Come and Get It

An aging lumber tycoon tries to relive his youth after meeting the hauntingly beautiful daughter of an old friend.

Based on the sprawling novel by Edna Ferber, COME AND GET IT is a fascinating love story, filled with action & tenderness and some very good acting. The production values are on a high order, with the authentic logging sequence especially exciting.

Boisterous, brash & bold, Edward Arnold portrays the brawling two-fisted lumberjack who pushes himself to the top of the heap, trampling on his one great love in the process. Although completely unbelievable as a young man during the first three-quarters of an hour, this is not a problem as he is never anything less than enjoyable in the role.

Miss Frances Farmer, playing a tenderhearted floozy and her own ambitious daughter, has the best film of her career. She is nothing less than radiant and her obvious talent makes her bizarre personal history all that much more tragic.

Wonderful Walter Brennan plays Arnold's jovial Swedish pal, in a performance that would catapult him out of cinematic anonymity and earn him the first of his three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor. Seemingly able to play any kind of part - as long as the character was middle-aged or elderly - during his 46 years in movies & television Mr. Brennan would become one of America's most beloved character actors. He died in 1974 at the age of 80.

Almost obscured by the oversized talents around him, Joel McCrea wisely turns in an understated performance as Arnold's quiet, intelligent son (he invents the disposable paper cup!). His years of solid successes in front of the cameras were adding up and he would soon become a major Hollywood star.

A quartet of fine actresses fill smaller roles: Mary Nash as Arnold's neglected wife; Andrea Leeds as his adored daughter; Mady Christians as Brennan's sturdy, sensible niece; and Cecil Cunningham as Arnold's intuitive, sharp-tongued secretary. That's porcine Edwin Maxwell once again playing a bad guy, this time the crooked owner of a lumber camp saloon.

The song which is used as the theme for Miss Farmer's characters is ‘Aura Lee,' (written in 1861 by W. W. Fosdick & George R. Poulton) a very popular strain on both sides during the War Between The States. Decades later, in the 1950's, Elvis Presley would use the tune for one of his biggest hits, ‘Love Me Tender.'

Edna Ferber had several of her novels made into films including Giant, Showboat a couple of times and Dinner at Eight among the well known. Come and Get it is based on the Ferber novel adapted to the screen by Jules Furthman and Jane Murfin. I grew up in the area where the story is set. In the story the town is called Iron Ridge but Ferber did her research for the story while staying at the Burton House hotel in the old lumber and mining town of Hurley, Wisconsin on the Michigan border with Ironwood, Michigan. The Burton House was a grand old three story 100 room wooden hotel that President Grover Cleveland once stayed at. It would burn down in the 1940's. In the character name Lotta Morgan she used the actual name of a famous Hurley saloon singer of the 1880's. Actually, the real Lotta Morgan earned her living from something other than just singing in the saloons. She was also an unsolved murder victim whose body was found floating in the river with a hatchet in her forehead. Ferber put together her romantic tale of the north woods and it's many lumber camps. This is a good movie set in the late 19th century. Frances Farmer plays dual roles of mother and daughter in the fourth leading role of her career and maybe her best. She would go on to star in only six more lead roles before being relegated to supporting actress in four more films and then her film career was over. Edward Arnold, Joel Mcrea, Walter Brennan and Mary Nash round out the fine cast. Howard Hawks directed and this was his project until an argument with the studio boss caused his dismissal and William Wyler was called in to finish the film. Excellent Cinematography from Rudolf Maté and Greg Toland. One of the last films of famed costume designer Omar Kiam. Walter Brennan won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in his role of the Swedish logger Swan Bostrom. The first of three career Academy Awards he would win. Come and Get it also received an Academy Award nomination for Edward Curtis for editing which was well deserved being that he had to put together the work of three directors, Hawks, Wyler and Richard Rosson who directed the logging scenes. Farmer should have been nominated for Best Actress but was over looked by the Academy for Irene Dunn, veterans from silent film days Gladys George, Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer and German actress Luise Rainer who won. The studio in promoting this film had Farmer signing the book Come and Get it at autograph opportunities. She once found it exceptionally strange that she would be signing a book she had not written when she was doing a signing at the Bon Marché department store in her hometown of Seattle where she had been fired from a few years before. I've seen this several times in television over the years and it's worth a look. I would give it an 8.0 out of 10.

