Die Irrwege des Oliver Essex

Some sincere performances by the cast characterize My Son My Son about the doings of a young cad and how he affects the lives of all around him. The title role here is played in adulthood by Louis Hayward who while pretty much forgotten today was a fine player and equally capable of playing heroes as in The Return Of Monte Cristo, villainous cads as in this film or both sides of the coin as in The Man In The Iron Mask.

Brian Aherne plays his long suffering father who realizes he's spawned a completely selfish cad in his desire to provide the best of everything for his son. Aherne and best friend Henry Hull are a pair of poor Irishmen who are determined to better themselves. Hull becomes a rich designer of furniture and Aherne a celebrated author. Both marry and have children, Aherne his one and only son and a boy and a girl for Hull.

Early on Hayward while still a child and played by Scotty Beckett is discovered to be charming but bad. His mother Josephine Hutchinson wants to discipline him severely, but she dies early and Aherne spoils him rotten.

Hayward ruins the lives of all around him, but in the end redeems himself somewhat so that Aherne can be proud of him. For how Hayward ruins and redeems you see the film for.

Madeline Carroll is also in the film as Aherne's second wife who Hayward makes a play for. Hull's grownup children are played by Bruce Lester and Laraine Day and both are touched negatively by Hayward.

Aherne maybe next to David Niven was the actor who was cast in roles that required charm and little else to carry a film. He never became as big a star as Niven among other of his contemporaries, but was on occasion called on to do more than be charming as in the case of My Son My Son. In this as in Smiling Through Aherne has to age many years and with the help of good makeup does so gracefully.

My Son My Son got an Oscar nomination for Art Direction for and black and white motion picture. Dated severely it still is a credit to the cast and crew who made it.

I gave this a "7" mainly on the strength of Louis Hayward's performance. I did not catch the beginning credits and so spent the whole picture wondering who young Essex was. I thought it was a young Dirk Bogarde! As noted before, Laraine Day (again a surprise) was miscast, although very pretty indeed. here she was an English girl, daughter of Irish parents, yet with an American accent. Day had a busy year in '40, having a leading lady role in "foreign correspondent". henry hull, as her father, was quite recognizable. Surprisingly, I thought the normally beauteous Madeline Carroll was a bit heavy, and older looking. well, her role did call for her to be a more mature woman, both as a counter-point to young Essex and mature for the older Essex. I don't know anyone who could be more fitting as the young rotter Essex, with Hayward's patented smirk and sarcastic voice. Brent was a study in naivete and at times seemed a bit bewildered how he should act in certain scenes. the movie must have been hard for the Brits to be really interested, what with WW11 already started and this movie's time period being up to and during WW1. Perhaps its production started before sept. '39.

Having read the book I was quite keen to see this. Despite it not being the potboiler it could have been in later years, and having the terminally dull Aherne in the lead, the rest of the cast (specifically Louis Hayward, Laraine Day, Madeleine Carroll) spur the film along and keep the interest. It does suffer from a certain amount of sugary sentimentality from Aherne (and isn't he a bit too tall?!) but apart from that it does justice to its source and manages to be entertaining as well.

A delightfully old-fashioned melodrama in the grand tradition of John M Stahl (whose films were sometimes remade in color by Douglas Sirk ),Irving Rapper or Edmund Goulding.

Even though it was given the full -bore melodrama treatment ,both characters (the father and the son) still exist today and one has certainly met some of them in one's lifetime ; the father who got a raw deal when he was young and who wants his offspring to enjoy all that life offers : the scene of the book is revealing and shows how dad can be blind (or rather pretends to be blind ).

William(Bruce Aherne) is prey to a monstruous love for a son , a not-so-magnificent obsession; Charles Vidor had filmed the opposite in his memorable "double door" :a woman who had made her nephew a waverer and whose hate for her daughter-in-law knew no bound.

William's mindless adoration for an ungrateful mischievous son is as destructive as Mary Morris ' hate for her family . The grown- up son will never take no for an answer and he won't be satisfied till he owns everything;under a handsome but sarcastic smile , Oliver (Louis Hayward is ideally cast here) hides a black soul, a man whose pleasure is to treat the others as puppets he pulls the strings of, deaf to their pain .

