OUR TOWN
US, 1940, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Frank Craven, William Holden, Martha Scott, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, Stuart Erwin.
Directed by Sam Wood.
Our Town is a leading cinema adaptation of Thornton Wilder's celebrated play. Wilder contributed to the screenplay as did Frank Craven, who plays the part of the genial commentator on Our Town. Sam Wood, a competent Hollywood director whose range included the Marx Brothers' A Night At The Opera, King's Row and The Pride of the Yankees and For Whom The Bell Tolls, directs the film and sustains our interest in it. The screenplay retains many of the theatrical devices and adapts them quite persuasively for the screen. The film is a piece of Americana, a celebration of the ordinary values of the average American. At the beginning of the '40s it had sentiment and patriotism. In later decades it may look quaint yet nevertheless reveals Americans' pride in their country. A very young William Holden and Martha Scott are the principals and receive excellent support from such stalwarts as Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi and Thomas Mitchell. A very engaging film about average middle America.
1. An adaptation of Thornton Wilder's play? The play's classic status, in the '30s, now?
2. Wilder and his observation of America, Americans? The feel of the average American, understanding? Nostalgia for the American heritage? The American values?
3. The adaptation of stage conventions to the screen and their success? The structuring of the scenes and the emphasis on dialogue? Rhetoric? The introduction to the town, Mr. Morgan and his comments, invitation to the audience to explore the town? The characters and his description of them, their destinations and fate? The shuffling of the time sequence? The explanation of the situations presented? The cemetery sequence and the conversation, the people standing in the cemetery, Emily's death dream, her re-visiting her past and understanding it? The device of questions for the audience, interviews of personalities in the town explaining the town to the audience?
4. The presentation of the town itself? How typical of the United States, the New Hampshire background, the small town, the railway, Main Street, the people considering it a nice town? The focus on the families? The Polish section, the religious background, the situation of the churches? The stream of history from the past into the 20th. century?
5. The doctor and his return from the delivery of the baby, the papers and the mail? The mothers and their rousing the family for breakfast? The building of these routines into a portrait of the families? The friendship of the two families?
6. The focus on George and Eirdly as typical of Our Town? School together, adolescent friendships, study, the maths problems, the responsibilities in the school, the talk and the ice cream sundae together? The charm of the two, the ordinariness, the backbone of America of the future?
7. The families and their ordinary daily routines, the choir with the two wives, the gossip? The later deaths of the women and the conversations in the cemetery?
8. The introduction of the wedding sequence, the superstitions at breakfast, the marriage itself, the happiness of the ceremony?
9. The background of George's ambition for the farm, his acquiring of the farm, the birth of the children, the birth of the new child and his happiness, a crisis for Eirdly?
10. The significance of focusing of Emily's dream, her being buried, the significance of death, the alerting Eirdly and the audience to the significance of life? The importance of re-visiting the sequence already seen by the audience? Her happiness, her moving about within her own past, seeing her parents and George with new eyes, learning the value of life? The fact that she was not dead but could build a future on this awareness?
11. How satisfying a picture of ordinary people and their lives, plain matter-of-fact and small values and virtues, goodness and sadness, the appreciation of life? Moralising with the light touch?
