doug1963-1 Review of Babbitt

Babbitt (1934)

Kibbee is Babbit but too many liberties taken with novel

[6/10 · 22 March 2008]

I too, have waited years to see the screen adaptation of my favorite novel. I am grateful TCM aired the film. Overall, though, the film adaptation fails because it veers too far away from the plot in the second half of the film. First, the good: Kibbee captures Babbitt almost perfectly as Lewis describes him. The scene where his fellow lodgers/businessmen play a practical joke on Babbitt may be apocryphal, but it is true to Lewis' novel. For a half hour, the film is more or less faithful to the novel. The bad: Once Zilla is shot by Paul, Lewis' novel is thrown away for an ego-trip script devised by a ham screenwriter. I don't know how Lewis standed watching it. It is ridiculous to have lonely widow Tanis Judique blackmail George, and even more ridiculous to have Babbitt's wife and son come to his rescue. That is far away from the novel as can be. Also, the film discarded the real reason for Babbitt's alienation, which was political, and sparked by Babbitt's disillusion after Paul's arrest and jailing. Still, I enjoyed the film. I agree that a remake would be a good idea, but I would prefer a period piece set in the 1920s, rather than making it current. The political and social obstacles Babbitt dealt with don't exist today. Also, it was nice to see Hattie McDaniel in the film. Why was she uncredited. I also notice there is a 1924 silent Babbitt considered lost. That's a shame. Final grade: 6 out of 10