Synopsis
MORE STARTLING THAN THE BOOK!
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
1933 Directed by John Cromwell
After a love affair ending in an abortion, a young prison reformer submerges herself in her work. She then falls for a controversial and married judge and scandal looms again.
Irene Dunne Walter Huston Conrad Nagel Bruce Cabot Edna May Oliver Sam Hardy Mitchell Lewis Murray Kinnell Helen Eby-Rock Gertrude Michael J. Carrol Naish Sarah Padden Reginald Barlow Rafaela Ottiano Wally Albright Margaret Armstrong Irving Bacon May Beatty Katherine Block Estelle Brody William P. Carleton Jimmy Casey Bill Cody Helen Cromwell John Cromwell Jenny Dark Jane Darwell Robert Doran Mary Foy Show All…
I genuinely wonder how Irene Dunne, a famously devout Catholic as well as a Republican, felt about starring in Ann Vickers, a film adaptation of a novel by one of American literature's most illustrious leftist writers, Sinclair Lewis, in which her character, a career-minded activist for prison reform, has sex outside of marriage and, more shockingly given the time period, gets an abortion. The ending can be viewed as a conservative correction to Ann's radical tendencies, but that isn't enough to undo the preceding seventy minutes. I'm intrigued by director John Cromwell, who, between this and The Silver Cord, has demonstrated a clear interest in the desires of working women and an almost satirical skepticism of American institutions (family in…
So let's say right off the bat that making a long novel into a short movie rarely works out well. There's just too much material, so it's either crammed in or left out. In this case it's a crammer (I think). The pacing and plot development are jumpy and bumpy because we're forced to skip along too superficially. There are some good points: Ann is a woman with a PhD who runs a prison well and humanely, so she's nobody to sniff at, and Dunne plays her with dignity and grace. It's a rare sighting of an accomplished, highly intelligent female character in early Hollywood. She also has excellent chemistry with Walter Huston, but the degree to which his character's a bit of a scoundrel isn't clear to me. On the whole, this somehow doesn't quite work, though I always enjoy both Dunne and Huston whenever I chance upon them.
Irene Dunne playing independent career women in pre-Code movies? Yes please.
At the beginning of the movie, it appears that Ann gets an abortion after her first unplanned pregnancy, but she actually has a miscarriage. The script was amended due to concerns over the Code and the Catholic church. After "yeetus of the fetus", Ann begins an affair with a married man. The shock, the horror!
I'm impressed that my favourite Hollywood Catholic and Republican agreed to this script. Then again, Irene Dunne herself was a career woman who made an impressive career at the United Nations in the 1950s. Maybe she was more liberal than people think.
Ann Vickers is a fine pre-Code movie, and Irene Dunne proves once again that she could do drama just as well as comedy.
“C’mon let’s go and get a drink. We’ll kill a police man and then I’ll sentence both of us to live in your pretty jail.”
that's one way to pick up a girl
Underwritten pre-code film about a social worker (Irene Dunne). Along the way, she has two out-of-wedlock pregnancies, an abortion, and at least two lovers. There's abuse of power by prison officials, corruption, frank talk of addiction, and even some questionable language.
But either because the script needed to be longer and better or because Irene Dunne had zero chemistry with any of the characters in this, it's not terribly scintillating.
Wikipedia says this film helped lead to the formation of the Legion of Decency, but honestly, never has "sin" been so boring.
Irene Dunne was magnificent as the movies name and the main character. Irene Dunne and Walter Huston had great chemistry. My only complaint was that the movie was short and could have been longer. A definite pre-Code treat!