Mourning Becomes Electra: A Review

MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA

Sometimes, a project can have so much ambition, so much pedigree, that it collapses under all its pretentious weight. Such is the case with Mourning Becomes Electra, a shockingly dull and at times unintentionally hilarious adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play. Meant as a showcase for its star, Mourning Becomes Electra ends up as one of that star's greatest screen embarrassments. 

Divided into three parts: Homecoming, The Hunted and The Haunted, our setting for this steamy story of lust among the white savages is post-Civil War New England. Loyal Mannon family servant Seth (Henry Hull) awaits the return of Union General Ezra Mannon (Raymond Massey). This, however, will not be a hero's welcome. The Mannon Manse is filled with sordid mysteries. There is Ezra's black sheep brother David, who knocked up the French maid and was forced to leave with her and their child. 

Then there are Ezra's children. His son Orin (Michael Redgrave) is also returning from the war. His spinster daughter Lavinia (Rosalind Russell) secretly desires sea captain Adam Brant (Leo Genn). Unfortunately, Brant is having an affair with Lavinia's mother Christine (Katina Paxinou), which Lavinia knows about when she followed Brant and broke into his home. Lavinia is courted by Peter Niles (Kirk Douglas), whose sister Hazel (Nancy Coleman) love Orin.

This is all getting very convoluted, isn't it?

Seth then reveals to Vinnie a shocking secret. Adam Brant is David's son! So, Lavinia is lusting after her first cousin and Christine is schtupping her nephew. To be fair, I am unsure that Christine knew of the familial bonds. However, I think that if she did know, she did not care. Ezra, it turns out, was not morally outraged that his brother David was screwing the help. Ezra was upset that David got there first. This devastates Vinnie, who worships her father. Lavinia is clearly a daddy's girl. Orin is clearly a momma's boy. Exactly how intimate any of them want their relationships to be is open to speculation. Mourning Becomes Electra is inches from openly stating that the parents want an incestuous relationship with their kids: Ezra with Vinnie and Christine with Orin.

All of that is before we even get to Part Two. 

Orin has returned, injured but alive. Christine plots to kill Ezra, admitting to a shocked and furious Vinnie that she has always hated him. David hates the unsuspecting Ezra even more, for not having helped him and his mother when she was dying. Lavinia still desires David. David is still screwing Christine. Christine is plotting Ezra's murder, which does happen. Lavinia gives him what she thinks is medicine but turns out to be poisoned, Ezra realizing too late what Christine's wicked schemes are. 

Orin eventually believes Lavinia's story and kills Brant. In despair, Christine kills herself. Yet there is still another hour to go in our sordid saga. Lavinia uses her inheritance to go to the islands, where she had a liaison with hunky native boy Avahanni. Orin, having lost his extremely beloved mother, mocks her for going native in every way possible. He will also punish Vinnie by preventing her marriage to Peter. There are more suicides and lurid suggestions until, now totally alone, Lavinia Mannon locks herself away to become the American Miss Havisham.

Mourning Becomes Electra was meant to showcase Rosalind Russell as a dramatic actress. It was, to use modern parlance, Oscar-bait par excellence. This film was going to win Russell a Best Actress Oscar. It had everything: grand setting, theatrical pedigree, dramatic acting that could be heard all the way to the balcony seats. Despite the grandiose nature of Mourning Becomes Electra, complete with Oscar campaign, it was Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter who pulled off what is still considered one of the greatest Oscar upsets in history. 

While most people, granted, do not remember The Farmer's Daughter, they probably remember Mourning Becomes Electra less. The original roadshow film version ran an astonishing two hours and fifty-three minutes. The current version runs two hours and forty minutes. Whatever the runtime is, Mourning Becomes Electra is deadly dull and so full of itself that one watches to see if the actors can get through things without breaking character and breaking out into open laughter.

