Ah, Wilderness! | |
---|---|
Directed by | Clarence Brown |
Screenplay by | Albert Hackett Frances Goodrich |
Based on | Ah, Wilderness! 1933 play by Eugene O'Neill |
Produced by | Clarence Brown Hunt Stromberg |
Starring | Wallace Beery Lionel Barrymore Aline MacMahon Eric Linden |
Cinematography | Clyde De Vinna |
Edited by | Frank E. Hull |
Music by | Herbert Stothart Edward Ward |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Loew's Inc. [1] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Ah, Wilderness! is a 1935 American comedy-drama film adaptation of the 1933 Eugene O'Neill play of the same name. Directed by Clarence Brown, the film stars Wallace Beery and features Lionel Barrymore, Eric Linden, Cecilia Parker, Spring Byington, and a young Mickey Rooney. Rooney stars as Richard in MGM's musical remake Summer Holiday (1948).
June 1906 in an unnamed New England town. 17-year-old Richard Miller is about to graduate and go to Yale. He already feels worldly wise, thanks to reading Shaw, Wilde, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam , Swinburne and Marxist tracts. He adores the neighborhood girl Muriel McComber, but she is afraid of being kissed.
Richard’s father, newspaper editor Nat Miller, is a kind, wise man. Richard has three siblings: older brother Arthur home from Yale; sister, Mildred; and Tommy, the youngest. Uncle Sid and Cousin Lily live with the family. Sid keeps proposing to Lily, but she refuses, ostensibly because he once got involved with a bad woman; his not-so-secret drinking is the real problem. Sid travels to his new job in Waterbury.
At graduation, Richard drops his valedictory speech and Nat reads it. Nat turns a burst of applause into a final acclamation, forestalling Richard’s planned Marxist call to arms. After the ceremony, Nat asks if Richard’s conscience will allow him to drive the family’s Stanley Steamer. Of course, he is thrilled and asks Muriel to come along.
On the morning of the Fourth, the street explodes in fireworks. The fired Uncle Sid reappears, but says that he has the day off. Lily hints that she would accept a proposal now. Sid doesn’t act, and Lily is hurt. Muriel's father storms in, accusing Richard of corrupting his daughter's morals. He gives Nat the letters and a farewell letter from Muriel, then threatens to pull his advertising, and storms out.
“Samples of the new freedom,” Nat says, showing Richard’s letters to Sid, who reads aloud a stanza from Swinburne’s Laus Veneris. [2] He stops and they both read silently. “Hail and Hallelujah!” Nat whispers. [3] However, he is truly concerned. He tells Richard about Macomber’s visit; Shocked, Richard reassures his father: He plans to marry Muriel. When Richard reads the letter, he is heartbroken: “Geewhillickers!” he sobs, and bursts into tears.
Mildred goes to a box social, Nat and Sid go to a men’s club picnic, the women go to a hen party, and lovelorn Richard walks and walks. Arthur’s friend Wint asks Richard to go on a double date with “a couple of swift babies” that night. The family reassembles at supper. Sid, who was given back his old job at Nat's newspaper, is drunk again and can barely stand. At the table, he has everyone laughing; but when he goes up for a nap, Lily says that they all encourage him — and maybe they should not. Richard blames women for driving men to drink and marches out to meet Wint.
In a hotel bar, Wint has disappeared and Richard is sitting with Belle, a floozy. His innocence is painfully obvious. At Belle’s nod, the bartender slips something into Richard’s sloe gin fizz. A customer tells the bartender that Richard is underage, he throws him out. When he learns he is the son of a newspaper editor, he throws Belle out. Richard comes home drunk and miserable, declaiming: "But he does not win who plays with Sin In the secret House of Shame." [4] Horrified, Essie assumes the worst. Sid takes charge.
On the next evening, Muriel and Richard meet. She explains that her father made her write the letter. They finally kiss and Richard sighs, “Gosh, I Love You.” Richard returns home, transported. "That’s love, not liquor", Nat reassures Essie. Nat and Richard have s serious talk, about the fact that "no woman wants to give her love to a stupid drunk" and about women like Belle, "whited sepulchers" who can "ruin your whole life." [5] Nat gives him a punishment that is no hardship—go to Yale and stick with it.
Sid and Lily are in the swing, drinking lemonade (Sid spikes it.) Mildred and Art are walking with their sweethearts. Macomber is reconciled. "We are completely surrounded by love," Nat says. Richard kisses his parents and goes out to gaze blissfully at the Moon. Nat quotes the Rubaiyat "Ah, that Spring should vanish with the rose...Spring isn’t everything", he says to Essie. "There's a lot to be said for Autumn.. and Winter, if you're together."
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".
