A House Divided

Creaky but interesting melodrama powered by Walter Huston's performance as a brute and a dynamite action ending. Although Wyler's direction is not as sure as it would be later, it is interesting to note that, for the most accomplished studio director of all time, a man said to operate without a style of his own, a lot of images that show up in his later films (particularly WUTHERING HEIGHTS and THE LITTLE FOXES) also show up here.

The film opens with the funeral of Walter Huston's wife who was also Douglass Montgomery's mother. Huston's incredibly strong performance as the fisherman father with little sympathy for anybody or anything but fishing, staying alive, and drinking at the local bar is riveting. He orders a mail-order bride through a magazine - to do the housework, cook, mend the nets - you get the drift. She arrives, but she's another who's taken the place of the original girl who had already married. She's also much prettier. Only 19 and one of six daughters to a Montana wheat farmer, the girl marries Huston. She falls in love with his son, Montgomery, a man his father thinks is weak. Among bit parts, you may spot Walter Brennan, Mary Foy, Gibson Gowland, Mary Gordon, Vivien Oakland, and Marjorie Main.

The action in the film is strong, the fluidity of the camera for the year really good. The final scene is spectacular, the camera work really magnificent, as Huston straps himself into a boat to go rescue his wife, who had gone out on the fishing boat when a storm breaks out. Why was Huston strapped to the boat you might ask? Because he's now crippled, without the use of his legs, thanks to a knock-down, drag-out fight with his son where he falls down a flight of stairs. It might seem like Huston is warming up for the part of Dead Legs in Kongo the following year, but then he'd been playing that part on the stage since 1926, so maybe THAT play was the warmup for THIS movie.

There's little that redeems the character played by Huston, but the performance is superlative. Helen Chandler gives what may be her best performance. Montgomery was never better. With William Wyler's direction in one of his early sound films, this is really a knock-out. You may remember that Wyler made "Dodsworth" with Huston later. He also made "Come and Get It" in 1936, a film that resonates with the same kind of theme and a strong performance from Edward Arnold.

'A House Divided' is an excellent film from early in the career of underrated director William Wyler. It features a first-rate performance by Walter Huston. (His son John Huston gets a dialogue credit.)

In 1926, Walter Huston starred on Broadway in 'Konga', a melodrama that became Lon Chaney's silent film 'West of Zanzibar', which in turn was remade as a talkie under its original title, with Huston playing Chaney's role. Walter Huston and Lon Chaney were very similar actors: they both started in vaudeville as song-and-dance men but achieved success in dramatic roles. They were similar types and often played similar roles. Coincidentally, both had sons who achieved success as character actors. Although Chaney is best-known for playing deformed or crippled men, he more typically played a coarse villain who sacrificed himself for a younger woman who spurns him in favour of a younger and more callow man.

'A House Divided' stars Walter Huston in a role that seems tailor-made for Lon Chaney. Huston plays Seth Law, a widower in a Pacific fishing village. Law's son Matt (played by Kent Douglass, who later became better known as Douglass Montgomery) is a sensitive type who longs to give up the hard life of a fisherman in favour of an easy job as a farmer(!). Seth despises his son, whom he considers a weakling. Seth sends away for a mail-order bride, intentionally choosing a plain-looking woman who's built for hard work. What he gets instead is the delicate and pretty Ruth Evans (played by Helen Chandler, in a much better performance than she gave in 'Dracula'). Seth gallantly offers to pay Ruth's way back to where she came from, but Ruth is determined to make a life for herself here. To give Ruth his protection, Seth marries her ... but it's clearly a marriage in name only. Charles Middleton plays the minister who presides at the marriage, but Middleton's fans will be disappointed at how little he gets to do here.

Inevitably, Seth gradually becomes attracted to pretty Ruth and decides to consummate the marriage ... but just as inevitably, a romance evolves between Ruth and sensitive young Matt. I was watching this movie with no idea of where its plot would go, and I found myself thinking this was really a Lon Chaney vehicle ... and then suddenly the movie leaps directly into the heart of Lon Chaney territory. One dark night, Seth and Matt have a fight in Seth's house. Matt knocks Seth through the upstairs railing, and the fall breaks Seth's spine. (Just as Chaney's character was crippled in 'West of Zanzibar'.) Seth is now a paraplegic. From this point to the end of the film, Walter Huston literally drags himself across the scenery, as Chaney did in 'West of Zanzibar'.

