H. M. Pulham, Esq.

H. M. Pulham, Esq.
H. M. Pulham, Esq.
	Theatrical Film Poster
Directed by	King Vidor
Screenplay by	King Vidor; Elizabeth Hill Vidor
Based on	H. M. Pulham, Esq.; 1941 novel; by John P. Marquand
Produced by	King Vidor
Starring	Hedy Lamarr ; Robert Young ; Ruth Hussey ; Charles Coburn
Cinematography	Ray June
Edited by	Harold Kress
Music by	Bronislau Kaper
Distributed by	Loew's Inc.
Release date	December 18, 1941(USA);
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Last updated March 01, 2024

H. M. Pulham, Esq. is a 1941 American drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, and Ruth Hussey. Based on the novel H. M. Pulham, Esq. by John P. Marquand, the film is about a middle-aged businessman who has lived a conservative life according to the routine conventions of society, but who still remembers the beautiful young woman who once brought him out of his shell. Vidor co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor. The film features an early uncredited appearance by Ava Gardner. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.^[1]

Plot

Harry Moulton Pulham Jr. (Robert Young) is a conservative, middle-aged Boston businessman, set in a precise daily routine. He has a proper wife, Kay (Ruth Hussey), with whom he has settled into a comfortable if passionless relationship. However, it was not always that way.

When Harry is saddled with the task of organizing a twenty-five-year college reunion, it triggers a flashback to a time more than twenty years earlier. After the end of World War I, his Harvard classmate and friend Bill King (Van Heflin) gets him a job in a New York City advertising company, where he falls in love with a vivacious, independent coworker oddly named Marvin Myles (Hedy Lamarr). However, though they love each other, she cannot bring herself to fit into his traditional idea of a wife's role and he cannot imagine living anywhere other than hidebound Boston. So they break off their relationship. Harry falls in love with and marries a woman from his own social set with the same attitudes and assumptions, someone approved of by his father (Charles Coburn) and mother (Fay Holden).

Harry is now profoundly dissatisfied with his dull routine. At breakfast, he begs his wife to go away with him immediately, to rekindle their love. She dismisses the idea as impractical and even silly. Harry calls Marvin and arranges to meet her again after these twenty years. He visits her apartment in the city. There are sparks, and Harry is tempted to have an affair. When she takes a phone call, we realize she, too, is married. They both realize they cannot recapture the past.

On the street after his lunch with Marvin, Harry sees his wife in the car trying to get his attention. She tells him she wants to go away with him as he suggested that morning, and he now says it is impractical, but she has canceled her appointments and packed their bags in the car and persuades him to go. He seems happy.

Cast

Lamarr plays both a single and married woman in the film Hedy Lamarr 3.jpg — Lamarr plays both a single and married woman in the film

Hedy Lamarr as Marvin Myles Ransome
Robert Young as Harry Moulton Pulham
Ruth Hussey as Cordelia 'Kay' Motford Pulham
Charles Coburn as John Pulham
Van Heflin as Bill King
Fay Holden as Mrs. John Pulham
Bonita Granville as Mary Pulham
Douglas Wood as Mr. 'J. T.' Bullard
Charles Halton as Walter Kaufman
Leif Erickson as Rodney 'Bo-Jo' Brown
Phil Brown as Joe Bingham
David Clyde as Hugh, the butler
Sara Haden as Miss Rollo, Harry's secretary
Ava Gardner as Young Socialite (uncredited)
Anne Revere as John's Secretary, Miss Redfern (uncredited)

Production notes

Production Dates: 30 July-30 September 1941
John P. Marquand's novel was serialized as Gone Tomorrow in McCall's magazine (September 1940-January 1941). It sold over 200,000 copies within the first six months of publication.
Most reviews singled out the performance of Hedy Lamarr and called it the best of her career.
Modern sources include Ava Gardner in the cast, but she was not identifiable in the viewed print. A Hollywood Reporter news item on August 1, 1941, noted that Gardner, "a model," had just been signed by M-G-M. If she did appear as an extra in H. M. Pulham, Esq., it may have been her debut film.

Director's Essay

As the film opened, Vidor described his thoughts and aims in bringing the story to the screen:

Here was American life today told in terms of American humor, romance and a generous sprinkling of our home-grown satire. In addition, the story covered a span of more than 30 years, and I saw a chance to present a sort of American cavalcade of the significant events of this century while telling the human story of an American gentleman.
The book is written in the first person. It was all told from Harry Pulham's viewpoint. This is responsible for much of the deep human psychology of the novel. Here was a challenge. Could a motion picture be told completely in the first person? It would mean that nothing could happen in the entire picture unless it was seen or witnessed or experienced by Pulham. We decided to try it. The result is that in the picture nothing happens that is not experienced by Pulham.
So Robert Young is in every scene of the picture or is in the room when every scene happens. In the case of telephone conversations, no one is shown at the other end of the line. We only hear what Pulham hears. We do not see the other person at any time, for this would be letting the audience see something that Harry Pulham didn't see.^[2]

Related Research Articles

King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed the subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions.

Hedy Lamarr was an Austro-Hungarian-born American actress and technology inventor. She was a film star during Hollywood's Golden Age.

Robert George Young was an American film, television, and radio actor best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father character, in Father Knows Best and the physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. (ABC). In 1978, Young produced a documentary that "stressed the importance of motorcycle training for teenagers." This film earned him the 1979 BAFTA Award for Best Specialised Film.

Samson and Delilah is a 1949 American romantic biblical drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and released by Paramount Pictures. It depicts the biblical story of Samson, a strongman whose secret lies in his uncut hair, and his love for Delilah, the woman who seduces him, discovers his secret, and then betrays him to the Philistines. It stars Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in the title roles, George Sanders as the Saran, Angela Lansbury as Semadar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Prince Ahtur.

