Deux femmes

One of the biggest surprise I had watching a film, a precode Melodrama about a mother and her burdens after she left his son onto a war that ultimately killed him and left his unwed pregnant bride alone. Now few years forward, she heads on for a pilgrimage together with other mothers of dead soldier to find peace and solace in their final resting place.

There something entirely modern watching this film. The stilted attitude shown as is, and is actually looked down. A plight that shows much headspace that lefts its viewer to see how the gears was turning AND a moving change of heart. The story is just more complicated and nuance than a lot of the films that would be made afterwards.

Again, a precode film that defies its age. Pilgrimage is often forgotten in the works of Ford as it is not a Western nor does it include big stars that would be common place in his peak era. But it works. With the central performance of Henrietta Crosman and the other mothers in the film, they do heavy lifting in creating a wounded view of different mothers as they try to make sense of their great loss in the war.

Overall, a delightful find. Wonderful all around.

"Pilgrimage" works at several levels.

It is "a woman's film" in that it is very emotional.

It presents a cast of superb actors, generally unknown to modern audiences, with the exception of Heather Angel, whose role is actually small despite her second billing.

It is a surprise, too, because its director was John Ford, much better known for such action pictures as "The Searchers" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," or such dark melodramas as "The Informer."

There is a remarkably talented child actor who grew up to become the daddy of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jay Ward.

Marian Nixon, billed down the list, but with a strong and important role, is not only beautiful, but poignant and touching. She deserves to be considered in the pantheon of great actresses who didn't quite make the top ranks.

Perhaps because of the lack of major names, perhaps because of the time frame of the action, perhaps because of the weepiness of the plot (which I do not say in a pejorative sense), "Pilgrimage" is almost unknown today, but I consider it quite good, definitely worth seeing again.

This is one of several movies John Ford made about things around World War I. He hasn't made one about the war directly. Any look at battle has been short and quick with the focus of the films on events around the fighting itself. That's no different here with Pilgrimage, his 1933 film, but I can't help but comparing the similar output from Howard Hawks who made films about men in the thick of it, embracing aesthetics of different aspects of the war along with the experiences of those who fought it. Hawks trained men for combat during the war, and Ford made movies. I wonder if that's part of the reason why he kept choosing and crafting scripts about people around the fighting instead of directly part of it.

It's a curious story of a woman, Mrs. Hannah Jessop (Henrietta Crosman), on a farm in Arkansas and her young adult son, Jim (Norman Foster). The mother is dead set against her son's romance with the neighbor girl Mary (Marian Nixon), daughter to a drunk. No woman will be good enough for her son, and to keep them apart she's willing to draft him into the war effort, sending him to fight in France. In a bit of pre-Code drama, Jim gets Mary pregnant before they can marry, and as he's being shipped off to war she informs him without enough time for a marriage. Yes, this is the stuff of melodrama.

Jim dies in France, the only young man sent to France from the town who died in combat, and ten years pass. Henrietta scorns Mary as well as her grandchild Jimmy (Jay Ward). This kind of heartlessness ends up feeling a bit broad in the beginning, but what changes is the actual, titular pilgrimage. The US government wants to send gold star mothers to France to visit the graves of their sons, and it's important to the local governmental authorities that Henrietta goes, being the mother of the only local boy killed in the war. After some hemming and hawing, she decides to go.

This is about a third of the way through the film, and it gives the melodramatic opening a surprisingly effective air as Henrietta joins up with other gold star mothers on the boat to France. There are two in particular that get attention. The first is Henrietta's cabinmate Mrs. Rogers (Louise Carter). Carrying around the framed picture of her deceased son, she's mournful and shares her deep emotion with everyone. Henrietta is understanding but obviously offput. However, there is also Mrs. Kelly Hatfield (Lucille La Verne), a large lady from Texas who is happy to make jokes about smart cows refusing to live as close together as people in New York.

What ends up happening is that the movie jumps between tones for a while. With most of the women, it's sad faces and tears, but with Mrs. Hatfield it's light comedy and laughs. What's surprising about the film is that it balances these two tones shockingly well, allowing just enough time from one major moment of sadness or amusement to pass before transitioning to the next. The ladies go dress shopping in Paris, quickly followed by them visiting a memorial service for the dead. This kind of jumping is hard to pull off, and Ford as well as his editor Louis Loeffler manage it shockingly well. It doesn't feel like whiplash, it feels like a woman divorced from her own guilt about the fate of her son and being surrounded by the sadness she should be feeling finding ways out of it.

This is a surprisingly effective middle section, and it really feels like it's going somewhere. And then a major contrivance strikes, and I never quite got invested at the same level again.

