An American Romance
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | An American Romance |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1944 |
| length | 121 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | King Vidor |
| script | King Vidor, Herbert Dalmas , William Ludwig , Louis Adamic |
| production | King Vidor for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| music | Louis Gruenberg |
| camera | Harold Rosson |
| cut | Conrad A. Annoying |
| occupation | |
| |
An American Romance is a 1944 American film directed by King Vidor .
action
In 1898, a friendly official allowed the Eastern European immigrant Stefan Dangosbiblichek to pass on Ellis Island , although he could not raise the $ 25 required to immigrate to the United States. Stefan then sets off on foot to Minnesota , where his cousin Anton, who emigrated a few years ago, lives. Stefan takes the name Steve Dangos and, like Anton and most of the men in the area, begins to work in the huge iron ore mine Mesabi Range . After a while, Steve meets the local school teacher Anna O'Rourke. Anna gives lessons to the illiterate at his request and the two fall in love. Steve begins studying iron, steel and industrial production books and develops ambitions. He eventually marries Anna and moves to Chicago with her . Here he takes on a strenuous, sometimes life-threatening job in the steel works. Steve works his way to the foreman and can finally feed his wife and the growing number of children well. He names his four sons after George Washington , Thomas Jefferson , Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt .
Steve and Anna's children eventually grow up: in 1917, the eldest son George, the best of his senior high school class, gives a patriotic speech, and the eldest daughter Tina marries her boyfriend. A little later, George volunteers for service in the First World War and has his father promise that he will take the long-delayed naturalization test . On the day of the naturalization test, Steve found out about George's death and passed the test despite his grief. Steve makes friends with George's teacher, Howard Clinton, when he brings in some of the poems written by George. Steve and Howard take a ride in the Dangos family's new automobile . Due to a few unauthorized changes by Steve, the car is so fast that both are briefly detained by the police for their fast driving style.
In the following time Steve and Howard tinkered with more cars, took part in car races and finally invested all of their assets in their own car company called Danton . They build faster and at the same time safer cars. Despite some difficulties from competing companies that shy away from innovation, Howard and Steve manage to place their products successfully and to keep their initially small company growing. Steve's son Teddy also joins the company after graduating from college and starts "from scratch" as a normal worker. The relationship between the father and the son worsened, however, when Teddy supported the workers' demand for the establishment of a works council . Steve says he treats his workers well enough anyway, and in his stubbornness he doesn't want to listen to the appeasement of other board members like Anton and Howard. Eventually, Steve isolates himself with his position and bitterly pulls out of the company.
Anna suggests that Steve retire. After four decades, the couple finally have more time to themselves and live on a ranch in California , but Steve begins to get bored. One day, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor , Steve is asked by his son and his old companions to rejoin the company. The company is supposed to manufacture aircraft for the American army in World War II and faces new challenges. Steve makes up with his son, Howard and Anton; They proudly manufacture thousands of aircraft for use in the war.
Production background
The production time of the Technicolor color film An American Romance was around 15 months and the cost in the end was over three million US dollars, which was an extraordinary sum for a film at the time. King Vidor worked on his heart project for several years and initially wanted to cast the film with Spencer Tracy as Steve, Ingrid Bergman in the role of Anna and Joseph Cotten as Howard. Tracy, however, had other obligations, and the occupations of Bergman and Cottens did not materialize. Many of the male movie stars were on military service and unavailable during this period. In the end, Vidor had to be content with a relatively unknown cast, considering the production costs: Brian Donlevy and Ann Richards usually only played leading roles in B-movies .
Vidor was outraged that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cut the film by 20 minutes to around two hours without any prior agreement. This affected not so much the semi-documentary recordings from the American industry, but rather some scenes that play between the characters and characterize them - a few film reviews later noted that some of the characters would appear relatively lifeless. Vidor was so disappointed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's intervention in his dream project that he left the film studio after almost 20 years.
Reviews
Bosley Crowther gave the film a largely negative review in the New York Times on November 24, 1944. It is a "big, colorful color film with a string of lively American scenes" and offers some interesting shots from industry. The plot itself is "banal and tough" like a "huge platitude". The main character of Steve Dangos does not seem like a "man of flesh and blood", but remains superficial and appears as if taken from a novel by Horatio Alger . The figure of his wife also appears "strictly conventional", the secondary characters as "ordered from the camp".
Web links
- An American Romance in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Time Inc: LIFE . Time Inc, October 2, 1944 ( google.de [accessed May 10, 2020]).
- ↑ AFI | Catalog. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
- ↑ Dan Callahan: Vidor, King. In: Senses of Cinema. February 12, 2007. Retrieved July 4, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Bosley Crowther: 'American Romance,' Big Scenic Film, With Brian Donlevy Loew's State - Bill at Music Hall 'Together Again' . In: The New York Times . November 24, 1944, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed April 29, 2020]).