The Man Without a Country

I turned on the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel this morning and saw an interesting 15 minute short. Being a movie fan, these unusual curiosity pieces are one of the reasons I enjoy TCM so much. It starred Gloria Holden of 'Dracula's Daughter' fame. The short was called 'The Man Without a Country' made in 1937, about a year after 'DD'. I know she was in many films during her career yet I have only seen her in 'DD'. This short was in Technicolor and that was a surprise. She really is an unusual looking woman, strangely attractive in her own way. That's one reason she was so effective in 'DD'. It was strange seeing her playing a fashionable lady from the late 1700s here. We see her age about 50 years as she tries to get a pardon for the man she loves, a disgraced army officer. It was a pretty sappy and dated patriotic story. Still it was worth 15 minutes to see Gloria Holden doing something different.

This short, nominated for an Oscar, is reasonably good, but quite loose and more than a bit fanciful in its treatment of the source material. Ironically, the changes make the short weaker and LESS memorable than the original novella by Edward Everett Hale. By all means, catch the short if possible, but the orignal is far more interesting and satisfying. Turner Classic Movies runs this as filler between films on ocasion and has done so in March the last several years in its 31 Days of Oscar feature. Well worth watching.

John Litel is a lieutenant who gets mixed up in Aaron Burr's attempts to separate the lands west of the Mississippi from the United States. When he is being sentenced, he refuses to ask for clemency. He complains that the United States has never done anything for him, but stick him out in the middle of nowhere and kept him a lieutenant; he wishes he never heard about the country again. And that is his sentence: he is kept on ship at sea, and never hears of the country again; conversation about the nation is forbidden; books and magazines have references to the states removed. And he comes to regret this.

It's based on Edwart Everett Hale's classic short story, and is given the full treatment by writer-director Wilbur Crane for Warner Brother Technicolor shorts in the period, with a sepia tinge to let you know this is about the Old Days. It's an excellent version, and a handsome bit of film making.

Despite the fact that this starts with "God Save the King" playing under the titles, it's not actually the Brits whom "Lt. Nolan" (John Litel) is planning on defecting to when he is arrested by the US Army. He's quite a strong-willed and belligerent gent, though, so rather than just play it cool and keep his head down, he loses the plot at his court martial and ends up being sentenced to something uniquely cruel. He is to spend the rest of his life at sea but he is prohibited from ever visiting his country again and from hearing anything about it from any of the US Navy shipmates. Despite the best efforts of his dedicated fiancée "Marlan" (Gloria Holden) nobody is prepared to intercede for him, not even President Jackson, so it looks like this is how his days will end. It's probably designed to extol the virtues of being true to the flag, etc. But for me actually proved to be a more potent costume drama about the power of ostracism and alienation from friends and family. Litel's complexion looks like it was dipped in a bucket of foundation before filming and that had already managed to set before he started to deliver his fairly plastic performance and though it's another fine example of the costumier's arts when helped along by Technicolor, it's really a bit flat.

Edward Everett Hale's classic short story, The Man Without A Country has been done as a feature film on the big and small screen a few times. There was even a classic radio play that was narrated by Bing Crosby where Frank Lovejoy played Nolan that sold a few platters back in the day. But this 1937 adaption covers all the salient points in the story.

I've always found it ironic that the guy who was putting this whole western conspiracy together in the first decade of the 19th century, Aaron Burr, was never convicted of anything, but that this fictional small fry Philip Nolan got such a sentence. It wasn't however for any vague plot against the USA because Aaron Burr's very vagueness of purpose kept him from conviction. Nolan was arrested for desertion and his guilt was pretty clear about that.

John Litel as Nolan dreams of glory, riches, and adventure in winning his bride Gloria Holden. When he's reminded of his duty at the court martial, he utters the words that seal his fate about, 'damn the United States, I wish I may never hear of her again. As Hale says in the story the men who convicted and determined this sentence of exile for Nolan were those who had fought in the Revolution and such talk was an abomination to them.

Nolan is sentenced to be placed aboard a Navy vessel where he's to live for the rest of his natural life without hearing a mention of the United States of America again. He lives under that burden up until the Civil War.

Holden is showed begging for clemency from two presidents. James Monroe who was a Revolutionary veteran and survivor of Valley Forge and Andrew Jackson, a significant military figure in his own right from the next generation. Finally she wins a hearing from a president known for pardoning people, Abraham Lincoln.

The ending is changed and quite frankly ripped off from Maytime. Still Litel and Holden make a fine pair of lovers eternal and The Man Without A Country is a stirring story, brought to us in a stirring adaption as a Warner Brothers short subject.