SINCE YOU WENT AWAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 309, 25 May 1945, Page 18

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY

(Selznick-United Artists)

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY is a deliberate attempt by David O. Selznick, the maker of Gone With the Wind, to

produce another screen epic, this time on the simplest and most intimate of themes. Simplicity of subject is, of course, no disadvantage in such an undertaking, but I doubt if the author of any epic has ever achieved success by gritting his teeth, gripping his pen, and sitting down with the conscious intention of producing one. Anybody who does that is simply asking for a certain amount of trouble and disappointment. Not that Mr. Selznick is likely to feel much of this disappointment in the region of his pocketbook. SYWA cost him only 2,400,000 dollars to produce, which is relatively cheap for an "epic" (GWTW’s bill totalled 4,000,000 dollars), and it will almost certainly return him a handsome profit at the box-office. But as readers may have noticed, it is not the custom in this column to measure films by that standard alone. Since You Went Away announces itself to be "a tribute to that impregnable fortress, the American Home." The trouble with impregnable homes is that they are so jolly difficult to get inside. Net even Mr. Selznick’s most expert cameramen and his star-studded cast can manage it with complete success. Rather ironically, when the portcullis or rather the curtain is raised on this impregnable American fortress the first thing we catch sight of is a British bulldog! After that we certainly see a lot-I would say a whole lot too much. Almost nothing is omitted except the kitchen sinksurely a quite unnecessary oversight in such a domestic picture-but when it comes to the human inmates, Mr. Selznick’s ability as an observer of character is rather overshadowed by his ability as a showman. ee * HIS should not by any means be read as suggesting that the entire film is superficial. Every now and then, in some cases amounting to whole long sequences, there are flashes of insight which reveal complexities of motive and behaviour far more accurately than is the case in the majority of Hollywood’s domestic melodramas. At such ‘times the acting as well as the direction departs radically from formula. I am thinking particularly of the mature relationship that is shown to exist between Mrs. Hilton (Claudette Colbert), whose husband is away at the | war, and the naval lieutenant (Joseph Cotten),.a gay bachelor who is not only the dearest friend of the family, but is also Mrs. Hilton’s reiected, though still persistent, suitor. When the husband is, reported missing, it looks for a few | breathless moments as if Mr. Selznick is not only going to violate formula but also the Hays Office Code by involving his symbolic American wife and mother in a genuine affair with the "other man." Though Joseph Cotten’s persistent high spirits and serio-comic gallantries eventually become a trifle overpowering,

there is a good deal of depth and perception in his characterisation; not merely when he is paying court to the mother, but also when he is gently detaching himself from the advances of the elder Hilton daughter (Jennifer Jones), who has developed an adolescent ."crush" on him. * * * IKE the great majority of Hollywood "epics," Since You Went Away is unnecessarily long (nearly two and threequarter hdodlrs, but its excess footage does have one advantage: it permits some real development of character, showing this as a continuous process instead of making it, as usually happens, just a spasmodic series of highlights between the leaves of a calendar. This is especially the case with Jennifer Jones’ portrayal of Jane, the Hilton daughter, who after recovering quickly from her adolescent infatuation, falls in love with a nervous young soldier (Robert Walker), loses him in battle, and thereafter devotes herself to nursing. Miss Jones, last seen as St. Bernadette; is often inclined to be too intense; nevertheless her scenes of young love are warm and natural. Apart from those mentioned, other inmates of the impregnable American home, or visitors to it, include Shirley Temple as the cheeky but charming younger daughter; Hattie McDaniel as the negro servant; Agnes Moorhead as a scandal-mongering neighbour; and Monty Woolley, who brings his beard and his Man Who Came to Dinner manner into the home as its paying guest. Lionel Barrymore.does not cross the threshold, but illustrates Mr. Selznick’s. habit of having nobody but the best and most expensive people in his pictures by appearing for just a few seconds in order to preach a patriotic sefmon. There is undoubtedly much that is good and valid in Since You Went Away. There is also much that is superfluous, conventional, and shallow. I suspect that the film represents Mr. | Selznick’s idealised ‘conception of the average American home and the American way of life in wartime rather than the reality; there is too much luxury and too much space to move around in for that. In spite, however, of the agreeable living conditions here depicted, the chief impression which the film leaves is of overcrowding. If the camera had not tried to take in so much we would not only have caught our last bus home with more comfort, but I think the memories we carried away might also have had more chance of enduring. * * oe ON the subject of the American Way of Life in Wartime, I must mention an extraordinary featurette I saw the other day entitled "Young and Beautiful." This demonstrates how, in order to maintain morale and appearances on the home front, a girl. and her mother both submit themselves to a most exhaustive, and exhausting, process of so-called beauty culture at the hands of experts. Whatever else it does, this treatment must obviously cost a pretty penny. At the end of it Father returns from a trip and is suitably surprised and gratified,

not only by the transformation in his womenfolk, but also by the appearance of his penthouse, which has likewise been redecorated. And then Mother springs her second big surprise. "I’ve been thinking," she says, "that we’ve been rather selfish during this war. Other people are making all kinds of sacrifices and doing something to help, so I’ve arranged to do something, too." Guess what? Nothing less than to hold a nice cosy little party, in aid of Patriotic Funds of course, for a few other wealthy, over-dressed people, at which Gracie Fields is the star attraction. There’s sacrifice for you! No, this film isn’t satirical. Nor, for that matter, does it in any way represent an official viewpoint. But it did ‘strike me as being in taste, as well as a pretty bad advertisement for Americans,