Today was the anniversary of Fay Bainter's birthday, so that Turner Classic Movies were showing a number of her films - many of which are rarely available for viewing. Earlier I reviewed THE SHINING HOUR, in which Bainter played a repressed spinster, older sister - with possible incestuous thoughts about her two brothers (Melvin Douglas and Robert Young). I also watched most of this film in which Bainter plays an upper class Washington socialite who feels that the Second World War was a personal attack on herself and her way of life. This may seem to be a ridiculous point of view, but I am aware of one celebrity (I won't say who) who arrived at the same rather stupid point of view in his memoirs.
Bainter's Mrs. Stella Hadley could be (in her point of view) a relative of Ms. Emily Hawkins (Agnes Moorehead) in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. In that film Moorehead keeps claiming that her selfish actions (she will be willing to throw a large party - because it gives her a chance for social exposure - but she is hoarding and using black market)is "to maintain appearances", as she puts it. Mrs. Hadley is not so despicable, but she resents the inconveniences to herself and her lifestyle by the war (which she tends to blame on the policies of Franklin Roosevelt).
In the films of the 1940s there were occasional comments about the Washington social scene in some of the films. For example, Lucille Watson is a prominent Washington hostess (the widow of a Supreme Court Justice) in WATCH ON THE RHINE. But the social elite did not always support the administration. In fact many members of the nation's upper crust were Republicans, and many were reactionaries to the New Deal and other policies. Mrs. Hadley is the widow of a prominent Washington D.C. newspaper owner who was a Republican. It sounds like the character is based on Evelyn Walsh McClean, whose husband Ned owned the Washington Post in the 1920s (and actually was an intimate of the Harding Administration). But Mrs. McClean was fully supportive of the war effort.
The changes she sees is that her friends (mostly Republican like herself) will not share her views. Edward Arnold is Eliot Fulton, a family friend who has been trying to marry Mrs. Hadley, but he is committed to his work in the F.D.R. war effort. Roosevelt, unlike his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, was smart enough to make the war effort a coalition type, including Republican figures like Frank Knox and Henry Stimson in his cabinet in important jobs (Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of War). Arnold's Fulton, and Spring Byington and Isobel Elsom as her two closest friends, all are spurned by her as they adopt a support the war effort point of view. It's like they forgot their criticism of FDR's peacetime social and political views (which they willingly have). Only Miles Mander, as a chilly physician who is also romantically interested in Bainter, stays close to her socially and politically.
She soon alienates her children, her daughter (Jean Rogers) running off (against Bainter's wishes) to marry Van Johnson, a young man in the armed forces from the lower classes. Sarah Allgood (Johnson's mother) tries to undue the resulting split, but Bainter won't hear of it. And Arnold helps Bainter's son Richard Ney enlist in the army (again against Bainter's wishes). The conclusion of the film shows how a tragic incident brings Bainter to her senses.
The film is fascinating showing an moment of importance that lasted five years. FDR had been under tremendous criticism from 1933 to 1941 for the New Deal and then the third term election. His foreign policy would be criticized by isolationists too, and the court packing plan made many Democrats into enemies. But Pearl Harbor changed it all, and his wisdom on bi-partisan-ism helped. This film showed how the bulk of the country did drop partisan differences because of national shame and peril. The eventual success of our war effort is still another monument to FDR's leadership.
Bainter's Mrs. Stella Hadley could be (in her point of view) a relative of Ms. Emily Hawkins (Agnes Moorehead) in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. In that film Moorehead keeps claiming that her selfish actions (she will be willing to throw a large party - because it gives her a chance for social exposure - but she is hoarding and using black market)is "to maintain appearances", as she puts it. Mrs. Hadley is not so despicable, but she resents the inconveniences to herself and her lifestyle by the war (which she tends to blame on the policies of Franklin Roosevelt).
In the films of the 1940s there were occasional comments about the Washington social scene in some of the films. For example, Lucille Watson is a prominent Washington hostess (the widow of a Supreme Court Justice) in WATCH ON THE RHINE. But the social elite did not always support the administration. In fact many members of the nation's upper crust were Republicans, and many were reactionaries to the New Deal and other policies. Mrs. Hadley is the widow of a prominent Washington D.C. newspaper owner who was a Republican. It sounds like the character is based on Evelyn Walsh McClean, whose husband Ned owned the Washington Post in the 1920s (and actually was an intimate of the Harding Administration). But Mrs. McClean was fully supportive of the war effort.
The changes she sees is that her friends (mostly Republican like herself) will not share her views. Edward Arnold is Eliot Fulton, a family friend who has been trying to marry Mrs. Hadley, but he is committed to his work in the F.D.R. war effort. Roosevelt, unlike his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, was smart enough to make the war effort a coalition type, including Republican figures like Frank Knox and Henry Stimson in his cabinet in important jobs (Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of War). Arnold's Fulton, and Spring Byington and Isobel Elsom as her two closest friends, all are spurned by her as they adopt a support the war effort point of view. It's like they forgot their criticism of FDR's peacetime social and political views (which they willingly have). Only Miles Mander, as a chilly physician who is also romantically interested in Bainter, stays close to her socially and politically.
She soon alienates her children, her daughter (Jean Rogers) running off (against Bainter's wishes) to marry Van Johnson, a young man in the armed forces from the lower classes. Sarah Allgood (Johnson's mother) tries to undue the resulting split, but Bainter won't hear of it. And Arnold helps Bainter's son Richard Ney enlist in the army (again against Bainter's wishes). The conclusion of the film shows how a tragic incident brings Bainter to her senses.
The film is fascinating showing an moment of importance that lasted five years. FDR had been under tremendous criticism from 1933 to 1941 for the New Deal and then the third term election. His foreign policy would be criticized by isolationists too, and the court packing plan made many Democrats into enemies. But Pearl Harbor changed it all, and his wisdom on bi-partisan-ism helped. This film showed how the bulk of the country did drop partisan differences because of national shame and peril. The eventual success of our war effort is still another monument to FDR's leadership.