THE SEARCHING WIND
US, 1946, 108 minutes, Black and white.
Robert Young, Sylvia Sidney, Ann Richards, Dudley Digges, Douglas Dick, Albert Basserman, Dan Seymour, Ian Wolfe, Norma Varden.
Directed by William Dieterle
The Searching Wind is based on a play by Lillian Hellman. Lillian Hellman took strong social stances, her plays including The Children’s Hour as well as the book Scoundrel Time, her recollection of the Mc Carthy era. A number of her plays were made into films including The Little Foxes with Bette Davis.
This film ranges over the decades. While set in 1946, it goes back to the 1920s with Robert Young as a diplomat in Italy, Sylvia Sidney as a journalist with whom he is in love. However, she denounces him for his hesitation in attacking Mussolini and fascism. In the meantime he marries socialite, Ann Richards and they have a son, Douglas Dick. It is the son who confronts the two women at the end of World War Two, revealing a story about his father’s activity during the war.
The film is interesting in its themes – however, the pruning of the dialogue of the play has not been extensive enough and the critics complained that this was something of a difficulty, too many words!
The film was directed by William Dierterle, the German director who made an impact with his biographies at Warner Bros in the 1930s: The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola, Juarez, Doctor Erlich’s Magic Bullet, A Dispatch From Reuter’s. He also directed the celebrated Hunchback of Notre Dame.
1. What did the title mean?
2. Comment on the structure of this film and its effectiveness especially the use of the flashbacks after a lengthy introduction.
3. The film opened with a marriage breaking up and the presentation of husband and wife as well as father-in-law, son and 'other woman'. Did you make any judgments on the rights and wrongs at this stage of the film? If you did, did you have to change your ideas an the film went on? Why?
4. How was Case introduced into the film? Did you like her?
5. What did the flashback situations have in common as regards politics: Rome 1922, Berlin in the late 20s? Spain during the Civil War, Paris 1938? Why were these places chosen? What was the message?
6. How did the coming of Mussolini and Fascism affect Alex, Case, Emily and her father? How did each of them react? Whose reaction elicited your sympathy most? Why?
7. How was Emily 'involved' in the life of the country in which she lived? especially in Pre-war Paris?
8. How was Cans involved in each country? Did you share her political views? Why? (Would she have been acceptable for her views in the 1920's and 1910's? Would cinema audiences have been sympathetic to her views in 1946? why?
9. How was Alex involved in each situation? Was he well equipped for his diplomatic roles? How much did his own temperament, character and emotional tensions of the time influence his views and decisions on the political scene? Note his absorption in marriage in 1922, his diplomatic status in Berlin, his concern about keeping Sammy out of a war when he dictated his despatch to Washington in 1938? Trace the growth of the three main characters through these two decades and their emotional and political changes.
10. Alex thought always that everything would be all right, that appeasement(and compromise) was the safest and easiest policy? How wrong was he? in the political scene? in his own life? (How dangerous is it for a nation when its politicians observe and make decisions acccording to their own emotions and tensions?)
11. Why did Alex marry Emily? Could the marriage have worked?
12. Why did Case not marry Alex? Were her reasons right? How hard was this decision for her? How strong was her character?
13. After the flashbacks, what was the emotional mood of the dinner? Did you understand the relationships better? Had your judgments changed? Did the revelations help Sam?
14. How did each of the main characters react to the revelations, well, or according to their previous form?
15. Was Case right in still refusing to marry Alex? Why?
16. What role did Saw play? Was his leg amputation important to the theme of the film?
17. Why does the super-patriotism of the ending jar on us today? What impact would it have had in 1946? Why?
18. What techniques of the film-making have changed since the mid-40s that make this film easily recognisable as a film of those years? Do they spoil the film or merely place it in its chronological position? Why?
