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Post by Andrea Doria on May 28, 2023 20:24:04 GMT
Justifiable homicide! I didn't know there was such a thing. But he did deserve it.
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Post by topbilled on May 28, 2023 20:28:00 GMT
Thanks for joining!
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Post by Andrea Doria on May 28, 2023 20:29:10 GMT
I think everything is going to be a notch below, "White Banners," for me for awhile, but I actually liked this better than "That Brennen Girl."
Great pick!
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Post by Fading Fast on May 28, 2023 20:32:16 GMT
I think everything is going to be a notch below, "White Banners," for me for awhile, but I actually liked this better than "That Brennen Girl."
Great pick! I'm with you on "White Banners," but my number two is "That Brennan Girl" and today's movie is a close third. I was really touched by "That Brennan Girl," I thought about it all week.
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Post by topbilled on May 28, 2023 20:34:27 GMT
One thing I like about I JANE DOE is how several different genres are woven together in one story...melodrama, legal drama, war film, noir and romance. Plus it is all told from a feminist perspective, which is rare for a postwar picture...Ruth Hussey's character has a career outside the home, when the main idea was usually for the women to give up their jobs and return to domestic duties. Also, the life of Vera Ralston's character is saved by a woman (Hussey) not by a man.
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Post by Andrea Doria on May 28, 2023 20:55:46 GMT
Come to think of it, I thought about "That Brennan Girl," a lot last week, too -- sign of an interesting and unusual plot.
I expect I'll be thinking about Jane Doe this week and wondering how many European girls were left in similar situations after the wars. "Sayonara," is one of my favorite films and it talks about how our young servicemen were actually encouraged to leave their overseas sweethearts behind.
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Post by topbilled on May 28, 2023 20:57:38 GMT
Re: Vera's acting...it's true that she lacked complete range as an actress, but I think part of this was because she was one of those rare blessed souls who did not know how to be angry. She couldn't bring herself to be fierce or tough. And in a way, I find it refreshing because I don't want every actress to be rough and mean like Bette Davis in OF HUMAN BONDAGE. I want some actresses to be softer, sincere and genuine in all the scenes they play.
What we get with Vera Ralston in all her roles is kindness and a fragile quality. It makes sense they would put her in stories where she was an innocent babe up against a cad like John Carroll, yet she still manages to come out all right in the end!
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Post by topbilled on May 29, 2023 2:39:34 GMT
I've enjoyed this month's films and appreciate the conversations.
For those who've been reading the threads and deciding whether to join in, please do...! There are some good selections coming up:
In June Andrea Doria will present a month of 'Father Melodramas.' All of her choices are solid classics.
I will present again in July with a series of 'Joan Crawford Melodramas.' I chose some of her darker more sinister efforts...nobody does melodrama and horror like Crawford.
And Fading Fast has some interesting 'College Melodramas' lined up for August. It will be a fun month!
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Post by Fading Fast on May 29, 2023 5:37:32 GMT
I, Jane Doe from 1948 with Ruth Hussey, Vera Ralston, John Carroll and Benay Venuta
Very few movies, even "realistic" dramas, are an accurate portrayal of life. It's hard to make an engaging movie with an absolutely realistic story and characters, as all the nuances of life and human nature do not fit neatly into a hour-plus-long narrative. Some, like I, Jane Doe, acknowledge this reality by letting the melodrama rip.
With a touch of noir, this full-throttle soap opera, which includes an early feminist angle, covers a pre-WWII two-income marriage, a wartime affair, bigamy, immigration, deportation, murder, two trials and a surrogate adoption debate. Phew.
It's a lot to unpack, especially as the movie opens with a woman, played by Vera Ralston, on trial for murder who refuses to say a single word about herself or in her defense, so she becomes known as "Jane Doe."
It's an intriguing opening that leads to much of the story being told through flashbacks where we learn that Ralston, a French woman, married a downed American pilot, played by John Carroll, she rescued during WWII.
When he leaves to go home after the war, he promises to "bring her over later." When he doesn't, she shows up on her own, discovers he's already married and shoots him. That's why she's on trial for murder.
We also learn through flashbacks that Carroll's first marriage was from before the war and was to a hot-shot attorney played by Ruth Hussey. Hussey, as always, delivers an engaging and spirited performance, here, playing the "second" female lead.
Even before the war, Hussy's best friend, played by Benay Venuta in the "Eve Arden" role, questions Hussey's "perfect" marriage to Carroll. Venuta is suspicious of him and also doubts whether a woman can have both a career and marriage.
Hussey, conversely, believes she can have it all and argues, not perfectly by today's unforgiving political-piety standards, but impressively for 1948, that a woman can be a wife, a mother and have a fulfilling career. Exogenous events muddle her message later.
To tell more would take away several jaw-dropping "Oh!" moments in the drama/soap opera at the core of I, Jane Doe, as a lot of not particularly believable, but quite "shocking" things happen in a movie made under the Motion Picture Production Code.
