Ann Vickers

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Movie
Original title Ann Vickers
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1933
length 76 minutes
Rod
Director John Cromwell
script Jane Murfin
production Pandro S. Berman ,
Merian C. Cooper / RKO
music Roy Webb
camera David Abel ,
Edward Cronjager
cut George Nichols Jr.
occupation

Ann Vickers is the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis with Irene Dunne and Walter Huston and directed by John Cromwell from 1933. The film was released before the Production Code came into effect and was relatively free to relate to and from extramarital affairs portray resulting pregnancies of the heroine.

action

The young social worker Ann Vickers is seduced by an officer, impregnated and then abandoned. With her best friend Dr. Malvina Wormser drives Ann to Havana to have her child there. The baby dies shortly after birth and Ann becomes a bitter woman inside who no longer thinks of men. She therefore rejects the marriage proposal of her long-time admirer Lindsay Atwell in order to concentrate fully on her career. Ann ended up working as a guard in a women's prison. She is horrified by the brutal and vile treatment of the female prisoners. However, your complaints have no effect. On the contrary, those responsible even try to blackmail Ann through bogus reports about her private life. Frustrated, Ann quits and writes her reveal book Ninety Days and Nights in Prison, a bestseller about the catastrophic conditions in the country's penal institutions. Thanks to the support of the influential judge Barney Dolphin, Ann Vickers is elected head of a prison that wants to implement completely new, humane methods of prisoner care. Ann is very successful at work, but deep in her heart she longs for romance and a family. She falls in love with the unhappily married Barney. Ann becomes pregnant again, while Barney is expelled from office for accepting bribes. As an unmarried mother, Ann is finally forced to leave her post. In order to support herself and her son, Ann earns some money writing socially critical newspaper columns. After three years, Barney is fired for good conduct. He is now divorced and marries Ann, who, in her own words, is only too happy to finally only be allowed to be a housewife and mother.

background

Irene Dunne had inexorably risen to become the most popular female star at her studio, RKO , since her film debut in 1930 , although most of her films were unpretentious melodramas and love triangles. She played substantial roles mostly for other studios, for example in Back Street in 1932 and a year later in The Secret of Madame Blanche . Although their films usually grossed high profits, Dunne was clearly behind Ann Harding and Katharine Hepburn in the internal hierarchy and only got roles at RKO that one or both of the established stars had rejected. Here, too, the engagement only went to the actress when Ann Harding rejected the material. Director John Cromwell had already directed Dunne through in her previous film, The Silver Cord .

In her films, Irene Dunne was mostly seen as a well-behaved lady who never forgets her good upbringing, even in dire straits. In this respect, the appearance in the film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel Ann Vickers meant a certain departure from her usual image. Even for the conditions at the time, when there was still a certain amount of freedom for depicting extramarital or premarital relationships between the sexes before the Production Code came into force , the film offered a number of morally daring twists. In the course of the plot, the heroine is unwanted and unmarried twice pregnant and has a successful career on the side. Ann Vickers is therefore presented until shortly before the end as an independent woman with modern views on the compatibility of motherhood and work. Nevertheless, the censorship authority influenced the final script. In a first draft, Ann marries the officer and begins a relationship with Barney during the marriage. This double adultery, if you will, seemed too daring and the plot was adapted accordingly. The film was no longer allowed to be shown commercially after mid-1934 as the plot contradicted the requirements of the Production Code.

The studio tried in its advertising campaign to sell Ann Vickers as a gripping social drama, in the style of the startling films about social grievances that Warner Brothers produced. In full-page advertising campaigns, viewers were promised nothing but the truth, no matter how inconvenient it might be:

“These are times of change. RKO Radio does not believe that the truth can be suppressed. The screen dares to show what Lewis wrote. The film pleads guilty to destroying people's beliefs in certain convenient lies. He will set the nation on fire like a purifying fire. But 'Ann Vickers' is not a sermon of penance. "

At $ 317,476 in production, it was an average expensive film.

Reviews

Variety donated praise for Irene Dunne:

“[The] star is doing a good job. She is honest and believable, apart from the fact that it is beyond the imagination to accept such a beautiful and fascinating woman as a guard in the women's prison. "

Words of appreciation for the female star were also found in New York :

"Irene Dunne, as Ann [manages] to keep things going through her intelligent play and the film is good entertainment, if not provocative in any way."

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ These are the times of overturning. RKO Radio does not believe that the truth should be surpressed. The screen dares to produce what Lewis wrote. The picture now pleads guilty to destroying human faith in certain pleasant lies. It will inflame the nation like a purifying fire. But Ann Vickers is not a sermon!
  2. ↑ Star gives fine performance. She is sincere and believable except that so handsome and fascinating a warden for a woman's prison is a bit beyond probability.
  3. ↑ Irene Dunne, as Ann [manages] to pick the thing up considerably by [her] intelligent acting, and the film is good entertainment without being in any way provocative.