The Magnificent Yankee

I had never even heard of this film until I saw it yesterday on TCM. Louis Calhern does an excellent job portraying Holmes, and Ann Harding does a creditable job as his wife, although she is saddled with lines of insufferable banality. Eduard Franz is quite good as Brandeis, and judging from pictures I have seen, he looks quite a bit like Brandeis as well.

All this having been said, it was astonishing to me that this film tells us almost nothing about Holmes' professional life, even though he spent over 30 years as a Supreme Court Associate Justice. Holmes is 61 years old when the film begins! The only hint we get of his life before this is a couple of mentions that he fought in the US Civil War, and that he went to Harvard. There is no mention of his having been Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. There is no inkling of why Teddy Roosevelt appointed him to the US Supreme Court, and we are left with very little notion of why Roosevelt was disappointed with Holmes, other than that Holmes wrote a few opinions that Teddy didn't like.

The film seems totally unwilling to tackle weighty or controversial subjects. We get a few glimpses of Holmes' rulings on free speech issues, and his willingness to restrict free speech when it may present a clear and present danger to the public good. Holmes' notorious opinion in Buck v. Bell, upholding the right of the state to sterilize 'mentally defective' people, in which Holmes made the statement that 'three generations of imbeciles is enough, is never mentioned. The focus of this film is almost entirely on Holmes' domestic life and the fact that he and his wife devotedly loved each other but regretted not being able to have children. The film also depicts how Holmes' court clerks were in effect surrogate sons. Louis Brandeis is a significant character in the film, but he is there only to show that he and Holmes had a close friendship and often voted alike. The film depicts that the appointment of Brandeis by Wilson in 1916 was controversial, and that 22 senators voted against confirmation, but we are never told exactly why Brandeis was controversial, other than that his being Jewish may have been a factor. Finally, I was irritated by the fact that there is a recurrent character named Adams, whose first name is never mentioned. We learn that he is a grandson of John Quincy Adams, but who is he? Is he Henry Adams or Charles Francis Adams? We never find out.

This film was released in 1950. That is surprising, because it must have been an anachronism even then. It has much more of the flavor and feel of the biopics of the 1930s, e.g., the biographies of Pasteur and Juarez starring Paul Muni, although it is nowhere near as good as either of those. In short this is an entertaining film worth watching for Calhern's performance, but don't expect to learn anything of substance about Holmes.

Louis Calhern who was in demand right up to his death in 1956 on both stage and screen gets a chance to repeat his most famous stage role as Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Magnificent Yankee. He appeared on Broadway with this play by Emmett Lavery in 1946 for 159 performances with Dorothy Gish playing his wise and patient wife Fanny Dixwell Holmes.

For those who think that this play and movie is about the Great Dissenter on the Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes, author of some of the best known and most quoted legal opinions ever rendered by the US Supreme Court you are wrong. It is instead about a love story between two elderly people, Wendell and Fanny, who embark on a new adventure when at the ripe old age of 60, Wendell gets a major new job in his chosen profession.

If Holmes had never been put on the Supreme Court by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 his reputation would rest on being the author of The Common Law which is a history of and Holmes view of same. It's a classic in jurisprudence published in many languages. In 1902 Holmes was three years into the job of Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court when he got the call which insurance actuarists would have given him a decade tops on his new job.

Yet we first meet Mr. Justice Holmes and his lady right after that appointment, buying a new home for themselves in Washington, DC. They were one of the great love stories in history. Fanny Dixwell was the daughter of the man who ran Dixwell's Latin School in Boston which was THE place to be sending your young Yankee children for their education. They met as children and it was love at first sight. They had eyes for no others.

Taking Dorothy Gish's place for the screen version is Ann Harding. She and Calhern perfectly fit my conception of what the Holmeses must have been like in their private moments. Eduard Franz plays Holmes friend and colleague Louis D. Brandeis who was his partner in dissent on many occasion replacing Edgar Barrier who did the role on stage.

It's sad that while Calhern was given an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, Ann Harding was not similarly honored. The two roles are so entwined that I don't think you can honor one without the other. I made a similar comment on William Powell being nominated for Nick Charles in The Thin Man and Myrna Loy being snubbed for the same film.

The Holmeses had no children, they did in fact raise a niece who was out of the picture when they moved to the capital, but the legend about his law clerks from Harvard becoming surrogate sons is quite true. You can spot such players as Jimmy Lydon, Richard Anderson, and Herbert Anderson in brief roles as the many clerks Holmes had over the years.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was possibly our most distinguished man of the law and Louis Calhern brings him vividly alive with the wit and grace Holmes was known for in his life. Don't ever miss The Magnificent Yankee played by a magnificent actor about a magnificent man.

First, the casting of Lewis Calhern as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ann Harding as his wife, Fanny Bowditch Holmes, is perfect together. The film is set around Holmes' life as a Supreme Court Justice with the late Louis Brandeis who was the first Jewish member of the supreme court. The film is first rate and the script could use a little work. This film is an example of old Hollywood at it's brilliance with class, style, and a terrific cast and crew. The film's historical basis allows the story to be told easily. You can't help but enjoy Harding and Calhern on the screen as a loving couple. They don't make such high quality films anymore where it's character driven. I watched this film this morning and I couldn't take my eyes off Calhern as he played the late Oliver Wendell Holmes nor Ann Harding as his wife. The film is a perfect example of what thrived in Old Hollywood in it's golden era. It's never recovered from days where veterans like Harding and Calhern and many others worked five films per year.

There's not much substance here, at least in terms of the legal side of Oliver Wendell Holmes. This is more about the man as husband, with a few doses of patriotism. It'd downright sentimental.

I've always liked Louis Calhern in old films, but I'm not quite sure. He's, at best, a good character actor. It is said that he was given the title role here as thanks from the studio for being a good soldier and accepting so many character roles. Perhaps the best acting in this picture comes from Ann Harding as the wife.

The social importance of Holmes' years on the Supreme Court is mentioned, but almost in passing. But, as Bosley Crowther put it in his review at the time, it's a "gentle screen drama". It really is more about marital companionship than law, as Crowther pointed out. It is most touching as Mr. & Mrs. Holmes reach their sunset years.

I grew up in East Los Angeles so my history of Judge Oliver W Holmes is not very good. If this was a good recounting of the actual life of Holmes is unbeknown to me. The story told however was interesting to me because it was about love and friendship interactions with other human beings. Louis Calhern played Oliver W Holmes and did a masterful job of playing a man that ages into his nineties. Ann Harding played his wife Fanny was also masterful until her death in the film. This man Holmes did not have children in the normal sense but counted many of his law clerks as his sons when serving in the Supreme Court. His friend played my Eduard Franz (Judge Brandeis) had a friendship that last their entire careers in public service. They formed a voting group of two on the court but the friendship was so close that each other was not afraid to correct the other when it was needed. This is what a real friend will do. So this film really was about friendship/love and growing old together, a good movie to watch.