I have been fortunate enough to catch SO WELL REMEMBERED a couple of times on TCM, and I hope they will add it to their "rotation" of popular films. It deserves more attention, and I doubt many Americans have paid it, either when the film was released in 1947, or today. (If indeed it was thought to be lost, a big "Hoorah" for the person who found it.)
Many Hollywood films touch on class conflict, but usually in the romantic contexts of poor-boy-woos-rich-girl (e.g., THE GREAT GATSBY, A PLACE IN THE SUN) or rich-boy-woos-poor-girl (KITTY FOYLE, WORKING GIRL). The British obsession with political class struggle surfaces only occasionally, usually in Depression-era films like MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, MODERN TIMES, or THE GRAPES OF WRATH. As some film historians have demonstrated, when Hollywood's main audience began to shift from working class to middle class around 1920, class conflict as a political and economic issue (as opposed to a romantic and social concern) all but disappeared from American movies.
But the portrayal of British class conflict is not the main reason to watch SO WELL REMEMBERED (which, in fact, also sets forth the conflict largely in terms of romantic relationships). It's one of those multi-generational sagas with a twist ending, and while the story is rather predictable, the characters that inhabit it are quite interesting and well-played. (John Paxton adapted James Hilton's novel for the film, and Hilton -- best known as the author of LOST HORIZON -- also narrates some portions.) John Mills makes an appropriate working-class hero, trying to remain loyal to his origins while at the same time tempted by the opportunities presented to him to rise above them. During the course of the quarter-century covered in the film, his character matures realistically. Trevor Howard, however, steals the film as an alcoholic doctor -- he makes the most of every moment on the screen. Martha Scott -- a very active actress who nonetheless did not become especially well-known to the public -- has the most difficult part in the film, transitioning from a sympathetic young woman into a selfish (and, horrors! classist) shrew as the film progresses. Patricia Roc was one of England's most popular film performers in the '40s but was rarely seen in the United States. She is pleasant enough but nothing special here. It's difficult to understand why Richard Carlson never became a major star, along the lines of Glenn Ford or Charlton Heston. He had the looks and he certainly had the voice, and he is fine here as Roc's love interest. And give a hearty nod to Frederick Leister, who has a brief but important part in the opening minutes. It would have been interesting to know more about his character, who, in some ways, is at the root of the story.
One should also congratulate director Edward Dmytryk and his collaborators for the gritty location photography, another feature that makes this film worth more than one viewing.
SO WELL REMEMBERED also is notable for the collaboration of Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott. Right after this film, this RKO duo made CROSSFIRE (with another Paxton screenplay), one of Hollywood's most notable "social consciousness" films of the late 1940s. And about the time SO WELL REMEMBERED was first being shown in the United States, Dmytryk, Scott and eight screenwriters -- the celebrated "Hollywood Ten" -- would be ruled in contempt of the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities for refusing to answer the committee's questions regarding Communist involvement in Hollywood. All of the Ten served jail time, although Dmytryk eventually decided to tell the committee what it wanted to hear and thus avoided the film-industry blacklisting that the other nine men would endure for several years. The blacklisting connection also extended to the film's soundtrack. Composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962), a German Communist who fled the Nazis in 1933 and eventually settled in the United States, also was called before "HUAC" and wound up being deported to Communist East Germany in March 1948.
Considering the class-conflict background of SO WELL REMEMBERED, perhaps it's not surprising that this film has been so well overlooked (one wonders how long it actually played in American theaters in 1947). I doubt many Americans today (except, perhaps, the disciples of the late Jesse Helms) would find this film in any way "communistic," but the political atmosphere in the United States was different and more fearful in 1947. (Yes, I know, but the current Bush-era hysteria doesn't begin to compare with the 1947-1954.)
Many Hollywood films touch on class conflict, but usually in the romantic contexts of poor-boy-woos-rich-girl (e.g., THE GREAT GATSBY, A PLACE IN THE SUN) or rich-boy-woos-poor-girl (KITTY FOYLE, WORKING GIRL). The British obsession with political class struggle surfaces only occasionally, usually in Depression-era films like MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, MODERN TIMES, or THE GRAPES OF WRATH. As some film historians have demonstrated, when Hollywood's main audience began to shift from working class to middle class around 1920, class conflict as a political and economic issue (as opposed to a romantic and social concern) all but disappeared from American movies.
But the portrayal of British class conflict is not the main reason to watch SO WELL REMEMBERED (which, in fact, also sets forth the conflict largely in terms of romantic relationships). It's one of those multi-generational sagas with a twist ending, and while the story is rather predictable, the characters that inhabit it are quite interesting and well-played. (John Paxton adapted James Hilton's novel for the film, and Hilton -- best known as the author of LOST HORIZON -- also narrates some portions.) John Mills makes an appropriate working-class hero, trying to remain loyal to his origins while at the same time tempted by the opportunities presented to him to rise above them. During the course of the quarter-century covered in the film, his character matures realistically. Trevor Howard, however, steals the film as an alcoholic doctor -- he makes the most of every moment on the screen. Martha Scott -- a very active actress who nonetheless did not become especially well-known to the public -- has the most difficult part in the film, transitioning from a sympathetic young woman into a selfish (and, horrors! classist) shrew as the film progresses. Patricia Roc was one of England's most popular film performers in the '40s but was rarely seen in the United States. She is pleasant enough but nothing special here. It's difficult to understand why Richard Carlson never became a major star, along the lines of Glenn Ford or Charlton Heston. He had the looks and he certainly had the voice, and he is fine here as Roc's love interest. And give a hearty nod to Frederick Leister, who has a brief but important part in the opening minutes. It would have been interesting to know more about his character, who, in some ways, is at the root of the story.
One should also congratulate director Edward Dmytryk and his collaborators for the gritty location photography, another feature that makes this film worth more than one viewing.
SO WELL REMEMBERED also is notable for the collaboration of Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott. Right after this film, this RKO duo made CROSSFIRE (with another Paxton screenplay), one of Hollywood's most notable "social consciousness" films of the late 1940s. And about the time SO WELL REMEMBERED was first being shown in the United States, Dmytryk, Scott and eight screenwriters -- the celebrated "Hollywood Ten" -- would be ruled in contempt of the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities for refusing to answer the committee's questions regarding Communist involvement in Hollywood. All of the Ten served jail time, although Dmytryk eventually decided to tell the committee what it wanted to hear and thus avoided the film-industry blacklisting that the other nine men would endure for several years. The blacklisting connection also extended to the film's soundtrack. Composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962), a German Communist who fled the Nazis in 1933 and eventually settled in the United States, also was called before "HUAC" and wound up being deported to Communist East Germany in March 1948.
Considering the class-conflict background of SO WELL REMEMBERED, perhaps it's not surprising that this film has been so well overlooked (one wonders how long it actually played in American theaters in 1947). I doubt many Americans today (except, perhaps, the disciples of the late Jesse Helms) would find this film in any way "communistic," but the political atmosphere in the United States was different and more fearful in 1947. (Yes, I know, but the current Bush-era hysteria doesn't begin to compare with the 1947-1954.)