There is a scene fairly late in the film, where James Craig and his lovely bride (the ravishing Marsha Hunt) are out for a drive in his convertible. They slowly cruise through a sunny park, where an International ethnic festival is in full swing, with dancers of many nations performing. Mr. Craig comments on each group, while Herbert Stothart's music brilliantly superimposes the various ethnic rhythms and melodies ON TOP OF a gorgeous orchestral "My Country 'tis of Thee", thus underscoring the fact that these "diverse" immigrant groups, despite their cultural differences, are all essentially---profoundly---AMERICAN.
The young couple parks the car overlooking a beautiful California vista---vineyards, fields, mountains, while behind them we see a shimmery, sun-lit pond and a delicate bridge, across which children seem to dance; it is a vision of pastoral, radiant beauty, which mirrors the emotional ecstasy of the newlywed couple. And, after having shared their dreams of welcoming their first child into the world, Mr. Craig announces to his bride that he has decided to enlist in the Navy.
When my own wife and I first watched the folk-dance scene described above, she commented that it was "awfully hoaky." The next time we watched it was three days after 9-11, and the SAME SCENE left us both weeping like little kids. And such is the fascinating, one-of-a-kind magic and deceptively simple premise of "The Human Comedy"; you simply CANNOT judge it as if it were a standard war-era film.
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
1.) William Saroyan was an Armenian immigrant who LOVED America; the film is a "pageant" of small-town Americana, a series of insightful vignettes on human nature. as seen through the eyes of a 15-year old boy.
2.) A bit preachy at times, but that's how Saroyan saw it and wrote it. Every word is sincere.
3.) "I have memories of many wondrous worlds gone by....." as Frank Morgan tells Mickey Rooney. And now this movie preserves HIS "wondrous world" for us. So all of you cynics who dismiss this film as cornball fantasy-- GUESS AGAIN. And yes---most American families of the era owned and played the piano, harp, violin, etc...and did indeed gather in the parlor to sing and play music AS A FAMILY!
4.) MICKEY ROONEY---great actor? Check the scene where the Mick reads aloud a letter from his brother Marcus--you will witness a masterful example of dramatic power and restraint. Think you've got what it takes to be an actor? Watch this scene and think it over.
5.) FRANK MORGAN--"the great Oz himself!"--great actor? - again, watch and see.
6.) Young Mr. Rooney discovers a surrogate father in his boss--the strapping young James Craig...a kindly, highly principled guy whose relationship with his gorgeous fiance (Ms. Hunt) initially strikes us a rather puzzling, until a whimsical scene in a moonlit garden outside of her family's ritzy home, accompanied by Stothart's breezy, tender background score. And thus, another piece of this magical tapestry of American life falls into place.
7.) Toby, the soldier that Marcus (Van Johnson) befriends, is an orphan, and thus, in Saroyan's cosmic view, exists without an identity. In the curious, but uplifting conclusion of the film , Saroyan offers his mystical, magical concept of the ETERNAL FLOW and RENEWAL OF LIFE as solace for grief-stricken American families in 1943.
8.) Herbert Stothart's score positively gushes with sentimentality; the opening credit music has EVERYTHING: brass fanfares, folksy harmonica, mystical female voices, an intensely romantic "yearning" motif---all wrapped up in the "Star-Spangled Banner." Also notable is another very prominent musical motif, very gentle...that assumes prominence near the end when James Craig and Mickey talk in the park. This melody is a DIRECT quote from Harold Arlen's "Two Blind Loves" (to the words "Do we know what we're doing?") from MGM's 1939 Marx Brothers feature "At the Circus", for which Stothart did the background score. Both excerpts are even in the same key (E-Flat Major).
9.) I'll admit that Marcus (Van Johnson) picks up that dang' accordion and leads his army buddies in song at least ONE-TOO-MANY times during the film, and the scenes with Lionel, the nerdy neighborhood kid, are a bit tedious. But again, they are "side-bars" to the main action, interludes that take us deeper into the fantasy world of young kids during the era (Lionel is played by talented child star Darrell Hickman, who went on to play Vincent Price's assistant in the cultish "The Tingler" in 1959--- the same year his younger brother Dwayne began his run as TV's "Doby Gillis").
