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Post by topbilled on Dec 10, 2023 21:43:42 GMT
On the one year anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor-- December 7, 1942-- Fay Bainter, Edward Arnold, Jean Rogers & Van Johnson reprised their roles for a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of the story. This version is just under an hour.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 11, 2023 1:06:07 GMT
The War Against Mrs. Hadley from 1942 with Fay Bainter, Edward Arnold, Richard Ney, Jean Rogers, Sara Allgood, Spring Byington and Van Johnson
Tucked in amidst all the WWII propaganda films of 1942 is this odd and engaging one that is so politically one sided you just have to chuckle at its bias as you enjoy its smart character development and feel good story.
It takes quite a while, though, to get to the feel good part as most of The War Against Mrs. Hadley is a little dour as Mrs. Hadley, played by Fay Bainter, is a Washington society matron who wants no part of the patriotism pulling the country together in 1942.
The political backstory, which is as cardboard and biased as so many of our modern movies are, has Bainter playing a far-right Republican, anti-FDR isolationist who is so bitter she was wrong about the war that she refuses to participate in the home-front effort.
It's fun to paint your political opponents as narrow minded and selfish and your side as smart and generous. God knows it's easy to do if you create a character with all the worst and extreme elements of your opponent (both sides, then and now, play this game).
If you let 1942's tendentious point-scoring politics slide by, though, the story of a widowed mother of two adult children fighting the change the war is forcing upon her is a fresh, for that day, take on propaganda.
Bainter is a good woman who loves her children and country, but she's soft and spoiled. She's babied her son, played by Richard Ney, into being an irresponsible alcoholic, but her daughter, played by Jean Rogers, seems to have, somehow, developed her own backbone.
At the start we see Bainter, selfishly with her money and servants to cushion her, try to ignore the war news as she pressures her close friend, played by Edward Arnold, a senior government official, to keep her son out of the draft.
Ney, though, wants in as he seems to realize that joining the Army is the only way he can put his life on a good path. Just as this news is hitting Bainter, daughter Rogers begins seeing an Army private, played by Van Johnson, with no social standing.
Bainter opposes the rushed marriage the kids want because Johnson is about to be sent out West, so she doesn't go to their on-the-fly wedding. Angry at all this, Bainter lashes out at Arnold and her close friend, played by Spring Byington, who support the kids.
For fans of the three-act story, we've just reached the climax of act two, as proud Bainter is now alone with her son in the Army and her newlywed daughter out West. As noted, in fits of pique, she's also frozen out her two closest friends, Arnold and Byington.
The last piece of this puzzle is Johnson's mother, played by Sara Allgood, a practical, working class Irish-immigrant woman with more sense than Bainter. Her supportive and engaged attitude toward the war is everything that Bainter's isn't.
For a wonderful small detail showing Allgood's unabashed pragmatism, look for the two scenes where stout and comfortable with herself Allgood quietly dismisses the dainty chair Bainter has in her hoity toity parlor, not once, but twice.
In the climax, no real spoilers coming, it will take another change in the family, more war news, a tragedy and Allgood's kind but resolute pragmatism to drag Bainter into the war effort. It's a bit rushed and too easy, but Bainter's transition is effective in a propaganda way.
The War Against Mrs. Hadley is an actor's movie. It requires a talent like Bainter's to not make her character an unsympathetic cartoon, as you see how hard it is for her to have her entire world change in a flash. In Bainter's hands, her character is selfish, but not mean.
You can dislike her at times, but you can't help understanding and even feeling a bit sorry for her, despite her being the source of much of her own unhappiness. Arnold and Byington, as her kind friends, are acting pros who bring honesty to every role they play.
Ney, as the wastral son who finds his moment in the war, and Rogers, as a loving daughter who gets that her mother is well off the beam, create engaging characters that in lesser hands could have become campy.
Allgood is the secret weapon in this one representing the immigrant (Irish in her case, but the message is clear) pragmatism and patriotism the country needed, without letting her character become a two-dimensional symbol.
The War Against Mrs. Hadley has a few slow spots and its politics, as noted, are embarrassingly one sided. Yet its story of a pampered woman who is forced to come to terms with the war had to resonate with a country that had its share of Mrs. And Mr. Hadleys.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 11, 2023 5:05:50 GMT
Good review, Fading Fast. As your last line indicates, this story could just as easily have been told about a male character distancing himself from the war effort, then having a change of heart. Though I think it does work better as a woman's picture...primarily, because men were already enlisting and being drafted...so it was up to those who stayed behind on the home front to be the supportive ones, to endorse the war effort and accept the sacrifices that must be made on American soil.
So not only is it a work of propaganda, it is also a gender specific melodrama. And more specifically, it is not just a story about any woman, but about a woman from a certain social class. Yes, we have the characters played by Byington and Allgood, as well as the one played by Isabel Elsom that you did not mention in your comments, who provide some contrast and juxtoposition...but ultimately, this story is meant to show that even the wealthiest least common woman can do her part in a collective war effort.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 11, 2023 13:02:31 GMT
Her previous way of life is over
The advertising for MGM’s THE WAR AGAINST MRS. HADLEY said viewers could expect ‘the truth and nothing but the truth’ when it hit movie screens in the fall of 1942. The truth is that it was one of Hollywood’s first wartime movies focusing on the home front, and the studio considered it a high-priority release.
The film had a special premiere in the nation’s capitol, where its lead stars (Fay Bainter and Edward Arnold) appeared in person. Proceeds for the event raised a considerable sum of money in war bonds.
Screenwriter George Oppenheimer claimed the idea was conceived right after Pearl Harbor was attacked. In fact, the film begins with the December 7th birthday of the title character, Mrs. Hadley, which is overshadowed by the country’s official involvement in the war. Her story will have considerable propaganda value for home front audiences, especially women feeling inconvenienced by the war.
The first half of the drama depicts how Mrs. Hadley refuses to relinquish her previous way of life. In her mind, December 7th and December 8th and all the days after should be no different than December 6th and all the days that came before. She fails to see how the country needs to unite. As everyone else mobilizes and pitches in, she retains a selfishness that ultimately leads to her isolation– until she experiences a dramatic change of heart.
Edward Arnold plays Elliott Fulton, a close family friend who works for the War Department in Washington. When Mrs. Hadley’s son Ted (Richard Ney) is drafted, Elliot is asked to help keep him out of the service. Of course, that is deemed unpatriotic, and the young man departs for military duty.
Meanwhile, a daughter named Pat (Jean Rogers) becomes engaged to a soldier she meets while volunteering at a canteen; and of course, Mrs. Hadley disapproves– to the point where she refuses to attend the wedding. The soldier is portrayed by Van Johnson in an early role. Then there’s Cecilia Talbot (Spring Byington), a friend of Mrs. Hadley’s who works with the Red Cross and finds purpose in charity work.
At every turn the war seems to do battle against Mrs. Hadley and her former way of life. She gradually begins to understand what’s important and what needs to happen to bring people together during a major crisis.
It’s a comforting film on that level. One can imagine how it reinforced the sacrifices of women in the audience who recognized Mrs. Hadley’s folly. They could accept her as one of their own after she realized she didn’t become a year older, she became a year wiser.
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