The Silver Cord

Who won the best actress Oscar for 1933? It should have been Laura Hope Crewes for her magnificent portrayal of the most monstrous mother ever. She truly is one of the great character actresses of all time. She played the frivolous Prudence Duvernoy in "Camille" (1936) and her best remembered role is Aunt Pittypat in "Gone With the Wind".

Irene Dunne was the "official" star of the film but her scenes with Laura Hope Crewes were dynamite.

David (Joel McCrea) is in Heidelberg when he is offered a job in New York. His wife, Christine (Irene Dunne) can continue her studies at the Rockafellar Centre. Their first stop in America is a visit to David's mother, Mrs. Phelps. To say that Laura Hope Crewes dominates every scene is an under-statement. From her first entrance - in a frantic burst of effort to greet her "big boy" - all attention is on her. Even sitting around the tea table, when she forgets Hester's existence, even forgetting how she takes her tea, you know something is not quite right.(Hester has been living there for a while.)

Frances Dee is completely sweet and so right in her role as the adorable Hester. Her performance in this film, especially the scene where she has hysterics and the aftermath proves how under-rated as an actress she was.

All the young cast are excellent. Eric Linden is superb as Robert, the younger son who comes to the realization that his mother is horrible but can do nothing about escaping from his mother's spell. Joel McCrea, at one point says "painting roses on bathtubs - that's more your style". There is a very subtle suggestion in the film of Robert's sexuality.

Irene Dunne is excellent in whatever film or genre she tried.

Irene Dunne has married Joel McCrea and is going to meet his mother, played by Laura Hope Crews. But what Irene doesn't know is that Laura had her own plans for her son – to live close by her side and visit often. Based on a stage play, this can come across as rather talky and stagy, but I find the subject matter fascinating and most absorbing as we see the mother trying subtly and sometimes not so subtly to manipulate her sons so that they may never leave her. Eric Linden is another son, who is engaged to Frances Dee, unless "poor, pitiful" mother has anything to do with it. I don't know much about the movies and career of Laura Hope Crews, who played "Aunt Pittypat" in "Gone with the Wind," but I would surmise that this is one of her best and meatiest roles. The film belongs to her, as she has tantrums and wraps her sons around her little finger. By the way, costars Joel and Frances would marry in real life. If you happen to discover "The Silver Cord," which I doubt, don't pass this up. You may be looking for the best films of the great Irene Dunne, but instead you will discover the under-appreciated Ms. Laura Hope Crews at the zenith of her career.

Long before the Freudian craze in the forties thrillers ,"the silver cord" depicted a terrifying mother/children relationship where mom is in love with her boys (and at least in one case vice versa: the boy kisses her on the mouth).

The movie looks like a filmed stage production for we almost never leave the house and there are only five actors (plus a short appearance by the doctor),but it's absorbing from start to finish .Irene Dunne ,as a scientist ,predates woman's lib by thirty years .Frances Dee says the words that are the keys to the movie: " give birth to them ,raise them ,and let them live!" To keep her sons by her side,the mother-in-law you would not imagine even in your worst dreams ,would do anything:she urges her sons to break up ,she even blackmails them with the poor condition of her heart (whereas the physician says she is all right);when her younger son's fiancé tries to commit suicide ,she is not moved that much :Laura Hope Crews ' playing may seem old fashioned by today's standards;but this portrayal of a self-absorbed woman remain convincing and Mrs Phelps is a distant relative of Tennessee Williams' Mrs Venable in "suddenly last Summer"

THE SILVER CORD (RKO Radio, 1933), directed by John Cromwell, is a story about two sons (Joel McCrea and Eric Linden) whose widowed mother (Laura Hope Crews) tries to destroy their happiness with the women (Irene Dunne and Frances Dee) they love and marry. The movie adaptation, taken from the 1929 stage play, also directed by Cromwell, starred Laura Hope Crews. While Dunne and McCrea have feature billing in the screen version, it is Crews, reprising her stage role, who carries the story from start to finish. Inasmuch as it is a filmed staged play, very talky with little action, the story itself is never boring, especially when it relies on the shock value of Crews' excessive selfishness that gives the plot some entertaining bite.

