KING'S ROW
US, 1942, 127 minutes, Black and white.
Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, Nancy Colman, Maria Ousbenskaya, Harry Davenport.
Directed by Sam Wood.
King’s Row was based on the bestselling novel and was one of the most popular films of 1942. It was nominated for Oscar for best film and direction.
The film is one of those sagas, popular in the 1930s and 1940s, which looked at a small American town and its transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. The film initially focuses on a number of children and their friendship, follows them in their later life, and their return to their home town.
The film is set in a provincial town where the central character leaves and goes to Europe to study. It is interesting to look at the status of psychology in the early part of the 20th century, especially in Vienna, Freud’s city.
The film is a star vehicle for Robert Cummings, Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan (who has the line after his operation, ‘Where’s the rest of me?’ which became the title of his autobiography. Sam Wood directed a wide range of films from the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, to Goodbye Mr Chips and directing Ingrid Bergman in Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls and Saratoga Trunk
1. The title focused on the name of the place. Was this the central issue of the film? The changes in Kings Row? The 19th century moving into the 20th century? The influence of the town and its atmosphere on the people in it?
2. Comment on the structure of the film. The presentation of the main characters as children? The main issue or the adult life of the characters? How well was this handled?
3. Transferring from King’s Row to Vienna? Did the film have a dramatic intensity via its structure or not?
4. Why are films like thin always of great human interest? Were the characters themselves interesting, their conflicts? Were the characters well developed? Or were they merely cliches or conventional characters?
5. How well was the world of the young children communicated in the film? By the sequences chosen to illustrate their lives? By the black and white photography and light of this world? The contrast of the two parties? The relationship between Drake and Paris as young boys? Why did Paris become the central figure?
6. Did audiences identity with him? How was Paris presented? at home in the house, his relationship with his grandmother, his talented piano-playing, his not seeing Cass, his ambition, his approach to Dr Tower, his re-emerging relationship with Cass, their falling in love and their furtive meetings, his development as a doctor under
Dr. Tower’s advice, his friendship with Drake, his helping Drake and Drake’s helping him?
7. Even though Paris went to Vienna, his presence was still there in Kings Row. How important was this for the rest of the characters?
8. How attractive a character was Drake? Was he a conventional figure or did he develop during the film? The initial impressions of him as an irresponsible flirt? Yet his friendship for Paris? Especially at the time of Cass and Dr Tower’s death? His relationship with Louise and his rejection of her? His clash with the Gordons? What was the impact of his having money on him? Especially when the crash came?
9. Why did he relate so well with the Monaghans? How did he fall in love with Randy? What was the response of the Monaghans to him? How attractive a person was Randy? How did she fall in love with Drake? Did she give him the chance to make his choices? Her kindness to him in hid poverty? His love and devotion to him during his accident? What kind of a woman did she emerge as? Her dependence on Paris’s advice for helping Drake?
10. Emotional response to the accident? To Dr Gordon’s amputating his leg? How horrified were you when you found that Dr Gordon had in a sense executed and condemned Drake? Is such a thing plausible? How bitter should Drake have been by his accident?
11. How changed was Drake by the accident? Why did he become self-preoccupied? Why didn’t he respond fully to Randy’s love and help?
12. How interesting were the psychological overtones of the film? The status of psychiatry around 1900? (Even in 1940 when the film was made?) Did the film show psychiatry in a helpful light? The Viennese sequences? The application to Drake's case? Paris’s use of psychology? With Drake and Louise? How did the confrontation method help Drake? Is it better to confront with the truth?
13. How important a person in the film was Cass? The contrast between herself as a gir1 and as a grown woman? What did her father see in her as regards her madness? Why did she fall in love with Paris? The influence of her father on her? Why did he kill her? Why did he kill himself? How noble a person was Dr Tower - his retiring to King’s Row and looking after his wife, his observation and protection of Cass, his generosity towards Paris and leaving his wealth to him?
14. How melodramatic were the sequences with Louise and Mrs Gordon? Was it understandable how Louise would break down? Did she do the right thing in insisting on the truth about her father? Did Mrs Gordon do the right thing in approaching Paris?
15. How happy was the ending? What choice did Paris have to make? How was he helped by Alice? What kind of woman was she? What help to Paris?
16. What were the major values explored in this film? Do they represent the values of the 30s and 40s? Are they still as relevant now as they were then?
