note is in the film's climax when Johnnie brings in a glass of milk. Could that milk be poisoned? She also has a wonderful bit of silent acting when informed of Beaky's fate. Her face expresses that mix of shock, horror and genuine sadness for the "old bean". 

Joan Fontaine may have walked away with the Oscar. However, it is Cary Grant who stole the show. Suspicion is auspicious in that it is also the first of the four films that Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock would make together. In Suspicion, I think that Grant is slowly shifting from his purely lighthearted roles to show his great range. Suspicion does have a surprising amount of lightness to it. That, I confess, threw me off a bit. Grant in particular makes for a lot of light moments in Suspicion. There is when he is fixing Lina's hair. There is his pet name for her, Monkeyface. His interactions with Nigel Bruce's Beaky also might lead people to think that Suspicion was closer to a comedy than a drama.

However, late in the film, Cary Grant shows Johnnie's dark and menacing side. When Lina questions Johnnie's business ventures, he becomes quietly but firmly defensive and angry. As both of them walk up the stairs, the camera following them, we see how dangerous Cary Grant could be on screen. He isn't shouting or raging. His voice and line delivery, however, reveal how harsh Johnnie could be. Had he not been nominated that year for Penny Serenade, Cary Grant would have been a fine choice for a nomination for his turn in Suspicion. 

I have to also confess that I simply have never liked Nigel Bruce. I have never forgiven him for making Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Dr. John Watson into the ultimate boob. Bruce made Watson into a man so stupid that he could not find his way out of a room with all the windows and doors open. Here as Beaky, Bruce still makes the character into a bubble-brained dupe. To be fair, at least he was more tolerable here. The fantasy sequence of Beaky's potential demise though will probably have people laughing more than anything else. In smaller roles both Sir Cedric Harwicke and Dame May Whitty did well as Lina's disapproving or worried parents.

Franz Waxman's score received an Oscar nomination, one of the film's three including Best Picture. Waxman's score was lush and romantic. However, part of me thinks that is the problem. The climatic scene where Lina faces off against the glass of milk should be tense. Waxman's score, however, makes it sound far too romantic and not at all menacing. 

The screenplay adaptation of Francis Iles' Before the Fact was the work of three writers. Samson Ralphelson, Joan Harrison and Alfred Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville brought in some nice moments. The local police call on Mrs. Aysgarth to inquire about her husband's role with regards Beaky. They inform her that a French witness with some understanding of English has a name. The police ask Lina if she or Johnnie might know a "Mr. Albein or Holbein". It is clear that they mean "Old Bean", the nickname Beaky calls Johnnie. Other elements though go unremarked. Suspicion never clears up what exactly happened to Beaky. 

The pat ending where things are supposedly cleared up is not Mr. and/or Mrs. Hitchcock's fault. The Production Code nor RKO were about to have Cary Grant get away with murder. The mere suggestion that Cary Grant could be a murderer was already treading on dangerous waters. Would a different conclusion have made Suspicion better? I think so, but that is not what we have. Instead, we have a film that ties things up neatly, down to a relatively happy ending. 

I think better of Suspicion now than I did when I first saw it. The performances were good. At 99 minutes it does not overstay its welcome. I would put Suspicion on the lower end of both Alfred Hitchcock films and Best Actress Oscar-winning performances. That said, Suspicion is an acceptable thriller.  

DECISION: C+

The Sin of Madelon Claudet: A Review

THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET

Helen Hayes was dubbed "the First Lady of the American Theater" for her long association with Broadway acting. Early sound film audiences got a glimpse of Hayes' style in The Sin of Madelon Claudet, her sound film debut. Perhaps reputation carried Hayes to win Best Actress for the film. The Sin of Madelon Claudet is a bit stagey, sometimes melodramatic, but in the end a decent enough film. 

Told in flashback, The Sin of Madelon Claudet is that she fell in love. Young farmer's daughter Madelon (Hayes) has run off with handsome aspiring painter Larry (Neil Hamilton) to Paris. Larry has a patron in wealthy Count Carlo Boretti (Lewis Stone). Larry is forced to return to America but pledges his love for Madelon, promising to return. Unbeknownst to Madelon, Larry was also forced into marriage. Unbeknownst to Larry, he knocked up Madelon. 

At first, Madelon wants nothing to do with her baby. However, she quickly embraces her bastard. Turning to Count Boretti, she becomes his mistress but does not tell him about her child. Instead, her dear friend Rosie (Marie Prevost) and ne'er-do-well husband Victor (Cliff Edwards) care for him. Boretti at last proposes marriage and tells her that he's always known about her child. Their celebratory dinner ends in disaster when Boretti is arrested for jewelry theft, having been a thief and fence for years. Madelon is also arrested as an accomplice despite knowing nothing of his crimes. Boretti takes the easy way out and Madelon takes the fall.

