The Adventures of Martin Eden

In reviewing a film like The Adventures Of Martin Eden we have the benefit of over 60 years of hindsight and a whole career of Glenn Ford to look back on. Considering the type of roles that Ford mostly did in his career one could conclude he was typecast. Someone like John Garfield or later on Paul Newman would have been perfect in the part of the protagonist who is author Jack London.

Yet in Peter Ford's biography of his father, Glenn won the approval of London's widow Charmian. She said he quite reminded her of her late husband who died at 50 in 1916 and she even let him hear some gramophone recordings of Jack so he could play him to perfection.

What Charmian thought of the finished product we don't know because that Peter Ford didn't mention. Not hardly his father's fault but the film is nothing like the novel. Maybe at some point we'll get a true version with someone like Russell Crowe in the title role.

Glenn is a native genius, rough, unschooled with a burning desire to tell stories of and about the working masses with realism, not unlike Emile Zola in France a generation or two earlier. He goes to sea and gets to serve under a brutal captain in Ian MacDonald. One of his shipmates Stu Erwin rebels and gets 10 years in jail for it. Glenn's kept a diary, but can't get it admitted to court as evidence.

That diary is the beginning of his career, but he still wants to see justice for Erwin. Glenn's life also has time for romance with Erwin's sister Claire Trevor and ship owner's daughter Evelyn Keyes who though she likes Glenn is ultimately daddy Pierre Watkin's daughter.

Conditions on ships were as brutal as London describes them. Other than that this is not Jack London's book. Had he been alive I doubt he would have given his imprimatur to the finished product.

That being said Ford gives a fine performance in a role he never would have been considered for later in his career. He's ably assisted by Trevor and Keyes and the rest of the cast.

But this film definitely needs a more true remake and one that reflects London's rather pessimistic vision.

Glenn Ford gives a rousing performance as the title character. This was still early in his career, before the actor settled into his more familiar low-key film persona. But his spirit here is well placed since Eden has to struggle against social forces far stronger than he. Based on Jack London's autobiography, the screenplay shows how narrow the literary parameters were in London's day. Fiction served mainly as escapism for the leisure class and was a long way from the kind of raw reality Eden sought to portray. Naturally, the moneyed class didn't want to read about how tough life was for the industrial workingman. Thus, more familiar types of literary realism, such as London-Eden's, were generally suppressed. This is an important part of the screenplay and offers a glimpse of the barrier certain kinds of authors faced in getting published.

The movie's central crux, however, is Eden's having to choose between staying with his working class roots, symbolized by Connie (Trevor), or ascending to the moneyed class with Ruth (Keyes). On a more abstract plane, it's also a contest between Truth with a capital T, on one side, and social position, on the other. Thus, it's also a movie of conflicting ideals.

Basically, the movie starts fast, sags somewhat in the middle, and rev's-up for the climax. In fact, the first part, aboard ship, amounts to a hard act to follow. Frankly, I could have done without some of the ritual brawling with Raglan (MacDonald), which seems added mainly for action's sake. Nonetheless, it's a revealing little film with an energetic turn from headliner Ford and a good glimpse of the literary world, circa 1900.

This certainly is as remote from Jack London's 1909 novel "Martin Eden" as the title - the novel's title doesn't promise an adventure - the movie's plot bears no resemblance to the novel - with the framing story of a brutal ship's captain seemingly borrowed from London's 1904 novel "The Sea-Wolf" - within that frame - the movie dwells on Eden's efforts to succeed at writing - but in the movie's case - it's a barely forgivable distraction from his real duty - to get his friend out of jail

the novel's fascinating recounting of Martin Eden's struggles to succeed at writing (based on Jack London's own journey) - lacks the high drama the movie has - which explains why the movie probably strayed so far from the novel - a faithful rendering of it would have been more quiet and intellectual - and probably would have drawn fewer paying customers

yet i fidgeted thru out the movie - it was too alien to my memories of the novel - i missed the early 1900s setting of the novel with its slower paced life - contrasting with the frenetic 1940's film noir milieu of the movie - and i missed the widening intellectual perspectives that Eden's' self-education brought about

in and of itself - the movie's okay - with a simple plot that's predictable all the way to the end - with an occasional fresh twist - and the actors are up to the script - but there's almost nothing reminiscent of Jack London or Martin Eden

Glenn Ford is a sailor with literary ambitions. When fellow sailor Stu Erwin is found guilty of mutinying against skipper Ian MacDonald, the inhuman conditions which impelled the crime are not mentioned. McDonald goes to prison, while Erwin goes to jail. Ford quits the sea, to write, with the support of social activist Clare Trevor; meanwhile, the woman he loves, Evelyn Keyes, is the daughter of shipping line owner Pierre Watkin, for whom MacDonald works. Ford wants to become a successful writer, and Miss Keyes gives him a year to do so. But that's a tough course to manage, when he has no name, and tries to tell true stories that don't fit usual story-telling practices. He also tries to sell a manuscript about the mutiny to clear Erwin, to no avail.

Ford and Miss Trevor are terrific in this tale, even though the ending is unrealistically flamboyant. The copy I looked at was, alas, pretty poor, but through the murky print I could see that great care had been taken in art direction by Lionel Banks. With Dickie Moore, Heinie Conklin, Charles Lane and Charles Halton.

The quasi-autobiographical Martin Eden by Jack London is a haunting novel. The issues that emerge in the book give credence to London's likely suicide, in spite of the several protests of his heirs. The film here remains faithful to the story, i.e., a young man struck with the desire to be a writer and struggling with his own feelings of inadequacy and economic struggles. Glen Ford is great as Martin Eden, the rough-hewn genius whose work is plagiarized by a well known writer, Ian MacDonald's Raglan, and whose claims of authenticity are doubted by the woman he loves. Claire Trevor is great as the haughty rich girl, Connie and Stu Erwin does well as her brother, Joe. The film ends on a bright note, with Eden's success taken as a matter of course. The book ends on a very pessimistic note with Eden's suicide and his quest for virtue terminated. London's message in the book is a confused one, i.e., how could anyone know the real person under all that success and fame? Sadly, we must conclude London didn't know that man under his celebrity. Eden's life, like that of London, smacks of tragedy, while the film goes on with Eden living happily ever after. This film was made just before WW2. Glen Ford went on to distinguish himself in the US Navy, although he was a Canadian.