<i>Ecstasy</i> (film) 1933 erotic film directed by Gustav Machatý

Ecstasy is a 1933 Czech erotic romantic drama film directed by Gustav Machatý and starring Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, and Zvonimir Rogoz. Machatý won the award for Best Director for this film at the 1934 Venice Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Hussey</span> American actress (1911–2005)

Ruth Carol Hussey was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in The Philadelphia Story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Vidor</span> American film director

Charles Vidor was a Hungarian film director. Among his film successes are The Bridge (1929), The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942), The Desperadoes (1943), Cover Girl (1944), Together Again (1944), A Song to Remember (1945), Over 21 (1945), Gilda (1946), The Loves of Carmen (1948), Rhapsody (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Swan (1956), The Joker Is Wild (1957), and A Farewell to Arms (1957).

George Montgomery was an American actor, best known for his work in Western films and television. He was also a painter, director, producer, writer, sculptor, furniture craftsman, and stuntman. He was married to Dinah Shore and was engaged to Hedy Lamarr.

The Killers is a 1946 American film noir starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien and Sam Levene. Based in part on the 1927 short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway, it focuses on an insurance detective's investigation into the execution by two professional killers of a former boxer who was unresistant to his own murder. Directed by Robert Siodmak, it featured an uncredited John Huston and Richard Brooks co-writing the screenplay, which was credited to Anthony Veiller. As in many film noir, it is mostly told in flashback.

John Loder was established as a British film actor in Germany and Britain before migrating to the United States in 1928 for work in the new talkies. He worked in Hollywood for two periods, becoming an American citizen in 1947. After living also in Argentina, he became a naturalized British citizen in 1959.

Ziegfeld Girl is a 1941 American musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, Eve Arden, and Philip Dorn. The film, which features musical numbers by Busby Berkeley, was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

<i>White Cargo</i> 1942 film by Richard Thorpe

White Cargo is a 1942 American drama film starring Hedy Lamarr and Walter Pidgeon, and directed by Richard Thorpe. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the 1923 London and Broadway hit play by Leon Gordon, which was in turn adapted from the 1912 novel Hell's Playground by Ida Vera Simonton. The play had already been made into a British part-talkie, also titled White Cargo, with Maurice Evans in 1930. The 1942 film, unlike the play, begins in what was then the present-day, before unfolding in flashback.

<i>I Take This Woman</i> (1940 film) 1940 American film

I Take This Woman is a 1940 American drama film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. Based on the short story "A New York Cinderella" by Charles MacArthur, the film is about a young woman who attempted suicide in reaction to a failed love affair. The doctor who marries her attempts to get her to love him by abandoning his clinic services to the poor to become a physician to the rich so he can pay for her expensive lifestyle.

<i>The Heavenly Body</i> 1944 film by Vincente Minnelli, Alexander Hall

The Heavenly Body is a 1944 American romantic comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and James Craig. Based on a story by Jacques Théry, with a screenplay by Michael Arlen and Walter Reisch, the film is about the beautiful wife of a professional astronomer who becomes convinced that her astrologer's prediction that she will meet her true love will come true. Produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr., The Heavenly Body was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States on March 23, 1944.

Kid Glove Killer is a 1942 American crime film, starring Van Heflin as a forensic scientist investigating the murder of a mayor. The B film, the feature-length directorial debut of Fred Zinnemann, was an expanded version of the 1938 Crime Does Not Pay short subject "They're Always Caught".

Come Live with Me is a 1941 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by Clarence Brown and starring James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr and Ian Hunter. Based on a story by Virginia Van Upp, the film is about a beautiful Viennese refugee seeking United States citizenship who arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.

<i>The Strange Woman</i> 1946 film by Edgar George Ulmer

The Strange Woman is a 1946 American historical melodrama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders and Louis Hayward. It is based on the 1941 novel of the same title by Ben Ames Williams. The screenplay was written by Ulmer and Hunt Stromberg, Originally released by United Artists, the film is now in the public domain.

<i>Lets Live a Little</i> 1948 film by Richard Wallace

Let's Live a Little is a 1948 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Wallace and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Cummings and Anna Sten. Written by Howard Irving Young, Edmund L. Hartmann, Albert J. Cohen, and Jack Harvey, the film is about an overworked advertising executive who is being pursued romantically by his former fiancée, a successful perfume magnate, who is also the ad agency's largest client. While visiting a new client—a psychiatrist and author—to discuss a proposed ad campaign, his life becomes further complicated when the new client turns out to be a beautiful woman, who decides to treat his nervous condition.

The Female Animal american CinemaScope film noir directed by Harry Keller and starring Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell, Jan Sterling and George Nader.

Elizabeth Hill was an American screenwriter and the third wife of King Vidor.

References

↑ "Retrospective 2020: A Very Wide-ranging Director". Berlinale. Retrieved November 8, 2022.
↑ Vidor King (December 21, 1941). "Vidor Was Challenged By 'H. M. Pulham Esq.'". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York). p. E-10. Retrieved September 28, 2021.

External links

H. M. Pulham, Esq. at IMDb
H. M. Pulham, Esq. at the TCM Movie Database
H. M. Pulham, Esq. at AllMovie
H. M. Pulham, Esq. at the American Film Institute Catalog
Review at Classic Film Guide archived at the Wayback Machine

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "Retrospective 2020: A Very Wide-ranging Director". Berlinale. Retrieved November 8, 2022.

[Brooklyn-2] Vidor King (December 21, 1941). "Vidor Was Challenged By 'H. M. Pulham Esq.'". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York). p. E-10. Retrieved September 28, 2021.

[1]

[2]