After a decade in prison, Madelon is desperate to be reunited with her son, Lawrence (Frankie Darro). While Larry is in a charitable school, he has the skills to be a doctor. Larry's school mentor Dr. Duloc (Jean Hersholt) tells Madelon that owing to his parentage, Larry faces an uphill battle to enter medical school and society at large. Madelon tells the unsuspecting Larry that she is a friend of his mother's and that his mother is dead.

As the years go by, Lawrence becomes the respected Dr. Claudet (Robert Young). He is sponsored by a mysterious benefactress who provides money, sometimes at the last minute. Larry is unaware that his sponsor is his mother. He is less aware that she has been funding his education by plying the world's oldest profession. As Madelon evolves into a haggard hooker, she occasionally turns to theft to help her son. At long last, before she commits herself permanently to a public assistance home, she makes a visit to Dr. Lawrence Claudet's home. Will she unmask herself? Will Dr. Duloc, who knows everything, finally tell all?

I imagine that The Sin of Madelon Claudet was a spicier title than the play's original one of The Lullaby. What could be Madelon's sin? The promise of sex and debauchery was not fulfilled in the film. We see the pre-code elements in The Sin of Madelon Claudet in the frankness of it showing Lawrence's illegitimate birth and Madelon being both a kept woman and a woman of easy virtue. As such, one wonders why the elegant Helen Hayes was cast in the role. 

In some ways, Helen Hayes was the right choice for the title role. She was a longtime theater actress, and the film was based on a stage play. As such, Hayes would know how to handle the role. However, I think part of the flaw now is that Hayes at times is acting as if she were in a stage play and not a film. For most of The Sin of Madelon Claudet, there was something theatrical in Hayes' performance. Sometimes it veered dangerously to being over-the-top. One such case is when Madelon is being hauled away. Pleading her innocence, we hear Count Boretti's gunshot. Her reaction does not exactly cause giggles but does come across as a bit overwrought. 

In fairness, later scenes show a better side to Helen Hayes' Oscar-winning performance. Of particular note is when she reencounters young Larry. There is pathos as she struggles between revealing herself and protecting his future. Her transition from virtue to vice also work well. On the whole though, I found Helen Hayes' performance a bit uneven. It was not a bad performance. She has some good scenes and some good makeup work. It, however, also has a mannered manner to the early section that come across as something from the stage.

Director Edgar Selwyn could get a decent performance out of Helen Hayes. He could not do that out of pretty much anyone else save young Frankie Darro as the young Lawrence. To be fair, Marie Prevost was solid as Madelon's BFF Rosie, who showed herself a loyal friend and loving guardian. The same can, somewhat, be said for Jean Hersholt as Lawrence' mentor. He was a bit dramatic, but somehow it worked for his character of the wise doctor who tells Lawrence's wife Alice (Karen Morley) this tale of mother love.

However, pretty much everyone else was a bit embarrassing to watch. Neil Hamilton, who would later earn his greatest claim to fame as Commissioner Gordon on the campy Batman television series, was a bit silly as Larry. It is hard to imagine someone like Larry inspiring much of anything, let alone ardent passion. 

Helen Hayes could manage to show she could curtain some stage mannerisms on occasion. Such was not the case with Lewis Stone, who was so theatrical he might have thought he was in a play. Cliff Edwards, my guess is, was brought in as some kind of comic relief. His scenes did not seem to fully work. He was meant to be an irresponsible lout who squandered money. As played by Edwards, he seemed a bit too cheerful and dare I say nice to be such a scoundrel. 

The worst of the lot is Robert Young. Perhaps I can cut him some slack in thinking that The Sin of Madelon Claudet was early in his career. I could also blame both Charles MacArthur's adaptation and Young's mustache, which looked odd on him. However, Robert Young was pretty weak in this pivotal role. 

There were elements in The Sin of Madelon Claudet that were impressive for an early sound film. Selwyn's transitions from Lawrence to Madelon's stories were surprisingly innovative for the time. The camera would pan from Madelon picking up a john to Lawrence healing one. Selwyn also went for a good transition when focusing in on Madelon's washing tub to Larry's champagne glass. MacArthur, who was married to Hayes, also did well in showing without telling. Madelon's first trick was accidental, but the suggestion was there. The suggestion from Count Boretti to Madelon to be his mistress was also not directly spoken but clearly understood. That too worked well.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet is sadly a pretty forgotten film despite being one that won Helen Hayes her first Oscar. I am not mounting a call for a revival of it. The film is a bit stagey in its acting, which hurts it. In fairness, it might be due to the transition to sound film at the time. On the whole, The Sin of Madelon Claudet is not a bad film. It is not a great film either. It is no sin to see or skip it. 

DECISION: C+