Hussey, once again, shows that she had all the skills and charisma to be a leading lady, despite a career that, as in this movie, mainly had her in the friend-of-the-lead or the girl-who-didn't-get-the-guy role.
Carroll is excellent as the charming flyboy who proves to be frighteningly nasty when caught in his web of lies.
This movie, though, seems like it was reverse engineered for Vera Ralston's sleepy acting style as she's asked to be almost comatose for a good chunk of it.
It also fit her to be playing a confused foreigner in America as she always looks vaguely confused. But to be fair, intentionally tailored for her or not, the role fits her like a glove leading to Ralston giving an engaging performance.
Today's cultural warriors machine-gun down anyone not adhering strictly to the often shifting "accepted" view of this or that social/political issue making every "old" movie problematic if you abide by their virulent standards.
In its own way, though, I, Jane Doe, discusses and, overall, supports feminist viewpoints on work and marriage that, at minimum, show these ideas were percolating decades before breaking out fully into the open in the late 1960s/1970s.
If you are looking for realism, I Jane Doe is not the movie to choose, but for a post-war melodrama with absolutely no shame, it's a fun romp through war, bigamy, deportation, a murder, two trials and a surprisingly forward-looking view on several social issues.
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Post by topbilled on May 29, 2023 13:26:47 GMT
Enjoyed reading Fading Fast's review. I was going to save my review for the Neglected films thread, and will post it there later, but I think I will also post it here.
One thing I am still "unpacking" about this movie, after having seen it several times, is why (spoiler) the baby had to die. I wonder if that plot point would have been handled differently today. I would LOVE to read the notes from the production code office on this film, since I am sure the script didn't get approved very easily.
Was killing the baby off required by the code? Ralston's character gets a happy ending, reuniting with her first love and being exonerated by the jury...however, she's still an illegal, and will be returning to France but she no longer has a baby...a baby that would have been an American and ensured Ralston staying in the U.S. So maybe that is why the baby had to die, because they could not reward the mother with U.S. citizenship since she had broken the law to come to America...?
I do not mention in my review (another spoiler) that Hussey also had murder in mind when Carroll was shot and killed. I think this film benefits from a very smart script...both wives, despite their different backgrounds, have been severely compromised by the husband...and both seem to be driven to the same extremes in dealing with him. They are like two sides of the same coin. And one will ensure that the other one doesn't get the electric chair for her troubles.
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Post by topbilled on May 29, 2023 13:36:04 GMT
When I watched this classic from Republic Pictures, a scene between a female lawyer and her female client caught my attention:
LAWYER: Why didn’t you tell them you were going to have a baby? It might have made a difference in the verdict.
CLIENT: I didn’t tell because I didn’t want it to be born.
LAWYER: But you realize you might have taken that baby to the electric chair with you?
CLIENT: Yes.
LAWYER: Why would you want to kill him? It was your crime, not his. He has a right to live just as he had a right to be born.
The dialogue seems anti-abortion in nature. Interestingly, the script was written in the late 1940s by a woman and a man, and it presents a conservative view of feminism. Not the radical left feminism that has since become popular.
The exchange occurs after the title character (Vera Ralston) has been found guilty of murder. Her execution has been postponed, because of pregnancy. The state will not allow an unborn child to be put to death. Ralston’s character is still in prison. There is no get out of jail free card being played.
In the next part of the story the lawyer, played by Ruth Hussey, fights to have Ralston’s case retried on appeal. Prosecuting attorneys (John Howard and Gene Lockhart) make strong arguments to the jury that they should not have sympathy for Ralston since she did in fact murder the father of the baby.
With Hussey’s help, Ralston gets off and is cleared of the murder charge.
What makes this film interesting is that we have a woman in peril represented by a career woman whose job comes at the cost of marriage and domestic tranquility. The twist is that Ralston and Hussey were both married to the same man (John Carroll).
As I watched the film, the scene I quoted really stood out to me…because the screenwriters are using the basic scenario to bolster the point of view that a child should still be born despite the murky circumstances of its conception. Later there’s another twist involving the baby.
I think this is a film people should watch and judge for themselves. It has morally gray areas.
A lot of men had come home from the war, hiding the fact that they’d been with other women abroad. In this story, the man had become a bigamist and was found out. The filmmakers do not fully demonize him. Instead they turn his quandary into a morality tale to preserve the sanctity of the American home.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 29, 2023 14:22:46 GMT
When I watched this classic from Republic Pictures, a scene between a female lawyer and her female client caught my attention:
LAWYER: Why didn’t you tell them you were going to have a baby? It might have made a difference in the verdict.
CLIENT: I didn’t tell because I didn’t want it to be born.
LAWYER: But you realize you might have taken that baby to the electric chair with you?
CLIENT: Yes.
LAWYER: Why would you want to kill him? It was your crime, not his. He has a right to live just as he had a right to be born.
The dialogue seems anti-abortion in nature. Interestingly, the script was written in the late 1940s by a woman and a man, and it presents a conservative view of feminism. Not the radical left feminism that has since become popular.
