marc (beautyboy@aol.com) was right--Hollywood seemed to miss the main point of the Sinclair Lewis novel. In the film, a new doctor's wife (Josephine Hutchinson) arrives in the small town where he was raised and immediately rubs the women in the town wrong--mostly because this wife is pushy and seems to intimate again and again that the town was backward and needed many changes immediately upon arriving. While she is well-meaning, she is also unwise and obnoxious. In the novel, the opposite is mostly true. While the new wife is more 'city-fied', she is not the pushy and overbearing lady AND the point of the novel is how narrow-minded and insular the townspeople were. In other words, instead of attacking the wife, Lewis' intent was to lampoon the self-important folks of small town America! In fact, some were greatly offended by Lewis' implications--and with the sanitized film, no one could possibly be offended...and that's a shame, as all attempts at satire are muted at best.
Also quite sad about the film is Pat O'Brien. Though a fine and usually larger than life actor, here he is a milquetoast fellow who seems strangely quiet throughout the film. As a result, you find him just pathetic! So, you have a leading character who is despicable and a town that is justifiably angry at her--how much more wrong could you have gotten the Lewis tale?!? It is entertaining and well made, but castrated in every sense.
Also quite sad about the film is Pat O'Brien. Though a fine and usually larger than life actor, here he is a milquetoast fellow who seems strangely quiet throughout the film. As a result, you find him just pathetic! So, you have a leading character who is despicable and a town that is justifiably angry at her--how much more wrong could you have gotten the Lewis tale?!? It is entertaining and well made, but castrated in every sense.