Classic Films in Focus: JULIA MISBEHAVES (1948)

Directed by Jack Conway, Julia Misbehaves (1948) is a charming, frothy romantic comedy that reunites the stars of Mrs. Miniver (1942) for a rather different look at the ups and downs of marriage. Greer Garson kicks up her heels as a bohemian performer long estranged, but not divorced, from husband Walter Pidgeon. The picture also features a host of familiar faces, including Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Lawford as a young pair with romantic issues of their own and great character actors like Cesar Romero, Nigel Bruce, Mary Boland, Reginald Owen, and Henry Stephenson. The cast alone makes the film worth seeing, but Garson and Pidgeon share a delightful chemistry that enriches their scenes together even when their characters are being most ridiculous.

Garson stars as Julia Packett, who long ago left her husband and infant daughter and returned to the stage to make her own way. Broke but persevering on pluck and a steady stream of schemes, Julia is surprised by an invitation to her daughter's wedding and decides to attend. Her mother-in-law (Lucile Watson) hopes to eject Julia from the nuptials, but husband William (Walter Pidgeon) quickly falls for her all over again, much to his mother's dismay. Meanwhile, daughter Susan (Elizabeth Taylor) is preparing to marry an unseen groom while fighting her attraction to the handsome young Ritchie (Peter Lawford).

Julia Misbehaves resolutely focuses on the comedic aspects of its material, but there's a lot of heartache lurking beneath the bubbly surface. Over the course of the picture we learn that Julia married William when she was only seventeen and he was a young soldier abroad. They had happy days together at first, but we get the distinct sense that their separation was orchestrated by William's mother, who disapproves of Julia and schemes to divide them once more by inviting Julia's acrobatic admirer, Fred (Cesar Romero), into the Packett family home. Several scenes touch on the longing Julia has felt to be reunited with Susan all these years, and the conversations between Julia and Mrs. Packett suggest that Julia was forbidden that contact. These details matter because we're supposed to like Julia and understand that she didn't just abandon her family for life on the stage; she was pushed out against her will when she was still very young. When she returns, Julia has become a force in her own right, no longer vulnerable to Mrs. Packett's intimidation.

The story, therefore, is essentially a comeback comedy, with Julia regaining the things she lost so many years ago. In order to survive and become a match for the scheming Mrs. Packett, Julia has learned to be quite a schemer herself. She wheels and deals to get the money she needs; we first see her in a bathtub threatening to commit suicide in order to induce her friend Benji (Reginald Owen) to pay off her debts. She later bamboozles an old gambler (Nigel Bruce) so that she can buy gifts for Susan. The men in the picture also resort to underhanded plots for good causes; William turns out to be just as crafty as his mother and his wife, especially as he works to rekindle the flame of his marriage, while Ritchie hatches plans to frighten Susan into his arms with some help from a friendly bear. Even sweet Susan turns out to have a few schemes up her sleeve at the story's close, much to the surprise of her parents. Everybody, it seems, has to be a trickster sometimes in order to make happy endings happen.

Julia Misbehaves is the final film directed by Jack Conway, who had started in the silent era and gone on to direct a number of Jean Harlow comedies, including Red-Headed Woman (1932), Libeled Lady (1936), and Saratoga (1937). Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon star in eight movies together, with Julia Misbehaves as their fifth pairing and a rare foray into comedic territory. More typical of their collaborations are Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie (1943), and Mrs. Parkington (1944). For another film featuring both Peter Lawford and Elizabeth Taylor, see the 1949 adaptation of Little Women, or move on to Father of the Bride (1950) for more of young Liz in a wedding dress.


WHERE TO WATCH: Julia Misbehaves is currently streaming on Filmstruck.

Classic Films in Focus: MRS. MINIVER (1942)

As its twelve Oscar nominations and six wins attest, Mrs. Miniver was the right film at the right moment in 1942. Americans newly engaged in World War II flocked to the theater and took away a sense that they were fighting for people like the Minivers and their quaint English village. Even to director William Wyler, Mrs. Miniver later seemed naive in its depiction of wartime experience, but it remains an effective and emotional appeal to our sense of country, liberty, and the sweet fragility of life. The famous Wilcoxon speech, which ends the picture, is an especially stirring call to arms; it proved so powerful that President Roosevelt had copies of it dropped over Nazi-occupied Europe. For Americans looking for a reason to fight, Mrs. Miniver provided motivation in abundance, along with films like The Great Dictator (1940), Casablanca (1942), and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

Greer Garson stars as the title character, a comfortable English housewife whose domestic bliss is shattered by the arrival of the war. Her oldest child, Vin (Richard Ney), joins the RAF and flies into danger while falling in love with sweet Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright). Husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) patrols the river and makes the journey to Dunkirk while Mrs. Miniver and her younger children endure air raids and the appearance of a downed German pilot. Village life goes on even as the bombs fall, culminating in a flower show where Mrs. Miniver has a prize rose named after her by the station master, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers). When tragedy strikes, the family and their community must hold to their values in defiance of all they have lost.