I shan't tell you the ending, but it's a two-fisted climax with lots of melodrama, very much in the Chaney tradition. The art direction for this movie is excellent: it was filmed in a real fishing village, and the set dressing reeks of authenticity. There's one very good line when a boat returns to harbour, and a fisherman onshore can tell from a distance that the boat hasn't caught any fish because it isn't shipping water: this is exactly the sort of thing that a real fisherman would notice.

Gibson Gowland (a major actor in silent films) gives a good performance as the bartender, and there's one very funny gag involving a (genuine) one-legged man in a barroom brawl. In the early scenes of this film (before he gets crippled), Seth sings and dances. Walter Huston was an expert singer and dancer, but here he wisely (and bravely) restrains his own abilities, so that Seth Law sings and dances in the clumsy and untrained manner which is exactly appropriate for a coarse fisherman. I'm always annoyed by scenes in non-musical dramas in which an actor or actress playing a 'normal' person suddenly bursts into song or dance and uses the opportunity to show off a trained singing voice and years of dance lessons. Walter Huston was too good an actor to indulge in such ego trips.

I'll rate 'A House Divided' 8 points out of 10. Huston is excellent, but I wish I could have seen (and heard!) Lon Chaney playing this role.

There was no way for me to go back in time an hour and tell myself not to watch A House Divided, since time travel doesn't exist. How I wish it did, because then I wouldn't have had to watch this very upsetting movie. If you're renting it because of the interesting title, I'd tell you to rent Walter Huston's Abraham Lincoln instead to hear him say the famous phrase, but after sitting through that lousy movie, I can't recommend it in good conscience.

In A House Divided, Walter Huston is made out to be a royal jerk in the opening scene. He and his son, Douglass Montgomery, attend his wife's funeral, and as soon as it's over, he drags them to the local bar and gets rip-roaring drunk. He sings, dances, starts fistfights, and encourages his son to do the same. He has no intention of grieving or letting his son feel his feelings. Then, he sends away for a mail order bride so he can get someone to do the chores around the house for free instead of hiring a new housekeeper. When Helen Chandler shows up, nineteen years old and afraid, Douglass feels he has a bond with her because they're close in age and don't particularly care for Walter. It's very clear it's only a matter of time before they fall in love.

Now here's the problem with the movie. Everything bad that happens, with the exception of the funeral scene, is Douglass's fault. Walter is gruff and a little crude, but he never does anything really wrong. Helen answered a mail order bride summons; she expects the guy who sent for her to not want to marry her? What is she complaining about anyway-her husband-to-be could have been a sadistic monster or someone enormously ugly. She gets Walter Huston! I don't understand. Her first impression of him is that he's handsome, a hard worker, generous with his money, well-liked in town, and prepared to give her a fancy wedding reception. He says, "I'll make you happy," and her response is, "I'm afraid." Do you understand her?

So, if you're a masochist and want to watch a movie where tons of bad things happen and for no reason Walter Huston is supposed to be the bad guy, be my guest. He does put his heart and soul into his performance, and under normal circumstances he might have gotten an Oscar out of it. Of course, he wasn't nominated by the Academy, which begs my famous question of, "What does it take?"

For those out there curious about the brief career of Helen Chandler due to her appearance in "Dracula," this is perhaps her finest showcase. Issued at the same time as "Frankenstein," this is another impressive early talkie from Universal, directed by the renowned William Wyler, well known for working with such diverse actresses as Bette Davis (who actually lost this role to Chandler), Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn, and Barbra Streisand (earning no less than 3 Best Director Oscars). Walter Huston plays the widowed fisherman who sends away for a mail-order bride, only to end up with the much-too-pretty Chandler, who soon falls for his sensitive son (Douglass Montgomery), whom his father frowns upon as a weakling. The waterlogged climax finds Huston auditioning for his meaty role in "Kongo," made at MGM the next year. Billed under the name 'Kent Douglass' (for the fifth and last time), Montgomery had just completed James Whale's "Waterloo Bridge," opposite Mae Clarke, returning to Universal for 1935's "Mystery of Edwin Drood" (later cast as the surprise villain in 1939's "The Cat and the Canary"). Walter Huston was perhaps aided by son John, credited with dialogue, as he also would be on Lugosi's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and his father's next Universal, "Law and Order"; the career of Helen Chandler virtually came to a halt by 1938 (she died in 1965).