Mourning Becomes Electra

It is difficult to understand why this film is SO rare and forgotten. I myself had to wait over 40 years to finally see it, when, one of our TV channels, realising what a rare and unusual film they had (!), screened it at 4:00 a.m. in the morning! Thank goodness for video!

It was such a commercial flop in Britain when first shown in 1947, that after a brief showcase screening in London, it sank without a trace and has remained a "lost" film ever since. Based on Eugene O'Neill's play, it is slightly flawed in places I must admit, but what is so staggeringly remarkable is that it ever got made in the first place!

Clocking in at almost three hours running time in the days when a 75 minute feature might induce ennui, and 95 minutes was a marathon, and so WORDY, and, in a climate just slowly emerging from WW2, so GLOOMY, one should not perhaps be surprised that it did flop commercially, but, seen now, one can realise just how very good it is. Perhaps RKO were motivated by, and mindful of the fact that O'Neill had then just recently been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, but could they ever in their wildest dreams have imagined such a film would ever go into profit? Had they learned nothing from CITIZEN KANE five years earlier?

What was also remarkable however, considering when the film was made, was its frank and quite powerful depiction of the Oedipal/Electra complex. No doubt the American censors at the time felt they could be more than customarily lenient with a "classic" work, (as they indeed had been with GONE WITH THE WIND), and, no doubt, in 1947, Freud's teachings were still pretty much the esoteric, clinical knowledge of a small minority, so perhaps the censors of the day "read" these dark passions merely as melodrama, but the ensemble playing is so strong and competent that the film leaves you know doubt about just what forces are in play, even if most people at that time weren't perhaps universally aware of them.

Also, it so vividly confirms my long-held contention that any film is only ever as good as its script!!! What rare bliss it is nowadays to hear intelligent, thoughtful, meaningful dialogue! To witness characters riven by dark, deep passions of the heart and soul rather than by mere carnal lust Unfortunately, Rosalind Russell as Lavina wasn't too competent in the strong passion department, and regrettably was way out of her depth in her part, but Michael Redgrave (making his Hollywood debut) was a revelation, and his performance is one of the very best I have ever seen from him. But, in this particular work, all the acting parts are difficult, demanding swift changes of emotion, and the need to depict turbulent psychological undertows through body language. Vivien Leigh was probably the only screen actress from that era who could have done full justice to the role of Lavina.

Katina Paxinou undertakes her role as the unfaithful mother with flourish and conviction, and Raymond Massey as the father is, as always, reliable and sound, and even the incomparable Sarah Allgood makes an all too brief appearance. A very young Kirk Douglas acquits himself well, and although technically you can see the studio budget wasn't huge, the overall result is extremely satisfying, and illustrates well what a great debt the world owes to American playwrights of O'Neill's calibre, and too, to Hollywood for making them available to a world-wide audience.

It is a genuinely moving and powerful film, and it is a shame that it has become such a neglected and forgotten orphan. No doubt had it been made in France or Britain, it would now be hailed by movie snobs as a great Art Film, which it is, and just because it originated through the Hollywood studio system doesn't make it in the least bit less brilliant and dynamic. And whatever else, it is certainly one of the most LITERATE films ever made! Well worth searching for. Or, come to that, waiting 40 years for!

The script reduces the stage original by approximately two-thirds. The cinematography is clunky and the production values are weak. Direction is indifferent and the acting styles are all over the map. Even so, the 1947 MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA is a startlingly powerful film, a melodrama that leaps and crackles and which will hold the attention of discerning viewers through two and a half hours to its remarkably bitter end.

Loosely based on the ancient Greek tragedy THE ORESTIA, Eugene O'Neill's 1931 drama was and is an extraordinary creation. Strangely ritualistic in tone and requiring approximately six hours to perform, it stunned audiences upon its debut, was a powerful factor in O'Neill's winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and remains one of the great pinnacles of American theatre to this day. It is also a warped, sick, and twisted tale of adultery, incestuous affections, blackmail, murder, and suicide, and as such it held Hollywood at bay for close to twenty years.

The story concerns the Mannons, a family that has dominated a small New England town for more than a hundred years, dominating through social status and supposed family and civic duty even as they conceal several internal scandals. The film opens with father Ezra (Raymond Massey) away from home, acting as a leader in the Civil War; in his absence wife Christine (Katrina Patinoux) has taken a lover who visits the house under the guise of courting daughter Lavinia (Rosalind Russell.) When Lavinia discovers the truth, she attempts to blackmail her mother into giving up the relationship--but the attempt backfires into a horrendous cycle of murder and revenge that ultimately destroys the family and drives Lavinia to her her doom.

The script actually does manage to encompass all the primary plot points of O'Neill's original, and although the result is a bit talky in a forced sort of way the story itself possesses a relentless quality that does indeed approximate the stage original. Even more surprisingly, the script makes no effort to soften the incestuous nature of the various relationships that characterize the tale, relationships that increasingly pervert and twist the family as the story progresses. This is dark, dark stuff indeed.

As previously noted, the cast is all over the map in terms of acting style and indeed each of the principles seem to be performing for a different film. Rosalind Russell is distinctly "classic Hollywood;" Michael Redgrave is distinctly "English theatre." Katrina Patinoux, a memorable performer, is Greek and therefore somewhat out of place as the matriarch of a New England family; Raymond Massey, an equally memorable performer, seems to reprise his earlier portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Each and every one of them, in their own different ways, play at white-hot intensity, and many find the resulting mix too uncomfortable. I myself did not: if anything, I felt it added to and intensified the overall strangeness of the piece.

