The Magnificent Yankee

I caught this on Turner last night. I happen to be in the history business, in a way, and was surprised at how good this still was. Like most films-adapted-from-plays of the 30s and 40s, it never really transcends its stage origins, but I thought it dealt with the big issues of law, justice, morality, life and death in a way inconceivable in a politically correct age such as ours. We are much smaller people now. The conversation Holmes has with his wife while she lies dying in her bed is a masterpiece of really mature human communication, it's not sappy or sentimental, it's just heartbreaking in its honesty.

The Justice Holmes of this film was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the son of the famous poet-doctor of the same name who wrote "Old Ironsides" and "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." The father and son are often confused. I was also delighted by Eduard Franz's underplayed portrayal of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice on the US Supreme Court, after whom Brandeis University was named.

I didn't want this film to end, and will now look up the original stage play.

I grew up in East Los Angeles so my history of Judge Oliver W Holmes is not very good. If this was a good recounting of the actual life of Holmes is unbeknown to me. The story told however was interesting to me because it was about love and friendship interactions with other human beings. Louis Calhern played Oliver W Holmes and did a masterful job of playing a man that ages into his nineties. Ann Harding played his wife Fanny was also masterful until her death in the film. This man Holmes did not have children in the normal sense but counted many of his law clerks as his sons when serving in the Supreme Court. His friend played my Eduard Franz (Judge Brandeis) had a friendship that last their entire careers in public service. They formed a voting group of two on the court but the friendship was so close that each other was not afraid to correct the other when it was needed. This is what a real friend will do. So this film really was about friendship/love and growing old together, a good movie to watch.

At first I was surprised at the number of votes for this film, but on reflection, it becomes all too clear why this is so. This film may be too literate for contemporary audiences. How many people now know who Henry Adams, Owen Wister, and Louis Brandeis WERE? Still, one shouldn't have to be a constitutional law scholar to love a film so well acted and so rich in Human interest. Yes, the film does occasionally sentimentalise Holmes. So? I find it fascinating that Emmett Lavery, a devout Catholic, educated by Jesuits, was able to paint such a warm portrait of the atheist (and lets not mince words-he WAS an atheist) Holmes, who had little use for moral absolutes or the Natural Law. In short, a very fine film, of the sort that is impossible to make nowadays.

There's not much substance here, at least in terms of the legal side of Oliver Wendell Holmes. This is more about the man as husband, with a few doses of patriotism. It'd downright sentimental.

I've always liked Louis Calhern in old films, but I'm not quite sure. He's, at best, a good character actor. It is said that he was given the title role here as thanks from the studio for being a good soldier and accepting so many character roles. Perhaps the best acting in this picture comes from Ann Harding as the wife.

The social importance of Holmes' years on the Supreme Court is mentioned, but almost in passing. But, as Bosley Crowther put it in his review at the time, it's a "gentle screen drama". It really is more about marital companionship than law, as Crowther pointed out. It is most touching as Mr. & Mrs. Holmes reach their sunset years.

I had never even heard of this film until I saw it yesterday on TCM. Louis Calhern does an excellent job portraying Holmes, and Ann Harding does a creditable job as his wife, although she is saddled with lines of insufferable banality. Eduard Franz is quite good as Brandeis, and judging from pictures I have seen, he looks quite a bit like Brandeis as well.

All this having been said, it was astonishing to me that this film tells us almost nothing about Holmes' professional life, even though he spent over 30 years as a Supreme Court Associate Justice. Holmes is 61 years old when the film begins! The only hint we get of his life before this is a couple of mentions that he fought in the US Civil War, and that he went to Harvard. There is no mention of his having been Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. There is no inkling of why Teddy Roosevelt appointed him to the US Supreme Court, and we are left with very little notion of why Roosevelt was disappointed with Holmes, other than that Holmes wrote a few opinions that Teddy didn't like.

The film seems totally unwilling to tackle weighty or controversial subjects. We get a few glimpses of Holmes' rulings on free speech issues, and his willingness to restrict free speech when it may present a clear and present danger to the public good. Holmes' notorious opinion in Buck v. Bell, upholding the right of the state to sterilize 'mentally defective' people, in which Holmes made the statement that 'three generations of imbeciles is enough, is never mentioned. The focus of this film is almost entirely on Holmes' domestic life and the fact that he and his wife devotedly loved each other but regretted not being able to have children. The film also depicts how Holmes' court clerks were in effect surrogate sons. Louis Brandeis is a significant character in the film, but he is there only to show that he and Holmes had a close friendship and often voted alike. The film depicts that the appointment of Brandeis by Wilson in 1916 was controversial, and that 22 senators voted against confirmation, but we are never told exactly why Brandeis was controversial, other than that his being Jewish may have been a factor. Finally, I was irritated by the fact that there is a recurrent character named Adams, whose first name is never mentioned. We learn that he is a grandson of John Quincy Adams, but who is he? Is he Henry Adams or Charles Francis Adams? We never find out.

This film was released in 1950. That is surprising, because it must have been an anachronism even then. It has much more of the flavor and feel of the biopics of the 1930s, e.g., the biographies of Pasteur and Juarez starring Paul Muni, although it is nowhere near as good as either of those. In short this is an entertaining film worth watching for Calhern's performance, but don't expect to learn anything of substance about Holmes.