Since You Went Away (1944 John Cromwell)

16 July 2017:

Margaret Buell Wilder adapted her own novel (a series of letters to her husband) and it was written by David Selznick - probably a mistake, for though the film covers similar territory to Best Years of Our Lives it isn't its equal despite great performances and treatment. Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple (and maid Hattie McDaniel) let out their home to Monty Woolley, involving grandson Robert Walker and friend Joseph Cotten. A lugubrious dog completes the menagerie. Agnes Moorehead is a bitchy friend and Lionel Barrymore and Albert Bassermann appear briefly. (All acting good.)  The problem I feel is that the film forces sentimentality on you, cranked up by Max Steiner's score. However it is sincere and moving and well acted, with plenty of laughs and interesting detail.

Jones and Walker were nearing the end of their marriage here.

Typically complicated Selznick production also has Tay Garnett and Edward Cline directing sections. Cameraman George Barnes began it, was fired after two weeks as couldn't photograph Jones to Selznick's satisfaction, then Stanley Cortez filmed the first third (he was either called up or sacked, depending on the source) and Lee Garmes finished it - so all those moments of beautiful dark which I confidently asserted were Cortez weren't... though this one could have been:

Also love the modernity of this tracking shot (Cortez again):

You get a sort of Soy Cuba feeling some of the time

The DVD, complete with overture and intermission, runs 177 minutes. It's a bit of an emotional monster.

Today:

Yes I think Selznick does try and over-sentimentalize it, and keep showing us all these 'inspirational' printed slogans of things throughout, and includes corny close-ups of cats and things. The much lauded scene with immigrant played by Alla Nazimova seems entirely stuck on. It's really too long. Similarly Keenan Wynn's appearance at the end is somewhat bewildering - like - 'after all this time now you're going to introduce a new character?' The sailor who befriends Walker and Jones was a telephone lineman who Selznick signed up and changed his name to Guy Madison. And Max Steiner's score isn't one of his best (orchestrated by several uncredited gentlemen). Jack Cosgrove's special effects are invisible (though I wondered if a rather lovely cloud over Walker and Jones might be one of them). Hal Kern is the lead editor.

Talking of actors, Hattie McDaniel's performance is multi-faceted and exquisite. Jones was very unhappy throughout, thinking she was too old and gangly and particularly finding the romantic scenes with Walker too difficult (they had separated). She still received an Oscar nomination, though - perhaps for the way she grows up - but lost to Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. Shirley Temple was brought out of a two year 'retirement' to play a gutsy teenager.

Selznick borrowed Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Stanley Cortez and production designer William Pereira from The Magnificent Ambersons. All this information courtesy of Ronald Haver's aircraft carrier sized book 'David O Selznick's Hollywood'.

It was not particularly well received critically or commercially, and was subsequently cut down for reissue; but overall it's still an impressive piece of work and an emotional experience despite its faults.