A House Divided

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).

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.

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?"

Reminding me on some aesthetic and general level of Fritz Lang's later Clash by Night, William Wyler's A House Divided is a work in yet another genre for the young, talented filmmaker: drama. We get a dose of special effects at the end while Wyler continues to demonstrate how much he do with the earliest of sound technologies to keep his filmmaking as much his own until sound caught up with the freedom of movement of silent film, and it's a solidly built film, anchored by a trio of dedicated and strong performances while never letting Wyler lose his strong eye, though the obviously increased reliance on capturing sound on set does limit his visual options at the same time.

Seth Law (Walter Huston) and his son Matt (Douglass Montgomery) bury Seth's wife in their seaside cemetery. Seth is the richest man of the fishing town, his family being the first to settle on it and owning the largest house. Seth is also a man of large appetites who mourns the loss of his wife by taking Matt to a bar, drinking heavily, dancing, and getting into a wrestling match with another man for the company of a woman. Matt cannot partake, watching his father's display with a measure of disgust. Matt feels like he doesn't belong on the sea fishing with his father and dreams of going inland to work on a farm.

The running of the household is too much for the two of them alone, and when their housekeeper leaves after a mere two weeks, Seth decides to write for a wife using a magazine where women present themselves as potential wives for lonely men. He decides on a middle-aged, well-built woman who could work and sends off the letter. The girl he wrote to, though, had already married by the time the letter arrived, and Ruth (Helen Chandler), a nineteen year old farm girl, one of six daughters to a widowed father, arrives in her stead.

The drama of the film is how the three main characters all have mutual and exclusive desires, interests, and needs. Ruth, having spent her life on a farm in Montana, has never seen the sea and took the opportunity to get away from the remote, futureless existence she had been living. Seth wants a housekeeper he doesn't need to pay, and he grows to appreciate Ruth's youth, beauty, and skill in the kitchen. Matt wants to escape his father and life of fishing in the seaside town, but he also falls for the pretty girl suddenly at his door looking for marriage who happens to be his own age. The two younger people are up against a strong and controlling man, the wealthiest man on the island who can throw together a giant wedding celebration for the entire town at the drop of a hat.

Things take a turn when, at the end of the wedding celebration, Ruth expresses distress at her situation, wanting space from Seth, but Seth wants what's his due on his wedding night. Matt tries to protect Ruth, leading to Seth falling from their stairs and crippling himself from the waist down. What do Matt and Ruth do? Their actions are determined by their characters. Ruth is a good woman dedicated to her promises, so she stays. Matt is in love with Ruth and feels guilty for having convinced her to stay in the first place, so he stays. Seth is a strong man and determined to gain his legs back, all while feeling owed Ruth's love in the first place.

This final act is where the meat of the film is, and it's really helped by the film's almost myopic focus on the events in the house with the three characters. There are virtually no other characters, and the singular view on the events in the house give the film a play-like feel, making it all the more surprising that this wasn't based on a pre-existing stage production. This gave Wyler a smaller canvas to paint on compared to Hell's Heroes, which tied him more to the more standard sound capture technology of tied down microphones hidden on set which, combined with the need to eliminate the sound of the camera which necessitated the camera being in a box, limits the movement of the camera, where he could put the camera, and the kinds of expertly constructed and complex compositions he had shown so capable of creating in his silent films. When he does film silent, like the opening at the cemetery, he can find the three-dimensions to the image he's so good at, but on the house set, where most of the film takes place, he's far more limited and the film looks far more generic.

The finale is a big special effects sequence on the sea, at night, and in a storm, and it looks great as the three characters run together in different ways and for their own purposes. I admired this ending more than I actually felt it, feeling that despite the film's laser focus on its core characters, we needed more time with them, particularly Ruth and in regards to the relationship between father and son, to make it play out as well as it should. I would have really liked to see Ruth's reading of the letter and convincing to go to the seaside town back in Montana, as well as some of the train ride to more firmly establish what she was running from. I would have also liked to see more dimension to the father/son relationship beyond antagonism.

Still, as a whole, it's an effective little drama. It could have used some more meat on its bones to give the characters a bit more depth so that the actions of the finale played out a bit more emotionally, but it's still an accomplished and well-written little piece early in the sound era.