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 This is one of eight movies that stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon appeared
in together. It takes place between the 1870s and the 1930s and involves an
"epic portrait of the rise and crash of an American dynasty founded on easy
money." Garson and co-star Agnes Moorehead each were nominated for Oscars and
they claim that the movie "skillfully recreates a turbulent and wonderful
period of our past." 1944, 124 minutes, VHS
As soon as you see star Greer Garson hobble down the gigantic staircase of
her ornate mansion all decked out in old gal makeup at the very beginning of
the film, you immediately realize that you're in for one of those deals where
Old Girl is going to be sitting around flasbacking her way through her
tumultuous life. You don't actually have to sit through the two-plus hours
(and we all know that any movie from the forties about the life and loves of
spoiled rich babes that never did any work in their life outside of acting
haughty whenever one of their galas was disrupted by their drunken, loutish son
or when confronting hubby's inevitable mistress at the big fox hunt, must run
about as long as the time period covered in the movie - about eighty years give
or take a generation) to know that Greer's character is probably white trash
that was rescued from her Gary, Indiana trailer park by the larger-than-life
Clark Gable wannabe Walter Pidgeon (I'm going to assume that that was Wally's
real name and that he didn't actually change it to Pidgeon from something
worse) and ends up being thrust into high society with all its accoutrements.
(You know - stuff like miscarriages, kids getting killed in polo accidents, and
dalliances with British royalty.) And just so there is no mistaking what this
movie is, you even get chicks falling down stairs. These movies always involve
dames
falling down a really big staircase. For rich broads, taking a header (or at
least having their stuntman do it) down to the ground floor is one of those
major life events, kind of like buying a house or getting digital cable for us
regular Joes. Some might complain this movie really lathers it on by having
Greer work a miscarriage in along with her roll down the stairs, but the
polo-related death of one of her kids takes place offscreen, so its not like
the movie is going overboard on the whole wealth-oriented tragedy bit.  Since I'm one of those dudes that enjoys watching other folks have rotten
lives, especially people who are rich because -lets face it - they dress
impeccably and what's more entertaining than gals in gowns collapsing in
layered chiffon heaps bemoaning that their husband is lavishing attention on
the Duchess de Skanktramp or guys in tails and spats swearing revenge on some
businessman that snubbed their dinner party because the only respectable money
is inherited not earned in filthy silver mines, I was practically
salivating at the prospect of watching Susie (Greer Garson) morph from innocent
wide-eyed boarding house maid into a smart, rich, old biddy that everyone sucks
up to in an effort to insure their inheritance once she finally croaks. (You
just know her heirs were all wondering how it is that she could routinely fall
down flights of stairs when she's about twenty, but couldn't be pushed down the
stairs with a bulldozer when she was eighty, walked with a cane, and was
drooling on herself.) To set the flashback to her earlier life up, we check in
on Susie at Christmas time in 1938. Her whole family has gathered at her house
and while we're waiting for Granny to put her teeth in, drain her Depends, and
comb her ear hair, we have the chance to meet her descendants. They're a
sluggish, ungrateful, and down right worthless lot, which confirms all us poor
people's expectations about rich people and their offspring - they're as
worthless as us, but with a better wardrobe and vocabulary. You've got the
drunk daughter, the crooked grandson, a daughter or granddaughter who has been
through more husbands than granny has wigs, and a great grandson who sneers and
swings his pocket watch around like some sort of dandified pimp. If you
haven't guessed by now, he's played by Dan Duryea. Dan is well known to us for
his endearingly slimy roles in a ton of great film noirs such as The Woman In The Window, Scarlet Street, Criss Cross, Black Angel, and Too Late For Tears.
He doesn't have much of a part in this one, but he gets off some great lines
when given the chance.  Amory Stilham is Jack Stilham's (Duryea) father and is apparently married to
one of the Parkington daughters (Susie is the Mrs. Parkington of the title)
and he is a fat, oily business guy who wants to discuss his inheritance with
Susie. But first he gives her a Christmas present which is a book he
commissioned about the history of the Parkington family. Most of us would be
disappointed we didn't get an XBox or MP3 player, because the only thing worse
than getting a book for Christmas is getting a book all about the crappy life
you've spent your entire adulthood trying drink away into oblivion.
This part of the movie got me thinking about what a book of my own life would
be like... Once I had finished cutting myself to let the bad feelings out and
had gotten
out of the little ball I had curled into following that, I took the movie
off pause and resumed watching it. Not unlike myself, the movie suffers from a
bit of the old schizo personality. It flashes back to her meeting her husband
(the Major) and all that for hours on end, then it belches back to 1938 where
either Amory is whining about needing some money to get out of debt or where
Amory's daughter is threatening to elope with her boyfriend. It turns out that Amory has stolen lots of money and his
daughter's boyfriend knows about it, but doesn't want to testify against him so
he wants to leave the country with the daughter. He's a real upright chap and
even goes as far as to stop Amory from committing suicide and is rewarded by
having his girlfriend scream at him for being so judgmental! Mrs. Parkington
convenes a family meeting where she asks everyone if they would mind spending
all their inheritance ($31 million!) on paying off what Amory stole and keeping
his meaty ass out of jail. Everyone quickly decides that Amory would be better
off owning up to his crime and paying his debt to society. This has the effect
of letting them keep all their money, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence.
Amory asks his son (Duryea) for his opinion on whether they should pay off his
debt or just ship him to the big house and he coolly responds, "it's difficult
for me to be impartial - you see I never liked you." Uh, so you probably won't
be coming to see me on visiting day up at Sing Sing, huh? 
So you've basically got two movies here - the rags to riches story of Susie and
the dysfunctional rich family in decline. The later is the better of the two,
but unfortunately we don't get much of that. The main body of the movie is
pretty standard princess-fantasy fluff, where Susie gets whisked off her feet,
gets new clothes, new house, battles husband's infidelity, and ultimately
becomes as tough as her husband. There's a lot that will leave you raising
your eyebrows skeptically such as how the Major brushes off concerns about the
safety of his mine, only to have it blow up the next day and kill Susie's mom
and a few days later Susie has no problem running off to New York to marry him.
The movie also tries to get across its whole American Dream propaganda angle
(perfect for 1944) that says the rich, ruthless guy who don't care about worker
safety and runs around on his family is somehow better than a guy who got rich
through an inheritance. Whatever. I'm still going to be playing Powerball
twice a week.
So, was this movie underwritten by robber barons or what? Having seen the
way all the nouveau riche have acquired their wealth (Good-bye pension fund!
We'll *sniff* miss you!), I'd be a lot less worried about the inbred slugs that
just had it passed down from Daddy. Questionable political agenda aside, Greer
Garson holds together both ends of it, convincing in her transformation to rich
matriarch, right down to a pretty good make up job when she's all old and
wrinkly.
The snarky and funny (well, funny in the sense that it isn't happening to you)
byplay with the family in 1938 are the movie's best moments, but
jumping back and forth between two storylines with such different tones kind of
makes them feel out of place with the movie's larger storyline set in Susie's
youth. Second-tier 1940s unhappy rich family movie, below stuff like The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane, but has its moments.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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