A travers l'orage

After his success of recreating the role he had on Broadway in The Farmer Takes A Wife, Henry Fonda was given another role as a country rustic in the sound remake of the D.W. Griffith classic Way Down East. It's a considerably cut down version of the Griffith film and it went into production without the female lead originally intended. Janet Gaynor days before the production started got injured and at the last minute Rochelle Hudson substituted for her. While Hudson wasn't bad in the part, Gaynor had taken a patent out on portraying country girls and the film might have rated a notch or two more had she been teamed again with Fonda. Hudson returns to the down home Maine section of her birth after a fling with Edward Terhune that left her pregnant and giving birth to an infant that died. No one knows of her disgrace and she gets work at the farm of Russell Simpson and Spring Byington and their son Henry Fonda. Wouldn't you know it, after falling in love with Fonda Terhune returns to the area and starts taking up with the rich Astrid Allwyn who is a friend of Hudson's. Terhune is also a friend and neighbor of Fonda's family. Of course it all blows up which leads to a cut down version of the famous climax of a lot of the principal cast members floating on the ice in the dead of Maine's winter during a howling storm. I would not be surprised if they used the original footage from the Griffith classic, making sure not to have any closeups of Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, etc. I could not recognize any faces during that sequence myself. A couple of performances really stand out. The first is Russell Simpson who made a career of rustic types usually beneficent. Here however he's flint hearted old Puritan who has no toleration of 'sin' of any kind. Married to Byington they make quite a contrasting pair as she's a kind hearted soul. Fonda takes after mother. The second is that of Margaret Hamilton who if she wasn't the Wicked Witch Of The West in The Wizard Of Oz would have this as her career role. She plays the head of a gossip circle in the town and all they do is sit around a quilt and pretend to sew, but just tear down all others around them. Hamilton takes on the role of investigative reporter concerning Hudson and exposes her transgression to the town and more importantly to Simpson, Fonda, and Byington. Years ago I worked in a place where there was a circle of women who did precisely what Hamilton does here who are all dead now. Their jobs weren't exactly stressful so all they did for about a quarter of a century was go to work and sit at their desks and just gossip about everything and everyone. The head of the place called their section the Poison Pond and seeing Hamilton and her set reminded me so much of that little corner of a place I worked at so long ago. This version of Way Down East is all right with the cast getting good direction from Henry King. But no new ground is covered from the silent classic, in fact this one is a retreat.

One of the things that struck audiences about the fresh faced Henry Fonda in the first years of his acting career was the fact that his persona, rather than his acting, represented the spirit of America. In films like this one, you don't go away thinking what a great actor Henry Fonda was, but you do feel that he embodied how Americans saw themselves at that time. It's almost as though nature had imposed itself upon him and made Henry Fonda the victim of hero worship. I personally don't think that he brought anything to this film except a fresh face. He was noticed by John Ford who also saw in him the face of America, and exploited it in subsequent productions.

Way Down East (1935)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Watered-down, lame and at times laughable remake of D.W. Griffith's 1920 epic has Rochelle Hudson playing Anna Moore, a woman who goes to live with a family in Maine and hiding a secret. The family son (Henry Fonda) eventually falls in love with Anna but she refuses to take his hand due to her secret but soon a nosy fool (Margaret Hamilton) finds out the truth. Before viewing the film I had heard a few quotes from director King and he didn't hide his feelings and admitted that this wasn't the greatest film out there. After viewing the movie I had to wonder if he even tried to come up with anything entertaining as this movie is a complete dud from the first scene to the last one. I was really shocked at how boring this movie was but then again it was produced after the pre-code era, which meant that a lot of the more frank situations and dialogue had to be cut. Another major problem are some of the performances, which range from bad to downright terrible. Hamilton will always be loved due to her role in THE WIZARD OF OZ but she's quite bad here. Just take a look at the scene towards the end when Anna is getting kicked out of the house and how over-the-top and silly Hamilton is. It seems like she's acting in a comedy because her performance is bound to get laughs from pretty much anyone who sees it. Another bad performance comes from Russell Simpson as the old-fashioned father and Edward Trevor isn't much better either. Hudson tries her hardest to recapture the spirit of Lillian Gish but doesn't even come close. Fonda comes out the best but even he has some rather bad moments including one inside the cabin towards the end of the movie when he hears about Anna being close to the frozen river. Anyone who has seen the Griffith version knows that the ending on the ice was the greatest thing about it. I'd say it's one of the greatest moments in film history so how does this remake hold up? Well, it certainly doesn't come close to the original film but it's got a few decent moments. How they have the characters jumping from one float to the other doesn't work and there's never any suspense but the scenes of the ice actually breaking does work. Another problem with the film is that it starts nearly where the 1920 version was already an hour in. We never get to know Anna, feel for Anna or hear any of her backstory until much later in the film and by then you're really bored with her and don't care anyways. I really wasn't sure what to expect from this movie but it's easy to see why it's pretty much been forgotten as it not only lacks when compared to Griffith's original film but it lacks pretty much to everything that was being made around this time.

The ending is amazing. How simply and accurately the snow storm reflects the human affairs. You cannot but think of King Lear - that is what a Henry King movie is, a stair to the classics. But this time there is an American happy ending - we sincerely hope the world has changed to the better since Shakespeare's time 500 years ago.

This one is from Fox and director Henry King. In late 19th century Maine farm country, a young woman named Anna (Rochelle Hudson) arrives at the farmhouse of the Bartlett family looking for work as a maid. She's hired by the stern patriarch Squire Amasa (Russell Simpson), and proves a great help to his wife Louisa (Spring Byington). It isn't long before the Bartlett's son David (Henry Fonda) has fallen in love with Anna, but she's hiding a dark past that may prevent their future together.

This can't match up to the silent version, but it has its good qualities. Hudson proves to be a good actress in a more demanding role than many she had at the time, and Fonda, in his first year in movies, is handsome and believable as a farm boy in love for the first time. The film's greatest asset is the tremendous supporting cast of great bit players, many of whom you'll know the faces of if not the names. Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton has one of her better parts as the town gossip who's chasing after store-owner Slim Summerville, and Al Lydell is a hoot as an ancient old man always looking for a handout of liquor or tobacco. The end scenes set on a frozen river don't match up to the silent version, but that one almost killed the stars of the film, so perhaps it's better that they were a little more safety conscious this time, even if the results left something to be desired.