Eugene O'Neill remains, some fifty two years after his death and some eighty seven since his first plays appeared on stage, America's greatest dramatist. This is not hard to understand - no one ever dissected our personal miseries as well by laying bare his own tragedies. It is understandable that he rarely touched on comedy (it does crop up in some forms in his plays - in HUGHIE look at the way the hotel night man has some twisted hero-worship of the gambler crime kingpin Arnold Rothstein). Twice (actually) O'Neill tried comedy. First a spoof, MARCO MILLIONS about Marco Polo. The other was AH, WILDERNESS!, which was his only successful Broadway play in the 1930s - 1955. It is a lovable look at middle class, small town American family life in 1905 (about the same time that that far more horrifying version of family life, A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, occurs). And because we know what O'Neill was going through, seeing this version is not reassuring at all. The play will amuse, but in our cynical souls we know that it is what O'Neill really needed and never got.
One thing the audience never got (unfortunately) was the star of the original production. In his penultimate Broadway performance, George M. Cohan played the father, Nat Miller. The critics of 1932 raved for Cohan's meaningful and wonderful performance, but we can only read of it - he was never in the running for the movie role. He was extremely difficult to work with under other directors, and would have been hard to control. It's too bad. The original choice for the role at MGM was Will Rogers, but Rogers wanted to make a round the world plane trip with Wiley Post, and went to their joint death in a crash at Point Barrow instead. Still Lionel Barrymore is good as substitute for either Cohan or Rogers.
The cast on the whole is first rate, from Barrymore and Spring Byington as the parents (note the business about the problems Barrymore has eating certain types of fish) to Wallace Beery as the inebriate uncle and Aline MacMahon as the spinster aunt. The business of the three sons, Arthur (Frank Albertson), Dick (Eric Lindon), and Tommy (Mickey Rooney), and the daughter Mildred (Bonita Granville) all helps paint a picture that is close to Norman Rockwell (although the apparently alcoholism of the uncle is troubling). But it has some terrific moments, as towards the end when Nat warns Dick about fallen women/prostitutes as "sepulchres". But with a knowledgeable audience of O'Neill fans they can put in the dead older brother who wasted his talents on booze and women, and the baby brother who died prematurely. Suddenly the glitz and glare of the 1905 small town America on the 4th of July weekend turns into the shadow world of four dead souls pursuing an endless mutual fight in a New England summer house. It is a finely made movie of MGM near it's height, but the source for all the pleasant humor of the piece has a long dark shadow that is unsettling.
One thing the audience never got (unfortunately) was the star of the original production. In his penultimate Broadway performance, George M. Cohan played the father, Nat Miller. The critics of 1932 raved for Cohan's meaningful and wonderful performance, but we can only read of it - he was never in the running for the movie role. He was extremely difficult to work with under other directors, and would have been hard to control. It's too bad. The original choice for the role at MGM was Will Rogers, but Rogers wanted to make a round the world plane trip with Wiley Post, and went to their joint death in a crash at Point Barrow instead. Still Lionel Barrymore is good as substitute for either Cohan or Rogers.
The cast on the whole is first rate, from Barrymore and Spring Byington as the parents (note the business about the problems Barrymore has eating certain types of fish) to Wallace Beery as the inebriate uncle and Aline MacMahon as the spinster aunt. The business of the three sons, Arthur (Frank Albertson), Dick (Eric Lindon), and Tommy (Mickey Rooney), and the daughter Mildred (Bonita Granville) all helps paint a picture that is close to Norman Rockwell (although the apparently alcoholism of the uncle is troubling). But it has some terrific moments, as towards the end when Nat warns Dick about fallen women/prostitutes as "sepulchres". But with a knowledgeable audience of O'Neill fans they can put in the dead older brother who wasted his talents on booze and women, and the baby brother who died prematurely. Suddenly the glitz and glare of the 1905 small town America on the 4th of July weekend turns into the shadow world of four dead souls pursuing an endless mutual fight in a New England summer house. It is a finely made movie of MGM near it's height, but the source for all the pleasant humor of the piece has a long dark shadow that is unsettling.