THE SILVER CORD became the very first movie I got to see when American Movie Classics was added to the system by my local cable system. It fact, up to that time, it was rarely televised anywhere, with the exception of its dubbed Spanish TV broadcast in the early 1970s on WNJU, Channel 47, in Newark, New Jersey. For a while, American Movie Classics aired THE SILVER CORD from 1984 to 1994 until Turner Classic Movies finally got to air this now rarely seen gem May 3, 2020.

As for Crews (born November 13, 1879), the actual star of this product, resumed her movie career mostly in secondary character parts, up to the time of her death (December 12, 1942). She never had a finer opportunity of screen than she did in THE SILVER CORD, and never did again. With a small list of actors credited in the cast, seen in a brief role is Gustav Von Seyffertitz, the same nasty villain who terrorized Mary Pickford in the silent classic, SPARROWS (United Artists, 1926). Overall, highly recommended. (***1/2)

Yikes! and we all thought Joan Crawford was THE horror Mommy Dearest...well Laura Hope Crewes as Mom in this stinging 4 character film delivers (and cops) the goods in this cracker of a marital Mommy mangle.....THE SILVER CORD is a genuinely sensational pre code drama from RKO made in 1932 released in '33 from a 1929 play. So astonishing, frank and honest is each startling verbal exchange between one son's wife (IreneDunne) along with the other's fiancé as these two younger girls together go to war - gleefully angrily unwrapping the clearly incestuous hankerings of Mom towards her hunky eldest son played by virile Joel MacCrea and her younger 'beau'/son payed by delicate and beautiful 25 year old actor Eric Linden. I would think this film played to many howling appreciative audiences in huge theaters in 1933 and offers viewers even in 2005 a very fruity melodrama enlivened by crackling dialog not afraid to call Mother exactly as she is. This film would have been impossible to make after the censorship code came in after 1934. Other viewer comments on the IMDb support my reaction and you will find almost everyone lucky enough to see (and tape) THE SILVER CORD will agree it is an unforgettable and pungent script in a superbly produced film. It would have played like the VIRGINIA WOLF of 1932. Laura Hope Crewes must have kissed the sound stage at RKO for this role of a lifetime..even more than her fluffy turn in GWTW. Irene Dunne is as gorgeous and casual and believable as ever, fighting for her husband yet again, and it is well worth seeing The Divorcée made in 1929 as a companion piece to THE SILVER CORD. Joel MaCrea is certainly in the same league as Cary Grant and Randolph Scott in the handsome and lovable stakes. I had never seen Eric Linden in a real acting role before (he played the leg amputee in the hospital horror scene in GWTW) and here he is startling and youthful with an excellent role as Robert, the younger and more sensitive son. Some verbal barbs leveled at him again would not get past the Code office if made later. This is a really good film, and if the viewer forgives some of the creakiness of its time and settles in for a sparring match of unequaled pungency for a 1932 movie, you will be well rewarded. At first I thought some of the throat clutching melodrama of Mother was dated until I realized it was a set up of the excellent screenplay to make the viewer laugh at her as though she is a weak little old lady......NOT..... but nor are the other two women in this powerhouse play on film, hence the fantastic retort dialog. That ocean-liner seen in reel one is THE LEVIATHAN the monster ship the US won from the Germans in WW1 that was so huge and unwieldy that crews were nervous wrecks trying to wrestle with it upon the Atlantic. It is infamous for ploughing headfirst up a colossal wave in a storm and shot over the crest at such an angle the spine along the bottom cracked and the ship split vertically between the funnels. It limped to port with rattling steel panels and winking rivet holes...and mentally shattered crew and passengers. It was scuttled in 1935 after being cursed and plagued with horror mechanical problems all its existence. Not such a war prize after all.

Anyway, the dialog in THE SILVER CORD is enough excitement for one night: eg: "Mother! the Doctor said there was nothing wrong with you, in fact he said it would take a stick of dynamite to kill you". Whammo!