The Animal Kingdom

Once I actually spoke to Ann Harding on the telephone, but, alas, I didn't really know who she was. Yes, it was late in her life and early in mine, but if I had had the slightest idea what an extraordinary actress she had been, I would have been more forward, would have tried to spend time talking with her in person.

I knew the name. She had been a star. But now having seen her in "The Animal Kingdom," I am simply astonished at her ability.

In fact the entire cast is compelling. Even other people of whom I knew nothing or very little were impossible to look away from.

For example, "Franc," played by Leni Stengel, was such a strong, and well-written, character, she was never over-shadowed even by the major characters. "Joe," played by Don Dillaway, was another, and I had never heard of either actor before. Now I want to see everything they ever appeared in. The two actors were remarkable performers, contributing great talent to an already overwhelmingly talented cast.

Myrna Loy played a strong and attractive "society lady," but her character was different from the kind she is known for and gave her a chance to demonstrate she too was one fine actress, capable of variety, and not just a pretty face.

Leslie Howard played, as it seemed he so often did, a rather weak character, but one capable of greatness, or at least potentially of strength.

William Gargan was wonderful as a supposed-to-be-servant who just didn't "know his place." I've never seen him in this type of role, and he was just captivating.

But Ann Harding stole it all.

She was, of course, beautiful, but her mannerisms and gestures, under played, just proved definitely that she was an actress, and an actress of power.

Horace Jackson's script is based on a Philip Barry play so perhaps credit for the dialogue belongs mostly to Barry, but it's intelligent and entices an audience into sticking with everything happening on the screen, even though the actual story is rather sad. It's about misdirected desires, and sacrifices people really shouldn't make.

"The Animal Kingdom" is a good movie, one I recommend, and one I am grateful to Turner Classic Movies for presenting on 9 December 2016. It is and has much more than the one-sentence description found in TV listings. It is much more than a soap opera. It is a strong drama beautifully acted and written, and deserving of serious attention.

That was a line from another Philip Barry play which had a bit more screen popularity than The Animal Kingdom. Philip Barry as a playwright was able to find an audience in two distinct eras of American history, the carefree Roaring Twenties and the poorer socially significant Thirties. He did with a clever mixture of social commentary while writing about the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.

The Animal Kingdom had a 183 performance run on Broadway the previous year and its star Leslie Howard was a movie name already on two continents. So Howard, Bill Gargan, and Ilka Chase repeat their Broadway roles here. Good thing for Howard, he got to do this screen version of one of his Broadway triumphs. Probably in a few more years Cary Grant might have gotten the call.

Howard is a rich young man rather bored with his life and living without benefit of clergy with bohemian artist Ann Harding. But family pressures force him to marry society girl Myrna Loy. Guess who in the end he winds up with or watch the film to find out.

A lot of similarities here with Holiday, a Barry play that got a more well known screen adaption. An overbearing parent, snobbish friends/ relatives and two women to choose from, and some down to earth friends for the hero.

The players do well here and a special note should be made of Bill Gargan who plays Howard's butler who is a washed up former prizefighter. The Animal Kingdom was Gargan's feature film debut and I wouldn't be surprised if Leslie Howard did the same service for him as he did for Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest.

The Animal Kingdom despite good notices failed to find an audience in Herbert Hoover America. Howard's problems do seem trivial in the face of what a lot of people were dealing with. Still it's a good and faithful adaption of a good play.

I caught this by accident the other night trolling on amazon prime. WOW. I had never seen Ann Harding before - now I'm searching for all her films. Her scenes with Leslie Howard are timeless. She reminds me a bit of Helen Hunt - the intelligence, integrity and genuine affection she displays jump right across the screen. Her character is a total opposite to the completely controlled and controlling wife played by Myrna Loy. I never liked Philadelphia Story all that much so I was not anticipating that I would sit through the entirety of another Phillip Barry story, but I was wrong. Philadelphia Story asked us to smile at the elderly father's affairs with younger women and dismissed his daughter's opposition solely because her mother declared "it doesn't bother me", when clearly the reverse situation would have been unthinkable and abhorrent. Animal Kingdom instead shows us a woman typically viewed by society as "dishonorable", living a life of integrity. Not what you would expect from this era. I only wish we'd had a final scene with Harding and Howard, but I'm a romantic.

very good movie that the censors couldn't destroy. amazing for it's blatantly adult themes in 1932. the story hasn't aged one bit. lesile howard is brilliant in his role. i saw this on tv one night and searched for half a year to figure out what it was called. fantastic.

Previous reviewers have summarized the plot well. Likewise its pre-code frankness. But what makes this movie most interesting is the unusual context the various stars find themselves in. Think playwright Phillip Barry. What comes to mind: "The Philadelphia Story." Think Leslie Howard: "Pygmalion" and "Gone with the Wind." Think Myrna Loy: the "Thin Man" series. Think William Gargan: many later movies. Notice that Myrna Loy, later such an important star, has to take third billing after Ann Harding. That certainly wouldn't have been the case just a few years later. Good to see Ilka Chase in a screen role. I thought Howard and Loy superb in their acting, probably among the best work they ever did. Under the banal everyday polite surface of the dialogue and events little by little the characters expose themselves: Loy as the manipulative femme fatal and Howard as the man for whom the light begins slowly to turn on. For those whom the title puzzled, I caught Howard saying at one point, "We're just members of the animal kingdom."

Compare this film to Platinum Blonde of 1931 starring Jean Harlow. My IMDb review summarizes the parallels between these two films.