There is a scene where Russell's Lavinia, Michael Redgrave's Orin and Katina Paxinou's Catherine are all gathered around patriarch Ezra Mannon's corpse. Russell, Redgrave and Paxinou are all so totally over-the-top in their grandiose manner. I can only hope that it was a dummy of Raymond Massey as Ezra. If it wasn't, he deserved Best Actor for not breaking out in howls of laughter being around these three totally crazed actors devouring the scenery in total abandon. 

Massey was not nominated for Best Actor. Redgrave was nominated for Mourning Becomes Electra, the only nomination that he would receive in his career. Why specifically he was singled out I do not know if anyone can answer. It was not a good performance. His monologue with Ezra's corpse is SO DRAMATIC that it becomes farcical.  

Not that anyone else saved themselves deep embarrassment at how theatrical everyone was. Every single performance was almost cartoonish in its unintended hilarity. Early on, I found Rosalind Russell to be a bit grand and overdone as Lavinia. She seemed to be directed by Dudley Nichols (who adapted Eugene O'Neill's play) as if she were Mame Dennis attempting to play a gonzo Lady Macbeth in a Shakesperean parody. Despite the film's setting in New England, Mourning Becomes Electra seems more suited for a Southern gothic spoof. 

The word "overwrought" would have had to have been created to describe Rosalind Russell's performance. Actually, in retrospect the word "overwrought" seems pretty small to how Russell came across. Judging by Mourning Becomes Electra, Rosalind Russell thinks that dramatic acting consists entirely of thrusting one's head and widening their eyes. Had Russell's eyes widened any larger, they would have literally popped out of her head. I am genuinely surprised that Russell's eyes did not literally (and I do mean literally) fly out of her skull. I half-expected them to whenever she thrusted her neck no matter what the situation. Had her peepers thrown themselves out of her face, it would have at least made Mourning Becomes Electra watchable.

I love Rosalind Russell. She was a bright and beautiful talent. However, and perhaps it is wrong to say so, I am so glad that she lost Best Actress for Mourning Becomes Electra. Had she won for this lumbering, dull, overacted and embarrassing snoozefest, it would have permanently ruined her reputation as an actress. It would have ranked as one of the worst Best Actress wins in all film. I think it is because Russell simply tried too damn hard to be dramatic that it ended up looking hilarious. You cannot take the performance seriously when it consists of exaggerated mannerisms that would look idiotic in a silent film. 

Perhaps, looking back on this fiasco, that is why Mourning Becomes Electra is such a spectacular failure. Everyone was trying far too hard to force this to be a gripping drama. Katina Paxinou, coming off a recent Oscar win in For Whom the Bell Tolls, kept up with everyone else in the almost unhinged mannerisms. She and Leo Genn as the man between mother and daughter had more overwrought and cringe scenes. Kirk Douglas, in an early role, saved himself some embarrassment due only to his limited screentime.

I think one of the biggest problems in Mourning Becomes Electra is how it never escapes its stage roots. Late in the film, the various characters have such a lack of interaction with others that it makes the whole thing look like a play. 

The staging is already a problem. The plot really kills the whole thing. Mourning Becomes Electra is an updated adaptation of the Greek Oresteia trilogy of plays. What works in ancient Greece does not work in New England. It does not help that Mourning Becomes Electra has a barely concealed suggestion of incest running through it. You already have mother and daughter fighting over the same man. Then there is the element that Lavinia wants to screw her own cousin even after knowing that Adam is her first cousin. Add to that tawdry mix the very creepy fixation that Lavinia has for daddy Ezra, and that Orin has for mommy Catherine, and it all comes across as grotesque. 

Mourning Becomes Electra fails on pretty much every level imaginable. It is absolutely dull. If one manages to stay awake through the endlessly overcooked performances, one might start laughing at how overcooked they are. "I made a fool out of myself", Lavian a one point says. After suffering through Mourning Becomes Electra, I was not sure if Rosalind Russell was talking as the character or as herself realizing just how laughable her performance was.

DECISION: D-