The story is told through flashback, as a middle-aged H. M. Pulham (Robert Young), who has always done the right thing and followed in his family's footsteps, looks back to find out he's not sure if it was worth it. Any movie that ponders whether or not the traditional road is the best strikes me as having gone out on a limb at this time, with war looming right around the corner. The ideas are actually very similar to those in The Razor's Edge, but are told with gentle detail, and attention to the everyday and the common. In fact, one could look at the film as a sort of light version of The Crowd.
The movie starts with Pulham the banker's daily breakfast routine... a glass of orange juice, a soft boiled egg, a piece of toast with the edges cut off (a piece of which is always given as a treat for the dog). Then into his overcoat, loading his pocket with 2 in-the-shell peanuts, and a brisk walk to the office. He stops to feed the squirrels (could Lubitsch have seen this movie and dreamed up Cluny Brown? I think it's possible) along the way and breathes deeply 25 times until he reaches the workplace. This quiet little series of scenes lets us know right from the start that Pulham has followed this same routine every day for 25 years. He's not unhappy, but he does seem sort of... empty.
Through the course of the film, we find out that he was once a more spontaneous young man, how he was brought up, who he loved, and later lost, how he came to be married, and what happened to make him adhere to these silly habits so strongly. It's a lovely film, that actually tackles some difficult questions, not wholly resolving itself at the end. It's sad and funny and true. I found the acting all around exceptionally good, especially the 3 principles, Young, Lamarr and Ruth Hussey, who sets just the right tone throughout the picture, changing from silly chatterbox to sweet young thing, to genuine helpmeet. Lamarr gives an exceedingly good performance, it must have been a relief to play a smart woman for a change, and she shows genuine affection for Young. I really liked her here. Their scenes together are sweet and melancholy, as all memories are. Young portrays a man who has always let things happen to him, he weakly goes this way and that, the way the wind blows. A man who only once did something out of the ordinary, and wonders if he had done it all differently would he have been happy. It was an indefinable experience for me, I find it as charming and inexplicable as the afore-mentioned Cluny Brown... only this film is closer to being told from the viewpoint of say, Peter Lawford's character, or maybe Charles Foster Kane's. "If I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."
King Vidor is exquisitely good at showing how everyday life can sap the strength out of people, how the little moments escape us and then we realize later how important they were. He shows how time catches up with us all, without preaching or the requisite happy ending, though the film does tie things up in a hopeful way. A fascinating, lovely little film.
