geezer cinema: the animal kingdom (edward h. griffith and george cukor, 1932)

Pre-code comedy-drama that makes for good post-viewing conversation, but is a stage-bound bore for the most part as you watch it.

Edward H. Griffith gets sole credit for directing, although George Cukor's involvement is known. The film stars Ann Harding, an interesting actress who had gotten an Oscar nomination two years earlier for the 1930 version of Holiday. Myrna Loy does Myrna Loy stuff ... her part is about the same size as Harding's, but Harding gets top billing. Leslie Howard is the male lead, and he's one of the reasons the film is rather boring. His character supposedly feels passionately about the two women in his life, but it doesn't come across. The film is based on a play, and it shows, which isn't a dealbreaker (A Streetcar Named Desire, to name one example, is one of our finest films), but it feels painfully obvious in this case.

The plot is what offers the post-mortem conversation. At the beginning, Tom (Howard) has had a long-time relationship (best friends, probably more) with Daisy (Harding), but he falls in love with Cecelia (Loy), who he marries. Various plot shenanigans occur, eventually leading to Tom having to choose between wife Cecelia and true love Daisy. Tom decides to go back to his wife, by which he means Daisy, creating a question about the true meaning and necessity of the social contract of marriage. Which, among other things, is why an attempt to re-release the film once the Code was in place was a failure ... it didn't get clearance. As I say, quite interesting, but it doesn't really make the movie any livelier.