Happy Land (film)

Last updated
Happy Land
Happy Land 1943 Poster.jpg
1943 theatrical poster
Directed by Irving Pichel
Screenplay by Kathryn Scola
Julien Josephson
Based onHappy Land
(novel)
by MacKinlay Kantor
Produced by Kenneth Macgowan
Starring Don Ameche
Frances Dee
Harry Carey
Ann Rutherford
Cinematography Joseph LaShelle
Edited by Dorothy Spencer
Music by Cyril J. Mockridge
Distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox
Release date
  • December 3, 1943 (1943-12-03)
Running time
75 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.5 million [1]

Happy Land is a 1943 film directed by Irving Pichel and starring Don Ameche. A World War II home front drama, it was based on the 1943 novel of the same name by MacKinlay Kantor.

Contents

Plot

Lew Marsh receives a message that his only son, Rusty, has been killed in the war. Lew, a pharmacist in the small town of Hartfield, Iowa, is so grief-stricken, he neglects everything and isolates himself.

One day, Lew is visited by his dead grandfather's spirit. "Gramp" is troubled by Lew's prolonged mourning and the way it is affecting his life and those around him. Lew tries to send him away, but Gramp has "all the time in the world". Gramp takes him on a stroll through the streets of town, showing him flashbacks of events from his and Rusty's life.

It begins with Lew and other Hartfield residents returning home after serving in World War I. He finds out that his girlfriend Velma married a Marine just the month before. He meets Agnes soon after, falls in love, and marries her. Gramp becomes sick, but lives long enough through sheer stubbornness to see Rusty born.

Rusty turns out to be a perky boy with a mind of his own, who cares a lot for his friends. He becomes a member of the Boy Scouts. As a teen helping out at his father's pharmacy, he gives an old man medicine for his sick wife, even though the man does not have enough to pay for it, later putting money he has been saving for something special in the cash register.

Rusty falls in love for the first time at eighteen, with a girl named Gretchen Barry. She soon dumps him for a young man, which was expected by both Lew and Agnes. Lew tries to comfort him by giving him a glass of loganberry wine and toasting him as an adult. When Lenore Prentiss, a childhood friend, develops into a nice looking woman, Rusty takes notice.

Then the Nazis take control of Germany and invade Poland. Some of Rusty's friends join the Canadian armed forces, but Rusty continues helping out in the pharmacy. Then he leaves to study for his certificate. After some time, Rusty joins the Navy and is shipped out, bidding farewell to his parents and Lenore.

Back in the present, Gramp states that Rusty had a wonderful life up to his death. Lew is unconvinced, and Gramp tells him to go to pharmacy that evening. There he encounters a young sailor named Tony, someone Rusty often mentioned in his letters. Tony had agreed to tell Rusty's parents what happened if Rusty died.

Lew invites Tony home and introduces him to Agnes. Tony tells them about Rusty's last hours. After a torpedo struck their ship, Rusty was carrying a wounded man when a second one hit, flinging Tony into the water. That was the last he saw of his friend.

Cast

Production notes

An abridged version of MacKinlay Kantor's novel appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on November 28, 1942, and in the August 1943 issue of Reader's Digest .

Five-year-old Natalie Wood made her screen debut and appears in a bit part in the picture as a little girl who drops an ice cream cone.

Production lasted from June 13 to late July 1943. According to The Hollywood Reporter , news items, and studio publicity, the picture was shot on location in Santa Rosa, California, with additional scenes being filmed in nearby Healdsburg. The Time magazine review said that some scenes were shot in Sebastopol. A The Hollywood Reporter news item stated that the picture would have its premiere in sixty-one theaters in Iowa on December 2, 1943.

Adaptations

Don Ameche starred in a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of the story on April 10, 1944. A television adaptation of the film was presented on the 20th Century-Fox Hour (CBS Television) in February 1956, under the title "In Times Like These".

Related Research Articles

<i>In Old Chicago</i> 1938 film by Henry King, Robert D. Webb

In Old Chicago is a 1938 American disaster musical drama film directed by Henry King. The screenplay by Sonya Levien and Lamar Trotti was based on the Niven Busch story, "We the O'Learys". The film is a fictionalized account about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and stars Alice Brady as Mrs. O'Leary, the owner of the cow which started the fire, and Tyrone Power and Don Ameche as her sons. It also stars Alice Faye and Andy Devine. At the time of its release, it was one of the most expensive movies ever made.

<i>Heaven Can Wait</i> (1943 film) 1943 American comedy film by Ernst Lubitsch

Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 Technicolor American supernatural comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Ladislaus Bus-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Ameche</span> American actor (1908–1993)

Don Ameche was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, repertory theatre, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which led to the offer of a movie contract from 20th Century Fox in 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MacKinlay Kantor</span> American journalist (1904–1977)

MacKinlay Kantor, born Benjamin McKinlay Kantor, was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He wrote more than 30 novels, several set during the American Civil War, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his 1955 novel, Andersonville. He also wrote the novel Gettysburg, set during the Civil War.