COME AND GET IT has a very strange cast. Having the reliable and talented supporting actor, Edward Arnold, in the lead is strange--especially since this rotund and rather doughy guy is cast as, believe it or not, a lumberjack when the film begins! Seeing him supposedly fight and beat up tough guys seemed pretty funny--especially since Arnold looked as if he'd have had a hard time beating up Frances Farmer--let alone burly lumbermen!! Additionally, having him play a very flawed hero who has a penchant for a very young lady (Frances Farmer) make it an unusual film.

The film begins with Arnold being made the foreman of a logging company. However, his ambition is huge and he immediately has his sights set on running the entire company. So, to do so he agrees to marry the boss' daughter even though he could care less about her. Additionally, he'd just fallen in love with a spunky saloon singer (Frances Farmer--in a dual role). Regardless, his ambition is primary and he dumps farmer on his pal, played by Walter Brennan (who received an Oscar for his performance as a nice Swedish guy).

Years pass. You see that Arnold's wife is a bit of a cold fish, though they did have some kids and they now own the company. Arnold just happens to visit his old pal Brennan and finds that through the magic of Hollywood clichés, Brennan's daughter (played by Farmer again) is the spitting image of her deceased mother. Arnold is an old lecher and takes her under his wing--with the intention of recreating the relationship he'd had with her mother. When his oldest son (Joel McCrea) finds out, he goes to confront the lady but falls for her instead. Naturally, this sets the son and hard-driven father against each other.

Considering that this is based on an Edna Ferber novel, it isn't surprising that the film is about a man building an empire as well as infidelity--recurring themes I've noticed in several of her other films that were filmed during the era (such as CIMARRON, GIANT, SHOWBOAT and SO BIG). As a result, the film has a big and rather sweeping quality about it but is also a study of a hard-driven man who is deeply flawed.

Overall, the movie is exactly what you'd expect from such a film--good acting, big scope and a lot of romantic tension. Nothing extraordinary here, but it's enjoyable and competently made. I can't, however, understand how Brennan got an Oscar, as this was far from one of his best performances. Perhaps it was a slow year.

No need to repeat the plot. Fortunately Arnold delivers a rousing performance. His big personality as the lumber tycoon helps distract from certain paunchy shortcomings as a screen lover. Seeing him in passion clinches with a nubile young Farmer takes some getting used to. Happily, Farmer also shines, especially in the saloon girl part, before giving way to a more routine turn as the daughter.

According to film historian David Thomson, Farmer's performance was affected by Hawks' replacement by Wyler as director. Apparently, she and Hawks were more than sympatico off the set. So, Thomson's account goes, Hawks brought on writer Furthman to slant the film towards his beauteous blonde, thus causing novelist Ferber to complain to head honcho Goldwyn, resulting in Hawks' departure and a feud between Farmer and Wyler. I mention these behind-the-scenes shenanigans to maybe account for some of the plot's half-digested elements and Farmer's noticeable downturn.

Nonetheless, it's still a compelling movie, thanks mainly to Arnold's dominating presence that holds the various threads together. I also like the logging footage, which lends a dramatically realistic air to Glasgow's empire. Then there's Lotta's haunting rendition of "Aura Lee", which evidently Farmer herself crooned. However, I'm still trying to figure out the title that appears to have little resemblance to the storyline. But however you cut that or the purported intrigues, it's still a dynamic movie.

Behind every film there is usually a story and this one is certainly no exception. Howard Hawks departed the production two-thirds of the way through(whether he quit or was fired is debatable) and a reluctant William Wyler was instructed by Samuel Goldwyn to complete it. As the Director's Guild was as yet not recognised by the studio, both directors were given credit. If two directors were not enough, the tree-felling sequences were handled by Richard Rosson. These scenes are spectacular but guaranteed to have conservationists rolling on the floor and foaming at the mouth.

It would seem that the film was shot in script order and the rumbustious early scenes have Mr. Hawks written all over them whereas Mr Wyler's more subdued tone is evident later on. Both directors disowned the finished product and despite some telling scenes the film represents neither of them at their very best. Gregg Toland is behind the camera(Rudoph Maté for the tree-felling) and the soundtrack to the characters' lives is supplied by the Civil War ballad 'Aura Lea', later reincarnated as 'Love me Tender.'

It is the splendidly spirited performances that carry it through notably those of Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, here making filmic history as the first actor to win a Best Supporting Oscar and the ill-fated Mady Christians whilst Howard Hawks' 'discovery' Frances Farmer is utterly luminous. Of all the stars that fell from the Hollywood firmament, the tragic Miss Farmer was surely one of the most dazzling.