Week Ninety-Eight
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"Ah, Wilderness!" 1935 Tommy with fireworks |
MOVIE NAME: AH, WILDERNESS!
STUDIO: METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER CORP.
PRODUCER: HUNT STROMBERG
DIRECTOR: CLARENCE BROWN
DATE: 1935
TYPE: DOMESTIC, COMEDY-DRAMA
CAST:
WALLACE BERRY as Sid Miller , LIONEL BARRYMORE as Nat Miller ,ARLINE MACMAHON as Lily,ERIC LINDEN as Richard Miller ,CECILIA PARKER as Muriel, SPRING BYINGTON as Elsie Miller,MICKEY ROONEY as Tommy Miller CHARLES GRAPEWIN as Mr. McComber, FRANK ALBERTSON as Arthur Miller, TOMMY BUPP, as the boy with fireworks
SOURCE: Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com
STORY: " This film is a veritable treasure for those who appreciate small-town Americana at the turn of the century. Set in New England in 1906, we see the plethora of events typical of the era: the high school graduation with individual seniors singing, reciting poetry and the valedictorian speech; the Fourth of July celebration with fireworks and picnics; the careful relationships between the young boys and girls; the close-knit family life with a sister and brother of the parents living with them. I thoroughly enjoyed Clarence Brown's depiction of this lost innocent era, which produced a warm glow within me as I watched. There are very few belly laughs - one I remember was when the protagonist Eric Linden says to his not-so-clever girl (Cecilia Parker) "I was born 100 years before my time" and she responds "I was born 10 days before mine." But I found myself smiling often at the goings on. Eric Linden carries the film beautifully. The rest of the cast is superb: Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington as Linden's parents; Mickey Rooney and Bonita Granville as his younger siblings; Aline MacMahon as Byinton's spinster sister and Wallace Beery as Barrymore's alcoholic brother. But I was particularly impressed with Helen Flint playing the vamp who Linden gets involved with when he was drowning his sorrows. The title, by the way, is a line from the poem "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám."
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