The Male Animal

The parallels of the Fonda-DeHavilland-Carson triangle with the younger Anderson-Leslie-DeFore triangle are played against each other to good advantage in this well-scripted and well-acted farce. DeHavilland is at her best, never losing her poise, and De Fore's scenes are hilarious. This is a movie to be enjoyed, not analyzed.

When college English professor Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) says that he's going to read aloud letters from controversial figures in his class, the school bosses threaten to have him thrown out. This happens during the buildup to a major football game which sees the return to campus of former sports great Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), who seems to be making time with Tommy's wife Ellen (Olivia De Havilland).

The script by Julius and Philip Epstein and Stephen Morehouse Avery was based on a play by James Thurber and director Elliott Nugent. There's a lot that can be said about the clash between the academic and the athletic on college campuses, and the subject of free speech and what is and what is not appropriate for students to hear is something that seems to be in the news every week. Unfortunately, the movie is more interested in tired rom-com tropes, with the Fonda-De Havilland-Carson love triangle competing with the Herbert Anderson-Joan Leslie-Don DeFore love triangle for cliched banality. The performances are all fine for what they wanted to accomplish, but Eugene Pallette was maybe a little too annoying as an alumni blowhard. And it's hard to make Eugene Pallette anything but humorous.

There are some actors and actresses who can seamlessly cross film genres, and then there are some who don't. While I have not seen a lot of comedies starring Olivia de Havilland, I do know that from what I have seen, despite the occasional moments of inspiration (her turn as a young, star struck debutante in "It's Love I'm After" was particularly charming) she really does her best work in melodramas. Unfortunately, in Elliott Nugent's 1942 film "The Male Animal", de Havilland proves that her successful comedic turns are most certainly an exception and not the rule.

"The Male Animal" focuses on Tommy Turner, (Fonda) an English professor at Midwestern College in Michigan. His effervescent wife Ellen (de Havilland) is both celebrating her birthday and planning a dinner party the eve of the small college town's biggest football game of the year. Tommy, a fairly serious academic, is vexed when he finds out that one of their weekend guests will be Joe Ferguson, the former captain of the football team and all-around campus hero. Joe and Ellen have a romantic history together (she was head cheerleader to his football hero), an element that is further complicated when he finds out that Joe is recently separated from his wife. A subplot involving Ellen's younger sister Patricia and her two beaus mirror Ellen's situation; boyfriend #1, Wally, is the current football star and boyfriend #2, Michael, is a scholar. The two plots collide when Michael writes an editorial for the school paper hailing Tommy's decision to read a letter written by Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco-Vanzetti fame) in his class the following Monday. Tommy soon becomes a target for the school's trustees and his job situation becomes unstable while he decides whether he is going to succumb to the trustees and not read the letter, or exercise his academic and personal rights. Between his job situation and his fear of losing his wife, Tommy ends up having an unprecedented weekend.

Like the plot itself, "The Male Animal" is conflicted in the kind of movie it wants to be. On one hand, it is a goofy physical comedy wrought with misunderstandings worthy of Shakespeare (or Three's Company), yet it throws in a fairly compelling subplot concerning the freedom of speech element that is great on its merits, but coupled with the silliness around it, it doesn't quite fit. Fonda is a great, laid-back actor who doesn't look lost with comedy, and while my first impression is that he looked a little lost and befuddled during the high hilarity, I can safely attribute that to the character that he played. de Havilland, on the other hand, is charming for a total of 15 minutes of her screen time and spends the rest of the film being shrill and acting helpless. It is films like this that remind me of her comedic limitations; actresses such as Bette Davis or Myrna Loy are able to slide effortlessly between the comedic and dramatic genres I think, because they have a wryness about that. Davis is able to deliver a comedic line with a whip smart raise of an eyebrow and Loy has the aplomb and class to deliver a line with typical dry humor. de Havilland, at least in my experience, doesn't always possess these gifts, and therefore failed in this film. Jack Carson played the same kind of role here as he did in "Mildred Pierce" or "Arsenic and Old Lace"; he is predictable, but his predictability works.

"The Male Animal" is billed as a comedy/romance, and there is indeed some comedy and some romance. Unfortunately, by throwing in a heavy subplot involving something as important (and, admittedly, refreshing) as freedom of speech, particularly when it involves a convicted anarchist, it both waters down the romantic comedy aspects and lessens the effectiveness of the statement it is trying to make about personal and academic freedoms. If the film had either handled these conflicting themes better, or gave up on one or the other entirely, the film may have been more enjoyable, but as it was presented, and despite the fact that it featured a couple of actors I really enjoy, I can only give "The Male Animal" a 5/10.

--Shelly

Henry Fonda is a college professor in danger of losing his job and his wife in "The Male Animal," also starring Olivia de Havilland, Jack Carson, and Joan Leslie.

Fonda plays a happily married intellectual. On the weekend of college homecoming, his wife's former beau (Jack Carson), a jock, shows up, giving rise to the professor's insecurities.

He's having problems in his teaching life as well when an editorial states that he plans to read a letter from Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco and Vanzetti) in his English composition class. The trustees aren't happy and want him to state that the article is incorrect.

As he is up for a full professorship, his wife hopes he will back down also since three teachers have been fired for being "reds."

This is an odd film with a very timely message about censorship and its dangers that by itself would have made a good movie, especially with wonderful actors like Fonda and de Havilland.

However, the home situation was played for comedy. This film didn't seem to know which it was. If I were to guess, I would say the studio wanted a comedy and the dramatic part was downplayed. It's a shame, because there was nothing special about that part of the film, except that Jack Carson was very good.

The Henry Fonda character discovers that he has to become "the male animal," i.e., one who fiercely protects his home, and not only his home, but his role as a teacher as well.

Today, when "Brokeback Mountain" isn't being shown in all areas, and more censorship is being urged, this is a good movie to see if only to remind us that the this is a war that has been fought for years. Nowadays I wonder if we're winning.

Debate over whether a professor should be allowed to read a controversial letter to his class forms the subject for this spirited football vs. academics comedy originally a stage play by Elliot Nugent and James Thurber. The screen version moves briskly but it's all played at a "full steam ahead" kind of tempo popular at Warner Bros. Henry Fonda is excellent as the mild-mannered professor resentful of his wife's ex-boyfriend (a football jock) and Olivia de Havilland is radiant as his supportive wife. Jack Carson is ideally cast as the ex-football player still in love with Fonda's wife and his bombastic approach to comedy serves him well in this role. Joan Leslie is a little too coy as de Havilland's sister (a role played on the stage by Gene Tierney). It passes the time but is little more than a mildly entertaining comedy with too many dull stretches to make it truly satisfying. Fonda and de Havilland later played husband and wife again on Broadway in 'A Gift of Time' (1962). Elliot Nugent's direction is brisk but it still seems rather stagebound. Nugent himself played the role of the professor on Broadway.