In a huff, Henrietta decides that she's going to make her opinion of her boy known, that he wasn't a good boy and that she has no desire to see his grave. She walks out onto the streets of Paris and finds a young American man, drunk, and slurring about his mother. Yes, this young man, Gary (Maurice Murphy), is in pretty much the exact same predicament as Jim had been in. He wants to marry a French girl, Suzanne (Heather Angel), but his mother won't let him. They have a small adventure into the countryside, witnessing a small French festival, and Henrietta begins to feel the emotions she should have been feeling for her son towards Gary. This is emotionally where the story needed to end, but the late stage introduction of such a contrivance as a perfect match for her own situation made me roll my eyes a bit. A similar but not so on the nose situation would have probably been more appropriate. Like an American needing to choose between a career and his family, or something, along with introducing it earlier. I would have probably found it more satisfying if Henrietta had found her kind of solace without a last minute detour into another character's story. Maybe having her and Mrs. Hatfield coming to some kind of understanding where Mrs. Hatfield has moved on from her grief, providing a sort of opening for Henrietta to walk through to find her own.

So, the ending is fine, not quite living up to the promise of the journey overall, but the movie as a whole, while feeling a bit patchy, ends up working overall. The opening is melodramatic, but it's solid enough foundation on which to build Henrietta's journey. The actual resolution gets her to where she needs to be, but it's less elegant than what could have been. I was ready to love this movie by the time Henrietta was shouting at everyone about how her Jim wasn't a good boy, ready for her to turn around in melodramatic fashion, but the actual mechanics of that resolution were just too obvious for my tastes.

Still, I liked the film overall. It's imperfect, but solid enough.

The only other time that I recall John Ford doing a film where women are the protagonists is his last film of Seven Women. Pilgrimage which is set in pastoral rural America is far more a film that could be typical of John Ford even if the men aren't at the center.

Before Darryl Zanuck took over Fox films and merged it with 20th Century Pictures to form what it is today, Fox Films was known as the red state studio. In the early sound era, it's major stars were Will Rogers and Janet Gaynor and a rustic film like Pilgrimage was very typical product for Fox even if Rogers and Gaynor don't appear.

Veteran stage actress Henrietta Crosman stars in Pilgrimage, a rather hard bitten farm woman who lives only for her son Norman Foster. She thinks Foster is slumming when he courts Marian Nixon although God only knows why, Nixon and father Charley Grapewin aren't living any better than Crosman and Foster are. Still she does what she can to break them which includes going to the local draft board and saying she doesn't need an exemption for her son. Foster is off to France where he's killed in the Argonne, but he leaves behind an unmarried and pregnant Nixon who has Crosman's grandchild.

If such a story were to happen today Crosman would be in some kind of group grief counseling. Her guilt overcomes her grief however and she becomes harder and meaner than ever. It's only when she goes to France on a Pilgrimage with other Gold Star mothers that she's finally able to come to terms with her loss. And something else happens over there that speeds up the healing process.

Three other women should also be recognized, Heather Angel as a young woman whom Crosman befriends in France along with Maurice Murphy, future gossip columnist Hedda Hopper who is Murphy's society mother and Crosman's fellow rural rustic Lucille LaVerne who scandalizes all of the ship by smoking her corncob pipe.

I'm surprised that Janet Gaynor wasn't in this film, it was definitely her kind of material. She could have either played Nixon or Angel's part though the role would have had to have been built up.

The cinematography shows an idealized rural America almost like a moving landscape painting that John Ford always so painstakingly worked on to get that rural paradise effect.

Although dated somewhat in technique, Pilgrimage is a universal story and actually could be done for more modern wars like Vietnam or the two actions in Iraq. And Ford does a lot better with this women's picture than he did with Seven Women.

Pilgrimage (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Hard hitting drama from John Ford about an overbearing mother (Henrietta Crosman) who can't stand to see her son (Norman Foster) with a farm girl (Heather Angel) because she wants him to stand with her his entire life. When the mother learns that her son has the girl pregnant, she puts him in the draft for WW1 where he is eventually killed. The mother still doesn't accept his son's girlfriend or their kids but when she goes to France to visit her son's grave she meets a young couple who are in the same boat as her dead son. This isn't one of Ford's greatest films but I might go on the record as saying it's his greatest directing jobs. It's rather amazing at what Ford is able to do with this film because it's so strong on so many levels when you'd think these levels wouldn't work together. Henrietta Crosman's character is one of the most evil bitches to ever show up in any film. Her self centered ways and the ways she abuses the young woman after her son is killed made my blood boil with hatred. I really, really hated her character and wished the very worst for her. I knew there would be some sort of redemption but I thought it would be impossible for me to give it to her yet Ford works the film in such a way that the message of forgiveness comes across very strong. SOme might balk at the ending but it worked perfectly well for me. Ford handles the redemption very well and it's terrific how he's able to get it while earlier in the film creating a hated character. The supporting cast is very good but the show clearly belongs to Crosman who delivers a brilliant performance. This isn't one of the director's better known films but hopefully its recent DVD release will change that.