Garson is very much the glamorous star in spite of her maternal role; she never looks dirty or bedraggled, and she certainly doesn't look old enough to be the mother of Vin. In real life Garson was only twelve years older than Richard Ney and actually ended up marrying him, though the union lasted just a few years. Garson's glamour is part of what makes Mrs. Miniver seem a little artificial and dated to a modern audience, but the actress does have tremendous screen presence, especially in closeup. Walter Pidgeon's Clem looks somewhat rougher after his valiant excursion to Dunkirk, but gritty realism is never the picture's aim. We get glimpses of that in the damage to the Minivers' house and the village church, but the most powerful scene of wartime fear takes place in the family's bunker, where the parents clutch their screaming children as the bombs rain down destruction from above. Wyler makes a point of showing us that war's victims are not just the soldiers who fight, but the women and children and old men, too. Youth and innocence offer no protection against such devastation.

A number of supporting performances deserve particular mention, including Teresa Wright's moving portrayal of Carol, who loves Vin even though she knows how easily he could be killed. Wright won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the role, but she had competition for it in Dame May Whitty, who plays her starchy grandmother, Lady Beldon. These two women, at opposite ends of life, create bookends around Mrs. Miniver and offer subtler commentaries on what is won and what is lost in war. Lady Beldon might, in fact, be the story's most dynamic character; she starts as an unlikable snob but slowly unbends to reveal her generous heart, and Vin's last scene with her shows how far they've come. Henry Travers is as genial as ever in the role of Mr. Ballard, the rose gardener who admires Mrs. Miniver's kindness and grace, and Henry Wilcoxon owns the final scene as the village vicar.

Mrs. Miniver won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Cinematography. William Wyler, who was overseas with the Signal Corps when his picture had its big night, came back from the war to direct The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which reunited him with Teresa Wright and took another look at the toll of wartime experience. For more of Greer Garson see Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Pride and Prejudice (1940), and Random Harvest (1942). Walter Pidgeon starred with Garson in a number of films, but today he is probably best remembered for How Green Was My Valley (1941) and Forbidden Planet (1956). For more of the delightful Dame May Whitty, see Night Must Fall (1937) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). A sequel, The Miniver Story, appeared in 1950 with Garson and Pidgeon back in their original roles but with Vin cut out of the story following Richard Ney's divorce from Garson.

In Praise of Women's Pictures

I have been looking over my iCheckMovies rating again this week, which always forces me to confront the fact that I just don't want to sit through some of the movies that make all of those official lists. As I peruse the highly ranked pictures, trying to will myself to buckle down to some of those films, I inevitably come away with a strong desire to watch some unranked classic from the 30s and 40s instead.

Why this reluctance to watch movies that all the critics say are great?

One reason is that almost all of those critics are men (God rest you, Pauline Kael!), and the movies that move them are not the movies that move me. I'm a 40-something wife and mother, and I'm practically a non-entity in those top dog films, unless I'm being bumped off to fuel the plot and create angst for the protagonist. I can be shot by a sniper, beaten to death by organized crime thugs, devoured by zombies, or beheaded by a serial killer, and naturally I see myself being sexually assaulted quite a bit, but I very rarely get to be the protagonist of my own story in modern movies. Chick flicks are no restitution, since these days they tend to be stupid, flaky comedies about women who like to shop, or who put off marriage and children to pursue careers until they are also 40-something but acting as if they were still 22.

I think those women live in New York, where they apparently worry a lot about sex and matching shoes with designer handbags. I'm not sure, though, because I live in Alabama, where I worry a lot about how my kid will turn out and whether that sound in the middle of the night is a burglar or just the cat throwing up on my one good rug. I worry about my husband, especially when he's away on travel, and I worry about what I'm doing with my life, whether I have given up too much for the benefit of others or if I'll still manage to make good on all of those promises and dreams I had for myself twenty years ago.

When I want to see women like myself, be they wives or mothers or single career girls, with serious stories about what it means to live and struggle through the world, I turn to Greer Garson, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, and a host of other great leading ladies who show us the rich emotional lives of grown-up women living grown-up lives. They don't make actresses like them any more, and if they did make them they still wouldn't have any movies to star in, thanks to a box office driven by CGI testosterone fests aimed at 17-35 year old males.

Sure, I enjoy a bread and circuses comic book action movie on occasion, but I don't see myself in them. You let me know when Black Widow and Hawkeye have to juggle their separate crime fighting careers and decide which one will miss the big villain fight to attend Junior's soccer tournament. Then we'll talk.

At least there was a time, once upon a Hollywood, when things were different. There was a time when Mrs. Miniver could be an Oscar queen, when Mildred Pierce could straddle the line between film noir and weepie with the dark force of a mother's love, when the world wept with Kitty Foyle over her little contender for the year 2000. The women in those films grappled with love and sacrifice, ambition and regret - all the same issues that define my own life more than 60 years later. They tend to be hopeful movies, all things considered; these women are survivors - intelligent, capable, and strong even at their most vulnerable. Their choices may at times seem a little dated, especially to those who are young and single, but to me they resonate powerfully.

We talk about the power of the "every man" in literature and film because people want to see characters who

reflect them and their concerns. We don't talk much about the "every woman," but we should. Women also want to see characters who are like them, but these days we very rarely do. I'm not a super hero, or a secret agent, or a sexy distraction. I'm not a victim, or a cheap thrill, or a mindless child. My story is not written in the margins of other people's lives. One of the greatest things classic movies do for me is to remind me of that.

Thank you, Bette. Thank you, Olivia and Joan. Thank you, Ginger and Greer. Maybe one day there will be enough women critics to balance the score in ranking all of the wonderful films you made, but until then you'll have me, languishing at the bottom of the iCheckMovies heap but getting so much pleasure from the films that speak to me.