SARATOGA TRUNK

US, 1945, 113 minutes, Black and white.
Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Flora Robson, Florence Bates.
Directed by Sam Wood.

Saratoga Trunk is a 40s melodrama, an opportunity for Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper to act again together is they did in Sam Wood’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

This time Ingrid Bergman is a young woman who returns from Paris to New Orleans wanting to wreak vengeance on her father’s family because of their treatment of her mother. She has a mulatto slave, played by Flora Robson, who won an Oscar nomination for this performance. However, she falls in love with a gambler played by Gary Cooper. They go to Saratoga Springs in New York State for the racing season – and her intention is to get a fortune.

Standard material, done with some competence because of the cast and direction by Sam Wood. Wood has the reputation of being a rather serious-minded director, especially from his later films which included King’s Row, Pride of the Yankees, Command Decision. However, in the 1930s he directed the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races as well as Goodbye Mr Chips.

1. Was this an enjoyable film? How typical of Hollywood film-making in the forties? As regards acting, style, production values and attitudes, sentiments?

2. How important were the personalities of the stars for the film and its impact? Does this seems as strong in retrospect?

3. How interesting a picture of the United States did the film give? Could it be taken as history? As a glimpse of the nineteenth century? As an insight into the southern states? Into the north? Into Texas and the kind of men it produced?
Its portrayal of rich and poorer classes? Of ambitions and pride? Of struggles and drive? Of success and values? Of the success of the people of the south? Was it an exploration of these values?

4. How central was Clio for the film? Its opening with her, her memories, and her visiting, the house, her background and time in France, her sense of ambitions, wealth and marriage? The portrayal of Clio on the make? Her style in New Orleans, in the streets, market, eating, at the restaurant, in church? The support she got from Angelique? from Cupidon? How did she change in New Orleans soclety? How much did Clint change her? Or did he just channel her ambitions?

5. How interesting a character was Angelique? As the brooding mamma? Her support of Clio? Her criticisms of her? Her loyalty? Could Clio be understood in her relationship with Angelique? How loyal was Cupidon? His role in the film? Audience response to his being a dwarf? Did this add his attraction? (Wan he too cute at times?) His role in the film later with Clint and the Saratoga Trunk war?

6. How typical a Gary Cooper role was Clint? The Texas background, the openness, the nonchalance, the gambling? Why was he so attracted to Clio? His attempts to understand her moods? His leaving her, supporting her in Saratoga? Did he love her all the time?

7. Comment on the portrayal of New Orleans society and its snobbery? Clio’s family and the attempted blackmail? Her shrewdness in winning?

8. How was Saratoga a symbol for her ambitions? What change did it make in Clio? Her support from Clint? From the women at the hotel? from her fiance? The style of her ambitions and her deceits?

9. How naïve was Clio? Deceived by her own image? The fact that her background was well known in Saratoga? The conflicts she experienced in Saratoga? With the fiance?

10. Was the Saratoga Railway War well built into the film or was it an added eytra for a spectacular climax? Were the issues well raised? The railway men and the clashes? Money and ambitions? parallel with the West for the railways? The drama of the two trains? The crash and the fight? Comment on the use of special effects for this.

11. What did the film have to say about truth, honesty, the future?

12. How real did the film seem? The reality of its incidents as a representation of the United States?