Great scenes: the railway station where a symbolic gate separates the father and the son busy wooing a girl on the platform ; the officers' meal when the father has finally understood and Rory's (the virtuous gent) arrival.

In fact,William discovers he's as guilty as his son ; his wife had already tried to rectify her son's behavior :but as a rather holier-than-thou woman , she had no real hold on them ;besides ,when she gets run over by a car, nobody sheds a tear and her husband hints at her only once, fleetingly ,afterward .The character ,with whom William was never really in love with ,is not developed enough,and it's the main flaw of the movie .When a new woman ;Livia,appears (Laraine Day),Oliver cannot consider her a stepmother and a ruthless competition begins, but as for the new flame, it's a one-way love (or so called love).

Like father,like son.

MY SON, MY SON is an over-sized independent film released by United Artists, based on a popular novel of the 1930's. While the film may not have been completely true to the novel, I can't imagine the book being any better than this film given the absurd situations and characters.

Brian Aherne and Henry Hull are two young buddies who dream of the day they will have sons. Hull wants his son to be courageous and with honor but Aherne, tired of poverty and struggle, wants his son to enjoy the luxuries in his life he never had. Eventually each man marries although they remain lifelong friends. Hull has a son and daughter while Aherne has a son as a result of a loveless marriage to a baker's daughter whose shop he helped run.

Aherne becomes a best-selling novelist. He indulges his boy with the best of everything. The kid grows up feeling the world owes him a living without an honorable bone in his body, tracing drawings for school contests and stealing friends' books. He's also a pathological liar, able to lie himself out of any situation with his father. His conservative, religious mother Josephine Hutchinson fully sees her son for what he is but Aherne rejects her attempts at disciplining the brat. Years past and sonny boy is now 21 (and now played by Louis Hayward) but as selfish and spoiled as ever. Aherne goes uncover as a coal miner to obtain material for his next novel and meets young artist Madeleine Carroll who bewitches him completely but he cuts off their friendship since he is still married. Shortly thereafter he is widowed but has no way of tracking down the girl since he never knew her name and she never knew his real name. Meanwhile who should sonny Hayward happen to be pestering in the city but the lovely Miss Carroll who is apparently a few years older than he. She is amused with his company and lets him escort her to events although there is no real romance for either of them. Hayward happens to bring her to a play written by his father (and starring Hull's daughter, Laraine Day) and the star-crossed couple meet again. Aherne and Carroll are thrilled to be reunited and she's upfront with both men about their past relations. Hayward feigns to be OK that his dad has now won the affections of his date but behind the scenes is scheming and making Carroll as miserable as possible.

While generally well acted, this story is so hackneyed the viewer can tell every plot twist in advance. There is major irony when Carroll, discussing a novelist (and unaware she is actually talking to that novelist, Aherne) comments about the author's inability to write credible female characters, given the stereotypical women that populate this potboiler: the frosty saint (the wife, Josephine Hutchinson), the walking perfection (Carroll), the silly, emotional girl (Laraine Day). One particularly tasteless scenario has Day secretly in love with Aerne, a man she as known all of her life as a "uncle" (as she and her brother have always called him). I also have to wonder why on earth the wonderful Madeleine Carroll even accepted this film. Although she enjoys top billing, her part is far smaller than that of Aherne and Hayward and not much larger than Hutchinson's or Day's.

This was a rare starring film for Aherne, usually cast as a second lead, and frankly he is not up to the challenge. His speciality on screen was always something of a cad himself, in personality if not in actual roles, so this persona fails to mesh with this obsessively loving father role. Hayward is better though obviously older than his role; he was only seven years Aherne's junior, and while at 6'3" Aherne dwarfs the 5'10" Hayward, their scenes are shot at angles to play up the height difference to apparently make Hayward seem younger but at times only manage to make him look like a shrimp. This was also one movie that badly needed to be shot in sequence; Aherne's graying hair in the later scenes vary with each segment and in the final confrontation with Hayward it appears Aherne has his natural hair color from his youth!

It's a bit silly that a mediocre film like MY SON, MY SON gets what airplay on TV it does via TCM's "Oscar month" since it received a lone nomination in production design. It certainly didn't get any votes for the acting, directing, or the film itself! And certainly not the writing, despite the reliable Lenore Coffee doing what she can with this uninspired reversed-sex "mother love" soap opera plot.