Yeah, maybe a little clumsy, preachy, and naive at times, but SO WHAT? There are simply too many fascinating and excellent things in this magnificent film, produced during the heyday of the legendary MGM studio, and Louis B. Mayer's personal favorite of the films made during his reign. LR
The young couple parks the car overlooking a beautiful California vista---vineyards, fields, mountains, while behind them we see a shimmery, sun-lit pond and a delicate bridge, across which children seem to dance; it is a vision of pastoral, radiant beauty, which mirrors the emotional ecstasy of the newlywed couple. And, after having shared their dreams of welcoming their first child into the world, Mr. Craig announces to his bride that he has decided to enlist in the Navy.
When my own wife and I first watched the folk-dance scene described above, she commented that it was "awfully hoaky." The next time we watched it was three days after 9-11, and the SAME SCENE left us both weeping like little kids. And such is the fascinating, one-of-a-kind magic and deceptively simple premise of "The Human Comedy"; you simply CANNOT judge it as if it were a standard war-era film.
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
1.) William Saroyan was an Armenian immigrant who LOVED America; the film is a "pageant" of small-town Americana, a series of insightful vignettes on human nature. as seen through the eyes of a 15-year old boy.
2.) A bit preachy at times, but that's how Saroyan saw it and wrote it. Every word is sincere.
3.) "I have memories of many wondrous worlds gone by....." as Frank Morgan tells Mickey Rooney. And now this movie preserves HIS "wondrous world" for us. So all of you cynics who dismiss this film as cornball fantasy-- GUESS AGAIN. And yes---most American families of the era owned and played the piano, harp, violin, etc...and did indeed gather in the parlor to sing and play music AS A FAMILY!
4.) MICKEY ROONEY---great actor? Check the scene where the Mick reads aloud a letter from his brother Marcus--you will witness a masterful example of dramatic power and restraint. Think you've got what it takes to be an actor? Watch this scene and think it over.
5.) FRANK MORGAN--"the great Oz himself!"--great actor? - again, watch and see.
6.) Young Mr. Rooney discovers a surrogate father in his boss--the strapping young James Craig...a kindly, highly principled guy whose relationship with his gorgeous fiance (Ms. Hunt) initially strikes us a rather puzzling, until a whimsical scene in a moonlit garden outside of her family's ritzy home, accompanied by Stothart's breezy, tender background score. And thus, another piece of this magical tapestry of American life falls into place.
7.) Toby, the soldier that Marcus (Van Johnson) befriends, is an orphan, and thus, in Saroyan's cosmic view, exists without an identity. In the curious, but uplifting conclusion of the film , Saroyan offers his mystical, magical concept of the ETERNAL FLOW and RENEWAL OF LIFE as solace for grief-stricken American families in 1943.
8.) Herbert Stothart's score positively gushes with sentimentality; the opening credit music has EVERYTHING: brass fanfares, folksy harmonica, mystical female voices, an intensely romantic "yearning" motif---all wrapped up in the "Star-Spangled Banner." Also notable is another very prominent musical motif, very gentle...that assumes prominence near the end when James Craig and Mickey talk in the park. This melody is a DIRECT quote from Harold Arlen's "Two Blind Loves" (to the words "Do we know what we're doing?") from MGM's 1939 Marx Brothers feature "At the Circus", for which Stothart did the background score. Both excerpts are even in the same key (E-Flat Major).
9.) I'll admit that Marcus (Van Johnson) picks up that dang' accordion and leads his army buddies in song at least ONE-TOO-MANY times during the film, and the scenes with Lionel, the nerdy neighborhood kid, are a bit tedious. But again, they are "side-bars" to the main action, interludes that take us deeper into the fantasy world of young kids during the era (Lionel is played by talented child star Darrell Hickman, who went on to play Vincent Price's assistant in the cultish "The Tingler" in 1959--- the same year his younger brother Dwayne began his run as TV's "Doby Gillis").
Yeah, maybe a little clumsy, preachy, and naive at times, but SO WHAT? There are simply too many fascinating and excellent things in this magnificent film, produced during the heyday of the legendary MGM studio, and Louis B. Mayer's personal favorite of the films made during his reign. LR