EDWARD, MY SON

UK, 1949, 112 minutes, Black and White.
Spencer Tracy, Deborah Kerr, Ian Hunter, Mervyn Johns, James Donald.
Directed by George Cukor.

Edward, My Son is based on a play by Robert Morley and Noel Langley. The film incorporates a stage technique of having Lord Boult act as prologue and epilogue to the film, addressing the audience from the screen. The theme of the film is one popular from the 60's - the ruthless businessman who rises from obscurity to nobility and wealth by ruthless dishonesty and the destruction of people along the way. The motive force is absolute selfishness in the guise and under the pretext of having everything for an only son and heir. Spencer Tracy is at his best as Arnold Boult, the Canadian migrant who builds himself into Lord Boult; Deborah Kerr gives a fine performance as his wife, beginning as a girlish mother in a London suburb, developing to a sophisticated Lady Boult and, after her domination by her husband, to a prematurely aged aristocratic dipsomaniac. The rest of the cast is in the best English tradition. George Cukor, veteran director of comedies, directed this sombre drama of corruption and destructive ruthlessness of power.

1. Was the structure of the film Lord Boult addressing the audience directly from the screen and then flashbacks successful?

2. What kind of a man did Lord Boult seem to be from his address to the audience?

3. What was your first impression of Lady Boult at Edward's first birthday party?

4. Why was Edward so loved by his mother and father, but especially by his father? Was Lord Boult's love for his son an unselfish love?

5. What did you think of Boult's burning of his shop and collecting the insurance? How ruthless was he?

6. How did Boult's ruthlessness, shrewdness and wielding of power appear from the school sequence? What should the headmaster have done?

7. Why wouldn't Boult help Simkin? Did Boult really believe his double-talk to Simkin? How did he take Simkin's suicide - as a personal affront? Did Boult have any real feelings?

8. What impression did you have of Edward by the time he was seventeen - as spoilt. rich. bully. deceitful. no sense of responsibility. drinking?

9. How much had Lady Boult changed by the time Edward was seventeen? Why had she changed? What were her chief concerns?

10. What kind of a woman was Boult's secretary? (Note her behaviour at Simkin's suicide? Why did Boult begin an affair with her?

11. How did Boult keep Lady Boult under his power to prevent a divorce? Did this explain her taking to drink?

12. How did Boult try to handle the pregnant girl? How successful was he?

13. what kind of a personality was Edward by the time he died? How much was his father to blame. how much his mother?

14. What was the effect of the audience's never seeing Edward? What was the effect of seeing only a succession of birthday cakes? Do you feel you understand Edward? How much was your view of Edward coloured by his father's talk and ambitions?

15. what kind of a man was Lord Boult - is his type uncommon? At the end he gave a philosophy of individualism and the need to fight to survive. Was he right? Would anyone have done as he did?

16. How many people did he destroy - Simkin, Evelyn, his secretary, Larry, Edward, himself?

17. Why did Boult try to search out his grandson? What would have happened had Larry told him? What would Boult have done with his grandson?