Ruth Chatterton
Paul Lukas
Mary Astor
David Niven
Gregory Gaye
Maria Ouspenskaya
Photography:
Black and White
Distributed By:
United Artists
Samuel Goldwyn Productions
Release Date:
1936
Runtime:
101 minutes
Dodsworth is a 1936 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, and Mary Astor. Sidney Howard based the screenplay on his 1934 stage adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis. Huston reprised his stage role.
Why It Rocks
As one of the most mature, deeply felt stories of marriage ever to come out of Hollywood, Dodsworth still feels remarkably modern and truthful as it charts the breakdown of a relationship. While Wyler’s direction and Sidney Howard’s screenplay is cruel at times, it’s also as honest as Hollywood in general – and Goldwyn in particular – could get.
It's very faithful to Sinclair Lewis' original novel – which had some parallels with the author’s life and was dedicated to Dorothy Thompson, a journalist who married Lewis after his divorce from Hegger. The script uses a simple framework to explore a complex and delicate subject.
Well-written and complex characters, with great performances to match, that deliver to the audience believable tragedy as well as a convincing release of sheer joy,
Fran Dodsworth – played by Ruth Chatterton – has a softer depiction in the film when compared to the novel. In the book, she’s a flighty wife who has a fling with a European aristocrat, but the film version makes Fran less of a jerk in the beginning. Chatterton's embodiment of Fran is vital to the film's power. Viewers can sympathize with her point of view at the outset, which makes the subsequent marital disintegration all the more heartbreaking. It should be noted that Chatterton had wanted to play Fran as a villain from her first scene, but the director some degree of empathy for Fran was necessary if only to give an inkling of what had brought the couple together in the first place.
Luminous turn from Mary Astor who appears as sympathetic widow Edith Cortwright who befriends Sam. The role was a huge break for Astor, and a chance to express great tenderness and a powerful, if subtle, sense of transformation. Edith and Sam grow closer just as believably and organically as Fran and Sam fade apart. Astor’s silent reactions, especially in the final scenes, are unforgettable.
Walter Huston had the technique, the insight to provide a natural performance, and a complete understanding of his role as Sam Dodsworth. Huston’s Dodsworth is one of the landmark performances of the 1930s, fully fleshed out, with complications and contradictions intact. A deeply sympathetic man despite his flaws, Dodsworth is also increasingly aware of his wife’s limitations, and the emptiness of his own life.
Maria Ouspenskaya made her Hollywood debut in the film after a decade on Broadway and a handful of silent films in her native Russia. For this film, she spends most of her time sitting in a chair—yet she commands the screen with astonishing power as she berates Ruth Chatterton in ways both subtle and piercing. “Have you thought how little happiness there can be,” she admonishes, “for the old wife of a young husband?” Ouspenskaya’s single scene was enough to garner an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in the first year that the category existed. At under five-and-a-half minutes, hers remains one of the shortest performances ever nominated.
Wyler pays close attention to every possible detail of the film: sending a film crew to Europe, giving detailed instructions about the footage he wanted, and insisting on repeated takes of screens.
The film is full of inspired storytelling touches from Howard and Wyler.
A choice to show the Dodsworths undressing for bed as they argue brings them to their truest and most vulnerable states, visually and verbally.
Many sequences that are set on moving vehicles—ships, cars, trains, fishing boats—feel like metaphors for a relationship that is in transit and could move in any direction.
Even the film’s last images of Huston and Chatterton are on vehicles, while the final image of Astor has her moving quickly through the frame.
For a scene where Fran asks Sam if he’d truly get her out of his blood when the latter threatens to walk out on her, Wyler shot a long, intricate, and crucial scene first in calm wide shots, then in steadily tighter close-ups that echo the characters’ jagged emotions.
The ending had been changed from the original book it's based on, but it still manages to fit into the story's tone.
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