You Can't Take It with You is a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The original production of the play premiered on Broadway in 1936, and played for 838 performances.
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his titular role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1931 American pre-Code horror film, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March, who plays a possessed doctor who tests his new formula that can unleash people's inner demons. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which turns him from a mild-mannered man of science into a homicidal maniac.
Kiss of Death is a 1947 American film noir directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around an ex-con played by Victor Mature and his former partner-in-crime, Tommy Udo. The movie also starred Brian Donlevy and introduced Coleen Gray in her first billed role. The film has received critical praise since its release, with two Academy Award nominations.
Easter Parade is a 1948 American Technicolor musical film starring Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, and Ann Miller. The film contains some of Astaire's and Garland's best-known songs, including "Easter Parade", "Steppin' Out with My Baby", and "We're a Couple of Swells", all by Irving Berlin.
The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a 1912 American short drama and a gangster film. It is directed by D. W. Griffith and written by Griffith and Anita Loos. It is also credited for its early use of follow focus, a fundamental tool in cinematography.
On the Twentieth Century is a musical with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Cy Coleman. Based partly on the 1932 play Twentieth Century and its 1934 film adaptation, the musical is part operetta, part farce and part screwball comedy. The story involves the behind-the-scenes relationship between Lily, a temperamental actress and Oscar, a bankrupt theatre producer. On a luxury train traveling from Chicago to New York in the early 1930s, Oscar tries to cajole the glamorous Hollywood star into playing the lead in his new, but not-yet-written drama, and perhaps to rekindle their romance.
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn of the century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy.
Allen Stephen Covert is an American comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for his starring role in the 2006 comedy film Grandma's Boy, and his supporting actor role in the movie Strange Wilderness (2008). He is a frequent collaborator of actor and friend Adam Sandler with prominent roles in such films as Happy Gilmore (1996), The Wedding Singer (1998), Big Daddy (1999), Little Nicky (2000), Mr. Deeds (2002), Anger Management (2003), 50 First Dates (2004) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007).
Hide-Out is a 1934 American pre-Code comedy, crime, drama, romance film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Robert Montgomery and Maureen O'Sullivan. It also features a young Mickey Rooney. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing - Original Story. It was re-made in 1941 as I'll Wait for You.
Take Me Along is a 1959 musical based on the 1933 Eugene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Joseph Stein and Robert Russell.
The Big Night is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey, that features John Drew Barrymore, Preston Foster and Joan Lorring. The feature is based on a script written by Joseph Losey and Stanley Ellin, based on Ellin's 1948 novel Dreadful Summit. Hugo Butler and Ring Lardner, Jr. also contributed to the screenplay, but were uncredited when the film was first released. Robert Aldrich, who had been an assistant director on other films directed by Losey, also has a brief uncredited appearance in a scene at a boxing match.
A Trap for Santa Claus is a 1909 one-reel American silent drama film. A Biograph Company production, it was directed by D. W. Griffith and stars Henry B. Walthall, Marion Leonard, and Gladys Egan.
Eric Linden was an American actor, primarily active during the 1930s.
Babes in Arms is the 1939 American film version of the 1937 coming-of-age Broadway musical of the same title. Directed by Busby Berkeley, it stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and features Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee, June Preisser, Grace Hayes, and Betty Jaynes. It was Garland and Rooney's second film together as lead characters after their earlier successful pairing in the fourth of the Andy Hardy films. The film concerns a group of youngsters trying to put on a show to prove their vaudevillian parents wrong and make it to Broadway. The original Broadway script was significantly revamped, restructured, and rewritten to accommodate Hollywood's needs. Almost all of the Rodgers and Hart songs from the Broadway musical were discarded.
Summer Holiday is a 1948 American musical-comedy film, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Mickey Rooney and Gloria DeHaven. The picture is based on the play Ah, Wilderness! (1933) by Eugene O'Neill, which had been filmed under that name by MGM in 1935 with Rooney in a much smaller role, as the younger brother. Though completed in October 1946, this film sat on the shelf until 1948.
Sidney Walker is a fictional character from the Australian Seven Network soap opera Home and Away, played by Robert Mammone. He made his first on-screen appearance on 30 July 2009. Sid was originally introduced for a five-week guest stint in 2009. In 2010, Mammone returned to Home and Away and Sid became a regular character. Mammone confirmed his exit in May 2013 and Sid departed on 18 July 2013. He made a brief return from 7 November 2013.
Arthur William Byron was an American actor who played a mixture of British and American roles in films.
Muriel Emily Herbert was a British composer of the early 20th century. Much of her work is for solo voice and piano, with art song settings of texts by English and Irish poets such as Thomas Hardy, Robert Herrick, Ben Jonson, James Joyce, and W.B. Yeats.