The exchange occurs after the title character (Vera Ralston) has been found guilty of murder. Her execution has been postponed, because of pregnancy. The state will not allow an unborn child to be put to death. Ralston’s character is still in prison. There is no get out of jail free card being played.
In the next part of the story the lawyer, played by Ruth Hussey, fights to have Ralston’s case retried on appeal. Prosecuting attorneys (John Howard and Gene Lockhart) make strong arguments to the jury that they should not have sympathy for Ralston since she did in fact murder the father of the baby.
With Hussey’s help, Ralston gets off and is cleared of the murder charge.
What makes this film interesting is that we have a woman in peril represented by a career woman whose job comes at the cost of marriage and domestic tranquility. The twist is that Ralston and Hussey were both married to the same man (John Carroll).
As I watched the film, the scene I quoted really stood out to me…because the screenwriters are using the basic scenario to bolster the point of view that a child should still be born despite the murky circumstances of its conception. Later there’s another twist involving the baby.
I think this is a film people should watch and judge for themselves. It has morally gray areas.
A lot of men had come home from the war, hiding the fact that they’d been with other women abroad. In this story, the man had become a bigamist and was found out. The filmmakers do not fully demonize him. Instead they turn his quandary into a morality tale to preserve the sanctity of the American home.
The dialogue you quoted caught my attention too, but my take was that it was less about the writers inserting a covert pro-life argument than an example of it just being the water everyone swam in back then where the "accepted view" was the an unborn baby was to be protected, which was why abortion was illegal. My point is absolutely not about the abortion debate today nor to take either side, just to note what was (in game theory terms) common knowledge back in the 1940s.
I know you've seen it a few time, but my first impression was that Curtis was presented as a full-on villain for everything he did to Ralston, but it is possible I missed the nuance you note. I'll look for it next time.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 29, 2023 14:25:21 GMT
Presented without comment, I caught this quote earlier today and, of course, have no idea if it is true:
“Whenever I‘m unhappy with a performance, I look through the TV Guide and try to find a Vera Hruba Ralston picture to watch," because I know, no matter how bad a performance I may have given, I could NEVER be as bad as she was!” Maureen Stapleton to Johnny Carson, 1962.
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Post by topbilled on May 29, 2023 14:31:38 GMT
When I watched this classic from Republic Pictures, a scene between a female lawyer and her female client caught my attention:
LAWYER: Why didn’t you tell them you were going to have a baby? It might have made a difference in the verdict.
CLIENT: I didn’t tell because I didn’t want it to be born.
The dialogue you quoted caught my attention too, but my take was that it was less about the writers inserting a covert pro-life argument than an example of it just being the water everyone swam in back then where the "accepted view" was the an unborn baby was to be protected, which was why abortion was illegal. My point is absolutely not about the abortion debate today nor to take either side, just to note what was (in game theory terms) common knowledge back in the 1940s.
I know you've seen it a few time, but my first impression was that Curtis was presented as a full-on villain for everything he did to Ralston, but it is possible I missed the nuance you note. I'll look for it next time. My guess is the production code required that Carroll's character die...or else if he had lived, he would have had to be arrested and prosecuted for bigamy, which would have been a different trial and taken the story in another direction.
When I said the writers did not fully demonize him, what I mean is that I think we can still have some sympathy for him...he did not expect the second wife to follow him to America, he did not consider that a real marriage...and when she shows up, he's truly in a quandary. Nobody would envy him that sort of dilemma. Of course, as you said in your review, he turns a bit nasty and reports her to the immigration authorities to get rid of her. He is trying to preserve his first marriage and the life he has with Hussey. Though we know he had a history of cheating (as evidenced by the scene with Adele Mara's character), he still is committed to Hussey and his marriage with her.
One thing the script doesn't flesh out is why Hussey never had a baby of her own...is it because she was too busy working as a lawyer? However, she did leave her law practice for awhile and did play the dutiful stay-at-home wife for a period of time. I think it would have been interesting, and a bit more soapy, if we had learned she could not bear children, so when this other woman suddenly has her dead husband's child, it's very hurtful and at first she can't bring herself to like the baby or Ralston, and it's harder for her to help them initially.
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Post by topbilled on May 29, 2023 14:34:50 GMT
Presented without comment, I caught this quote earlier today and, of course, have no idea if it is true:
“Whenever I‘m unhappy with a performance, I look through the TV Guide and try to find a Vera Hruba Ralston picture to watch," because I know, no matter how bad a performance I may have given, I could NEVER be as bad as she was!” Maureen Stapleton to Johnny Carson, 1962. That seems rude of her to say such a thing. It brings her down a few pegs in my book. It's shameful that one has to feel better about themself by knocking someone else.
I think Vera's quite lovely and I enjoy her performances. Actresses have different styles and different personalities, different competencies and yes Maureen Stapleton, different abilities to be kind and unkind.
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