<i>Jane Eyre</i> (1943 film) Film by Robert Stevenson

Jane Eyre is a 1943 American film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name, released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by the uncredited Kenneth Macgowan and Orson Welles; Welles also stars in the film as Edward Rochester, with Joan Fontaine playing the title character.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeanne Bates</span> American actress (1918–2007)

Jeanne Bates was an American radio, film and television actress. After performing in radio serials, she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1942 which began her career in films both in small parts and larger roles in a series of horror films and noirs, including The Return of the Vampire (1943) and Shadows in the Night (1946).

"Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request..." is the 70th episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the fifth of the show's sixth season. Written by Terence Winter and directed by Steve Buscemi, it originally aired on April 9, 2006.

<i>Magnificent Obsession</i> (1935 film) 1935 film by John M. Stahl

Magnificent Obsession is a 1935 drama film based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Lloyd C. Douglas. The film was adapted by Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman, and George O'Neil, directed by John M. Stahl, and stars Irene Dunne, Robert Taylor, Charles Butterworth, and Betty Furness.

"The Happy Wanderer" is the 19th episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the sixth of the show's second season. It was written by Frank Renzulli, directed by John Patterson, and originally aired on February 20, 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Hatton</span> American actor (died 1971)

Raymond William Hatton was an American film actor who appeared in almost 500 motion pictures.

<i>On Borrowed Time</i> 1939 film by Harold S. Bucquet

On Borrowed Time is a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how humanity cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway hit play. The play, based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin, has been revived twice on Broadway since its original run.

James Jewell was an American radio actor, producer and director at radio station WXYZ, Detroit, Michigan.

<i>Farewell, My Lovely</i> (1975 film) 1975 film by Dick Richards

Farewell, My Lovely is a 1975 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Dick Richards and featuring Robert Mitchum as private detective Philip Marlowe. The picture is based on Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely (1940), which had previously been adapted for film as Murder, My Sweet in 1944. The supporting cast features Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone and hardcore crime novelist Jim Thompson, in his only acting role, as Charlotte Rampling's character's elderly husband Judge Grayle. Mitchum returned to the role of Marlowe three years later in the 1978 film The Big Sleep, making him the only actor to portray the character more than once in a feature film.

<i>Guest Wife</i> 1945 film by Sam Wood

Guest Wife is a 1945 American comedy film directed by Sam Wood, written by Bruce Manning and John Klorer, and starring Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and Dick Foran. It is also known as What Every Woman Wants.

<i>The Raven</i> (1915 film) 1915 film (biography of Edgar Allan Poe) directed by Charles Brabin

The Raven is a stylized silent 1915 American biographical film of Edgar Allan Poe starring Henry B. Walthall as Poe. The film was written and directed by Charles Brabin from a 1904 play and 1909 novel by George C. Hazelton.

<i>Swanee River</i> (1939 film) 1939 film by Sidney Lanfield

Swanee River is a 1939 American biographical musical drama film directed by Sidney Lanfield and starring Don Ameche, Andrea Leeds, Al Jolson, and Felix Bressart. It is a biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century-Fox biographical films of the time, the film was more fictional than it was factual.

<i>The Romance of Rosy Ridge</i> 1947 film by Roy Rowland

The Romance of Rosy Ridge is a 1947 American Western film directed by Roy Rowland, about a rural community bitterly divided during the aftermath of the American Civil War. It stars Van Johnson, Thomas Mitchell, and Janet Leigh in her film debut. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by MacKinlay Kantor.

<i>Bobbie of the Ballet</i> 1916 film

Bobbie of the Ballet is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Joe De Grasse and starring Lon Chaney, Louise Lovely, Gretchen Lederer and Jay Belasco. It was written by Ida May Park, based on a story by Grant Carpenter.

<i>Flying High</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

Flying High is a 1931 American pre-Code musical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by George White, with lyrics by B. G. DeSylva and Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson and additional songs by Dorothy Fields (lyrics) and Jimmy McHugh (music). The film originally featured two Technicolor sequences which apparently only survive in black and white. The cast featured Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood, Pat O'Brien, Charles Winninger and Hedda Hopper, with Gus Arnheim and his orchestra.

<i>Love Is News</i> 1937 film by Tay Garnett

Love Is News is a 1937 American romantic comedy film starring Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, and Don Ameche. The movie was directed by Tay Garnett and was the first film for which Power had top billing. The picture was remade in 1947 as That Wonderful Urge, with Power again and Gene Tierney.

References