Eugene O'Neill dramas do not, as a rule, film extremely well: they are too clearly designed for the stage and as such they work best in front of a live audience. All the same, and in spite of its numerous flaws, this is one of the few film versions of an O'Neill play that actually manages to capture the intensity of the stage original. Dark, brooding, and deeply disturbing, MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA deserves a great deal more attention than it has ever received.

When the film failed at the box office, RKO responded by cutting it in re-release. This Image Entertainment DVD restores those cuts, and that is a very good thing indeed. Unfortunately, it is also the only good thing that one can say for the DVD. The print quality is at best mediocre, a bit fuzzy, occasionally streaked, and riddled with artifacts. There are no extras of any kind. But just as the film transcends its own flaws, so too does it transcends this poor transfer. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Most of the professional reviews of this unjustly neglected film dismiss it as "stagy", "wordy", and "dull". Yes, it is wordy, if you consider a film entirely propelled by dialogue wordy, and yes, it is stagy if you consider a film largely confined to a single set stagy, with no fancy cutting, camera tricks, or quick editing to disturb or interrupt the flow of language. And yes, at nearly three hours, it is one of the longest film versions of a classic Eugene O'Neill play ever made. (The original play clocks in at six hours!)

I myself have never been able to understand those critics who claim to appreciate great achievements in film and theatre, and yet grow restless at the thought of too much dialogue in a film. Who cares, when the dialogue is written by one of the greatest playwrights this country has produced, and when the storyline is as riveting as this?

O'Neill never actually wrote a suspense drama, but this updated revision of the Electra-Orestes-Agamemnon myth is as close as he ever came to it. The story features elements of murder, revenge, insanity, and more than a hint of incest, and when Rosalind Russell as Lavinia and Michael Redgrave as Orin, her beloved brother, plot together to carry out their scheme, the story becomes as gripping as any suspense film ever made.

There are very few completely calm moments in this film; nearly all of the performances take on a quality of seeming to be on the verge of a total nervous collapse. Some of Rosalind Russell's acting, particularly during the first hour or so, may strike you as slightly over-the-top, especially her facial expression (accompanied by an ominous musical chord) when she sees her thoroughly evil mother Christine (Katina Paxinou) in a lover's clinch with Adam Brant (Leo Genn), an illegitimate relative of the Mannon family, while Christine's husband (Raymond Massey) is off fighting the Civil War, but once Russell becomes the cold, scheming avenger, she is magnificent. Michael Redgrave is slightly uncomfortable with his attempt an an American accent, but he effectively conveys the essential goodness of a conscience-stricken young man on the verge of madness who only wants to do the right thing. Katina Paxinou is despicably nasty and self-dramatizing as the utterly selfish Christine Mannon. Raymond Massey ,so often cast as a villain, gives what is one of the best, most dignified and most restrained performances of his career as Ezra Mannon, head of the family, a man who is supposedly unfeeling and callous (according to Paxinou's character, but then, can we trust her?), but who in the story reveals only a genuinely sympathetic and tragic side of himself. Leo Genn is sincere as Christine's misguided and basically kind lover, and Kirk Douglas, in one of his first film roles, plays Lavinia's bewildered and decent suitor.

Because of the film's disastrous reception at the box office, a barbaric decision was made to cut an entire hour by simply lopping off the entire final section, unnecessarily mutilating a film that deserves to take its place as one of the great dramatic stage-to-film adaptations of all time, and certainly one of the few great film adaptations of a Eugene O'Neill play. His plays, on the whole, have been frequently distorted and/or mutilated for the big screen, unlike Tennessee Williams's, whose works made it relatively unscathed, and even sometimes improved, to film. O'Neill's plays have not fared as well on film as they have on television, but along with 1962's "Long Day's Journey Into Night", and 1940's "The Long Voyage Home", "Mourning Becomes Electra" can be rightfully considered a film classic.

Miscast, stagnant version of something that's heavy going to begin with. Redgrave is good as Orin the haunted son. Rosalind tries but is just the wrong actress for the part, ideally it should have been Katharine Hepburn or Olivia de Havilland. She owed Dudley Nichols a favor for adapting and directing the story of Sister Kenny, a dream project for her and this was his but could only get it made with her participation, she even admitted that she was wrong for it but felt a sense of loyalty and went forward. Katina Paxinou gives an overblown operatic performance in a part that would have fit Garbo perfectly. The play is really too complex for a standard film version, the extended PBS production in the late 70s with Joan Hackett and Roberta Maxwell got it right but that one clocks in at just under five hours.

This is one of the best acted, entertaining movies I've ever seen. I don't know why it is so bashed by the media. Rosalind Russell is perfect as the overwrought Lavinia, whose hatred gets the best of her. Russell is simply superb. Michael Redgrave, while not as good as Russell, nevertheless gives substance to a weak role. I thought Katina Paxinou, of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" fame, was excellent too and her scenes with Russell crackle with bitchiness that O'Neill probably didn't intend.

And the best news of all, this magnificent film is finally being released on DVD in December 2004. Never on VHS, laserdisc, or any form except, for God bless it, TCM, this film needs exposure to help its reputation as a great drama and a well-acted film that has been mistreated by the years.