Director: Clarence Brown
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Top Billed Actors: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Original Motion Picture Story - William Saroyan
Nominated for 4 more:
Outstanding Motion Picture - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Best Director - Clarence Brown
Best Actor - Mickey Rooney
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Harry Stradling
Plot: In its best Mrs. Miniver impression, an idyllic small town in California wrestles with the changing world and sees the effects of World War II.
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Top Billed Actors: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Original Motion Picture Story - William Saroyan
Nominated for 4 more:
Outstanding Motion Picture - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Best Director - Clarence Brown
Best Actor - Mickey Rooney
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Harry Stradling
Plot: In its best Mrs. Miniver impression, an idyllic small town in California wrestles with the changing world and sees the effects of World War II.
We finally get into the calendar year of 1943 with The Human Comedy (1943), the fourth Best Picture nominee for the 16th Awards. The war caused so much havoc with traditional methodologies to premiere, distribute, and market films but this picture puts us firmly in 1943 and we will remain there for the duration of the 16th Awards. The film won for Best Original Motion Picture Story even though it was adapted into a novel, a bestseller at that, shortly before the movie was released. William Saroyan came up with the original screenplay but it was much too long. Like Best Actor nominee Mickey Rooney's character, he was also a messenger for a telegraph company. Saroyan wanted to direct the picture as well but Louis B. Mayer balked at that proposition after seeing his directorial effort on a one-reeler. Numerous reports, however, have stated that this is Mayer's personal favorite of the M-G-M catalogue so it worked out well for him. Another fun fact that I stumbled into while watching this is that this is Robert Mitchum's on screen debut as an uncredited soldier who watches a film with Bess and Mary. The film they watch is another M-G-M picture, Mrs. Miniver (1942).
The similarities to Mrs. Miniver is impossible to ignore. Like Miniver, The Human Comedy paints a picture of how the war can affect the dynamics of a small town. Ithica, California can stand in for any town in America. Bombs, firefights, and tanks aren't necessary to show how war takes hold of a community. The film unfolds in a series of vignettes with Rooney acting as the Mrs. Miniver parallel, that of a central character. We see stories about his boss, his brothers, and himself but each of them highlights the realities of war as well as the positives of community and family. It's propaganda, sure, but it's effective and inspiring propaganda. Although there is a sense of poignancy that flows through the entire picture, it ultimately shows us what we can be if we stick together, hang in there, and remain hopeful. The soldiers are fighting for the future of the country and the people on the homefront would be wise to not squander that. Rooney's performance depicts this sentiment as he dials down his usual peppy self for a much more tender turn. His character has to step up and take care of the family and I feel Rooney stepped up and was able to show off his acting chops with more serious material. The final ten minutes of this film is the best I've seen of him.
Although I like quite a few of these vignettes presented throughout the feature, there are some I don't care for. And when there isn't much to connect them aside for them featuring characters that Rooney's Homer knows, the ones that I am more lukewarm on stand out even more. I ultimately didn't care for how the screenplay is constructed. I wish there was more connective tissue between the sequences but I did find some of them to be enlightening when discovering the moral or metaphor of the story. However, as wartime propaganda, I didn't take to how much religion, specifically Christianity, plays a role. I'm all for see religion of any kind being depicted when it's personal to a film's character, but when an entire train full of soldiers are singing a hymn and the fourth wall is broken to get a theater audience to sing along, it just doesn't feel right. The religious aspects of many of these scenes feel forced and I wish the writers came up with another way to band these soldiers together. The overall tone is much too sentimental as well. I love a positive message but Capra has nothing on the tone of this movie.
Overall, the American version of Mrs. Miniver gives us a melancholic but sentimental perspective of how a small town is affected by World War II. Mickey Rooney provides his best performance to date and there are plenty of positive messages to glean from these vignettes. I ultimately didn't take to the overly sentimental tone and there is an excess of religion for a wartime propaganda picture.
My Score: 6/10
The similarities to Mrs. Miniver is impossible to ignore. Like Miniver, The Human Comedy paints a picture of how the war can affect the dynamics of a small town. Ithica, California can stand in for any town in America. Bombs, firefights, and tanks aren't necessary to show how war takes hold of a community. The film unfolds in a series of vignettes with Rooney acting as the Mrs. Miniver parallel, that of a central character. We see stories about his boss, his brothers, and himself but each of them highlights the realities of war as well as the positives of community and family. It's propaganda, sure, but it's effective and inspiring propaganda. Although there is a sense of poignancy that flows through the entire picture, it ultimately shows us what we can be if we stick together, hang in there, and remain hopeful. The soldiers are fighting for the future of the country and the people on the homefront would be wise to not squander that. Rooney's performance depicts this sentiment as he dials down his usual peppy self for a much more tender turn. His character has to step up and take care of the family and I feel Rooney stepped up and was able to show off his acting chops with more serious material. The final ten minutes of this film is the best I've seen of him.
Although I like quite a few of these vignettes presented throughout the feature, there are some I don't care for. And when there isn't much to connect them aside for them featuring characters that Rooney's Homer knows, the ones that I am more lukewarm on stand out even more. I ultimately didn't care for how the screenplay is constructed. I wish there was more connective tissue between the sequences but I did find some of them to be enlightening when discovering the moral or metaphor of the story. However, as wartime propaganda, I didn't take to how much religion, specifically Christianity, plays a role. I'm all for see religion of any kind being depicted when it's personal to a film's character, but when an entire train full of soldiers are singing a hymn and the fourth wall is broken to get a theater audience to sing along, it just doesn't feel right. The religious aspects of many of these scenes feel forced and I wish the writers came up with another way to band these soldiers together. The overall tone is much too sentimental as well. I love a positive message but Capra has nothing on the tone of this movie.
Overall, the American version of Mrs. Miniver gives us a melancholic but sentimental perspective of how a small town is affected by World War II. Mickey Rooney provides his best performance to date and there are plenty of positive messages to glean from these vignettes. I ultimately didn't take to the overly sentimental tone and there is an excess of religion for a wartime propaganda picture.
My Score: 6/10