The Silver Cord

Irene Dunne has married Joel McCrea and is going to meet his mother, played by Laura Hope Crews. But what Irene doesn't know is that Laura had her own plans for her son – to live close by her side and visit often. Based on a stage play, this can come across as rather talky and stagy, but I find the subject matter fascinating and most absorbing as we see the mother trying subtly and sometimes not so subtly to manipulate her sons so that they may never leave her. Eric Linden is another son, who is engaged to Frances Dee, unless "poor, pitiful" mother has anything to do with it. I don't know much about the movies and career of Laura Hope Crews, who played "Aunt Pittypat" in "Gone with the Wind," but I would surmise that this is one of her best and meatiest roles. The film belongs to her, as she has tantrums and wraps her sons around her little finger. By the way, costars Joel and Frances would marry in real life. If you happen to discover "The Silver Cord," which I doubt, don't pass this up. You may be looking for the best films of the great Irene Dunne, but instead you will discover the under-appreciated Ms. Laura Hope Crews at the zenith of her career.

Ugh....this movie gave me the creeps. Like another reviewer, I have only seen it once and have never seen it repeated on AMC,TCM or late night film fests. But, oh do I remember it. A very unpleasant but enthralling film about mother love gone bad. Laura Hope Crewes is the epitome of evil and it is hard to believe that she went on to be Aunt PittyPat in GWTW. She tears up the screen with her portrayal of the mother obsessed by her "love" for her sons. Eric Linden, a rather weak actor, is perfect as the one son.....Joel McCrae is ok as the other, but, since he is usually a man of action, you hope he will pull out a pistol and blow Crewes' brains out. When one remembers a film several years after seeing it but one time, it must be recommended. You will either be attracted or repelled by this little gem

Long before the Freudian craze in the forties thrillers ,"the silver cord" depicted a terrifying mother/children relationship where mom is in love with her boys (and at least in one case vice versa: the boy kisses her on the mouth).

The movie looks like a filmed stage production for we almost never leave the house and there are only five actors (plus a short appearance by the doctor),but it's absorbing from start to finish .Irene Dunne ,as a scientist ,predates woman's lib by thirty years .Frances Dee says the words that are the keys to the movie: " give birth to them ,raise them ,and let them live!" To keep her sons by her side,the mother-in-law you would not imagine even in your worst dreams ,would do anything:she urges her sons to break up ,she even blackmails them with the poor condition of her heart (whereas the physician says she is all right);when her younger son's fiancé tries to commit suicide ,she is not moved that much :Laura Hope Crews ' playing may seem old fashioned by today's standards;but this portrayal of a self-absorbed woman remain convincing and Mrs Phelps is a distant relative of Tennessee Williams' Mrs Venable in "suddenly last Summer"

I had heard this film highly recommended on the Classic Movies website, so, after checking out the IMDB notes as well, I was able to obtain it for viewing. The warped scenario deals with the fates of two women when their respective visits to meet the "in-law" (Laura Hope Crews in a tour de force surprising from the woman best known as Aunt Pittypat) turns into the horrifying recognition of the ultimate "out-law". There's little time to spare before we get a good idea of why there is no father figure in the picture. At times, the obsessive nature of Mom's voracious emotions toward her sons suggests an incestuous factor that only a precode film could feature. An absorbing, and sometimes frankly disturbing, film which is hard to obtain but worth a look.

THE SILVER CORD (RKO Radio, 1933), directed by John Cromwell, is a story about two sons (Joel McCrea and Eric Linden) whose widowed mother (Laura Hope Crews) tries to destroy their happiness with the women (Irene Dunne and Frances Dee) they love and marry. The movie adaptation, taken from the 1929 stage play, also directed by Cromwell, starred Laura Hope Crews. While Dunne and McCrea have feature billing in the screen version, it is Crews, reprising her stage role, who carries the story from start to finish. Inasmuch as it is a filmed staged play, very talky with little action, the story itself is never boring, especially when it relies on the shock value of Crews' excessive selfishness that gives the plot some entertaining bite.

THE SILVER CORD became the very first movie I got to see when American Movie Classics was added to the system by my local cable system. It fact, up to that time, it was rarely televised anywhere, with the exception of its dubbed Spanish TV broadcast in the early 1970s on WNJU, Channel 47, in Newark, New Jersey. For a while, American Movie Classics aired THE SILVER CORD from 1984 to 1994 until Turner Classic Movies finally got to air this now rarely seen gem May 3, 2020.

As for Crews (born November 13, 1879), the actual star of this product, resumed her movie career mostly in secondary character parts, up to the time of her death (December 12, 1942). She never had a finer opportunity of screen than she did in THE SILVER CORD, and never did again. With a small list of actors credited in the cast, seen in a brief role is Gustav Von Seyffertitz, the same nasty villain who terrorized Mary Pickford in the silent classic, SPARROWS (United Artists, 1926). Overall, highly recommended. (***1/2)