The Saxon Charm

As my wife and I sat watching "The Saxon Charm", I could see my wife getting very frustrated with the film. After all, the lead in this film (Robert Montgomery) was a thoroughly despicable and awful person...and she obviously was hating him...hating him so much she wanted me to turn off the film. Well, needless to say, I convinced her to keep watching and we both are glad we stuck with this one...as it was terribly well written and acted.

Matt Saxon (Robert Montgomery) was apparently based on a real Broadway producer, Jed Harris, and that is a big strength of the film. This is because although Saxon's behaviors and manipulations were hard to believe, it made it easier to watch the film knowing that he was not some exaggerated and unreal character! And what a character...charming but also very manipulative, cruel, selfish and without any trace whatsoever of a conscience. As a retired therapist, he was an excellent portrait of an Antisocial Personality Disorder with Borderline traits. In other words...a hellishly awful person from top to bottom!!

So how does Saxon fit into the story? Well, a successful young writer (John Payne) has decided to try writing a play and Saxon has convinced him that he is willing to put on the play. But again and again, Saxon strings him along--having him write and re-write the play...and taking him away from his young wife (Susan Hayward) and effectively destroying the marriage. Why? Mostly because Saxon is like a cat...and he needs to mouse to torment to give his sick life meaning.

The bottom line is that this is really very well written and it's among Robert Montgomery's best performances. Not always pleasant...but very captivating!

Robert Montgomery stars as a ruthless producer, based on real-life producer Jed Harris, in That Saxon Charm from 1948.

First some trivia: Everyone loathed Jed Harris. Laurence Olivier based his physical appearance in Richard III on him. Allegedly Disney based the Big Bad Wolf's look on him. Who knows, but Richard III and the Wolf look alike.

John Payne portrays a playwright who becomes involved with Saxon (Montgomery), a very controlling individual who insists on rewrites and interrupting time with his wife Janet (Susan Hayward). Janet has already been warned about Saxon by his longtime girlfriend, portrayed by Audrey Totter. Meanwhile, as great a producer as he might have been, there are signs that he has lost his touch.

Nice, different performance by Susan Hayward as a loving wife, well played without the histrionics she was known for.

Many best friend worked for Elizabeth Montgomery's manager and knew her very well. I got the impression Saxon may not have been that much of a stretch.

Harry Morgan and Cara Williams, before they starred in Pete and Gladys, also appear.

At the height of his career at MGM Robert Montgomery was famous for those society playboys he was always cast as. But if he's remembered at all today it is for the oddball performances that were nothing like those playboy roles. Yellow Jack as a cavalry sergeant, Here Comes Mr. Jordan as a prizefighter, Night Covers All as a homicidal maniac or They Were Expendable as a PT boat skipper and others, these are what we remember Robert Montgomery for. Fitting right in there is The Saxon Charm made after his years with MGM were over. Montgomery is debonair but there's malice in that charm.

Anyone who knew anything about the theater knew that Montgomery was basing his character on Broadway producer Jed Harris. Harris was a theatrical genius with an ego the size of South America and the antics you see here are mild compared to the real deal. Harris was used also by John Barrymore in 20th Century and Warren William in Varsity Show as a model. But in those he was eccentric, here he's a first class heel who thinks he's the center of the world.

Based on his reputations novelist John Payne seeks out Montgomery to produce his play. But Montgomery has to have his own imprint on the work and he weaves Payne into his web. It breaks up Payne's marriage with Susan Hayward in the process. Of course not helping is the clumsy pass Montgomery makes at Hayward.

Best in the film and possibly a career role for her his nightclub singer Audrey Totter who is Montgomery's main squeeze. She's loyal to a fault until Montgomery does deliberate dirt in fact goes out of his way to do it to her. Montgomery is married to Heather Angel, but they have an arrangement that also doesn't end well.

The real Jed Harris probably could have sued. But I suspect he rather enjoyed his reputation as a heel and enjoyed The Saxon Charm just as you will.

