Jeunesse perdue

The experience of watching movies has got to be one of the great original adventures of the 20th century. What luck when we come across a movie that we may have only slightly heard of, if at all, and then happen to bump into one evening - which changes your perspective on life or adds just that little bit more of enjoyment into a life spent thinking one has seen everything!

Such was my experience tonight with DODSWORTH. What an innocuous, if not, nondescript title for a movie which held so many delights within the walls of its celluloid chamber!

How could I have known that this silly title would open up new vistas for me? I am not saying this movie changed my life. But how unexpected to have found ONE MORE GEM amongst the thousands of movies that I have already known and loved! Walter Huston was a major surprise for me. I had seen him before. But never like this.

The same with Ruth Chatterton. The scenes with Mary Astor near the end are almost priceless. Talking about those scenes...one can only wonder how such simple dialog could elicit so many feelings from us? I say that Sinclair Lewis had something to do with its success.

But let's not leave out the master - William Wyler!

This is truly a remarkable movie.

It is staged beautifully. Acted superbly. And the directing, shooting and cutting is nearly flawless.

Certain scenes stay with me most vividly...

• Mary Astor warning Ruth Chatterton off of Paul Lucas with nothing more than a brief line and a quick look.

• Huston and Chatterton undressing while their marriage starts to crumble.

• Huston getting the wire from Europe, just after being so much of a blowhard with his family.

• Walter Huston connecting with Mary Astor in Italy.

It is a movie that could not, would not be made today. There is no violence, no overt sex. It is, as other posters have noted, an adult movie, made for the sensibilities of adults.

And Mary Astor is just radiant and beautiful throughout...

MMG

"Dodsworth" has been on my short list of must-see films for decades, and I finally had my chance to see it last night. I'm still in awe. (Others have made cogent observations about the acting of the other principals in the cast, so I will confine my comments specifically to Walter Huston.) There are people who will complain that this film is "slow," that it is "boring," that "nothing ever happens in it." Too bad for them, because this is a master class in acting of the highest order.

It is difficult to pull off a film like "Dodsworth" without betraying its stage origins, but this one feels and moves like a movie, not a play. (Of course, its genesis is a lengthy Sinclair Lewis novel, but the contributions of the gifted Sidney Howard -- who adapted the novel for the stage and the screen -- cannot be overlooked.) Walter Huston, who also played Sam Dodsworth in the Broadway play, was that rarest of actors, equally adept at playing to the back row of the balcony and giving a quiet wink to another 20-foot-tall face on a movie screen.

Anyone can buff up and wield a sword or tumble from a parking garage after being shot eleven times. But it takes a truly gifted screen actor to make the mundane seem utterly real; to shade a line just so, to achieve perfect pitch with every gesture, every glance. Huston was just such an actor, who, if he is remembered at all today it as John Huston's father, or the "old guy" in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Too bad again, because Huston was one of the finest actors in the history of American movies. He was not a movie star, but he totally embodied every role he ever played, and never gave a poor performance.

The narrative of "Dodsworth" is mature, intelligently handled material. It is impeccably directed by William Wyler. No one has ever remade it, though remakes have been considered. There are directors working today who could handle "Dodsworth," but it really merits more sophisticated treatment than the extensive nudity and profusion of strong language that would inevitably be written into a new script. It's much better left alone, and it deserves a far larger audience than it has ever had in the 68 years since its release.

Dodsworth is one of the best dramas of the 1930s. Walter Huston stars as Dodsworth, a middle-aged auto tycoon who looks forward to retirement. His wife--Ruth Chatterton--is not quite ready for the rocking chair. They embark on a grad tour of Europe. From the start Chatterton falls for the cosmopolitan airs of Europe and the attentions of the debonair men. More and more she leaves Dodsaworth alone as she flits among the cafe society. By accident he runs into a lonely American widow (Mary Astor) living in Italy. As the husband and wife drift farther apart, he moves closer to Astor. Yes it sounds like soap opera, but the acting is so good and the characters so real you forget the plot mechanics.

Huston has one of his very best film roles as the floundering Dodsworth who needs an anchor. Chatterton is excellent as the foolish wife (this was her last film), and Astor is a wonder as the American widow. The three stars turn in towering performances.

The rest of the cast includes Maria Ouspenskaya and the old countess, Spring Byington and Harlan Briggs as the best friends, John Payne as the son in law, David Niven as a gigolo, Gregory Gaye as the suitor, Paul Lukas as Arnold, and Odette Myrtil as the social leach.

There was talk in the mid-90s that Harrison Ford would star in a new version of Dodsworth but he never followed through because he wanted to continue his "action" roles. Too bad. Ford has certain qualities that would have made him (or Warren Beatty) ideal for the part. But Ford and Beatty are too old now. Oddly only Huston and Ouspenskaya earned Oscar nominations. Hard to see how Chatterton and Astor got bypassed.

This is a great American film.

"Dodsworth" is a disarmingly honest and frank depiction of a failed marriage, based on the Sinclair Lewis novel. Its naturalistic acting and its refusal to make its characters anything less than full-bodied human beings make it feel way ahead of its time. It's never mentioned along with other classic films of the period--probably because it doesn't have an epic scope--but it should be.

Walter Huston gives an absolutely flawless performance in the title role. His type is so recognizable, even today: the successful American business man who values the simplest and most traditional of American values, and who comes across as provincial and crass to the rest of the world. Ruth Chatterton meets Huston's performance every step of the way as Dodsworth's wife, glad of the material comfort her husband can provide, but embarrassed by him and aware that he will prevent her from joining the world of high culture to which she wants to belong. It is to the movie's distinct credit that neither of these characters is either hero or villain. Dodsworth is crass and unsophisticated; yet at the same time he's honest and never misleads his wife into thinking he's something that he's not. Mrs. Dodsworth has a right to be bored by the kind of life Dodsworth is content with, but she might have thought of that before so readily accepting his financial success.

I don't really know for sure, but I have a feeling this movie might have made people very uncomfortable in 1936. I doubt married couples were encouraged to turn too critical an eye on their own marriages back then, and I suspect that more people than not decided to stick it out in unhappy marriages rather than violate a sense of social propriety. Before the days when people dated for a few years before getting married, many people probably learned about the kind of person they were marrying only after the wedding day. "Dodsworth" beautifully captures the sad, melancholy feeling of waking up one morning and realizing you're not married to the person you thought you were.

Grade: A