Robert Montgomery makes the film by his overwhelmingly impressive performance non-stop as an autocratic Broadway producer without any scruples at all - everyone collaborating with him become his victims, eventually ending up as suicides. It's a brilliant script above all, the dialog is intelligent and witty all the way in constant crossfire, making this more of a play than a film. Susan Hayward and Audrey Totter are the women who see him through and ultimately win over him, but not until he has lost everything. His character appears to have been a real phenomenon, the Broadway producer Jed Harris, who in the same way made his way by ruthlessly driving over everyone else and enslaving them in a leash of serfdom. John Payne is the sympathetic writer who gets caught up with him, a novelist who tries writing a play, and in their collaboration the producer's tragedy becomes visible - he could never write anything good himself, he only lived on finding others to write for him, and then he had to destroy them by over-editing their work. John Payne finally evades that ruin by the help of his wife, and the interesting thing is that his play, after being massively over-edited and flopped on Broadway, is then proved a success in its original version. So much for others trying to improve your creativity. Although Robert Montgomery makes an abominable character, the film is his, and his performance is as magnificent as the best of John Barrymore.

Robert Montgomery was able to break out of the mold that Hollywood and MGM pushed him into in the early 1930s - he was usually playing weaklings and society bounders. While this kept him working, he did fight to get atypical parts like Danny in NIGHT MUST FALL, the paranoid industrialist in RAGE IN HEAVEN and Prince Florizel in TROUBLE FOR TWO that demonstrated range and acting ability (not completely successful - his mad industrialist is supposed to be British, and Montgomery just can't bring up an accent to match George Sanders - here his friend and victim). By 1941 he was branching out with films like THE DUKE OF CHICAGO and HERE COMES MR. JORDAN. Unfortunately World War II broke out, and Montgomery signed up. He was out of Hollywood for three years in the Pacific, and then returned. Immediately he shared acting honors with John Wayne in THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, and then he did something interesting again: He began to direct films. THE LADY IN THE LAKE (with his "I am a camera" approach) was the first film he directed, and it became a noir classic. RIDE THE PINK HORSE followed. Then came THE SAXON CHARM.

It was different from the other two films, for it does not deal with criminals or an underside of life that most of us avoid. Instead, THE SAXON CHARM dealt with the legitimate theater. Montgomery's Matt Saxon was a successful Broadway producer who did not stop at anything to get his way. As such, he represented many Broadway performers or writers or choreographers worst nightmares, for Broadway was full of people like Saxon. Years later David Merrick would have such a reputation - brilliant producer/absolute rat. In 1946/47 the person most people would have thought of was Jed Harris. Jed Harris should not be confused with George M. Cohan's partner Sam Harris (a nicer man from most accounts - portrayed by Richard Whorf in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY). Jed Harris was a first rate heel. If you read Katherine Hepburn's memoirs ME:STORIES OF MY LIFE, Harris was the producer of her famous Broadway flop THE LAKE. Today it is recalled because it is used by Hepburn in the movie STAGEDOOR, where we hear it's dialog, beginning with "The kallallillies are in bloom again..." In 1936 it was not a laughing matter to Hepburn, who found that Harris had botched the production out of malice towards her. She had to pay him a huge sum of money to get out of her contract on the play when he took it on the road. Harris also made an enemy of Laurence Olivier, whom got his revenge in a neat way. When making up his features for RICHARD III, Olivier made his evil king look like an exaggerated Jed Harris (and most of Broadway approved).

Matt Saxon is similarly selfish, ready to turn on everyone and anyone who does not do as he says. He wrecks the home life of his playwright (John Payne) to get a play according to his specifications. He demolishes the career of his girlfriend (Audrey Totter) with rumors, although she's able to continue without him. He even turns on Harry Von Zell when that harmless fellow just makes a mild comment of disagreement to him. In the end, he destroys almost everyone - even himself. Only at the last moment does he get a bit of advice that MAY save him.

THE SAXON CHARM is not a great film about the theater, but in showing a particular type that infests it's body politic it is an interesting film on the subject.