The Male Animal

Debate over whether a professor should be allowed to read a controversial letter to his class forms the subject for this spirited football vs. academics comedy originally a stage play by Elliot Nugent and James Thurber. The screen version moves briskly but it's all played at a "full steam ahead" kind of tempo popular at Warner Bros. Henry Fonda is excellent as the mild-mannered professor resentful of his wife's ex-boyfriend (a football jock) and Olivia de Havilland is radiant as his supportive wife. Jack Carson is ideally cast as the ex-football player still in love with Fonda's wife and his bombastic approach to comedy serves him well in this role. Joan Leslie is a little too coy as de Havilland's sister (a role played on the stage by Gene Tierney). It passes the time but is little more than a mildly entertaining comedy with too many dull stretches to make it truly satisfying. Fonda and de Havilland later played husband and wife again on Broadway in 'A Gift of Time' (1962). Elliot Nugent's direction is brisk but it still seems rather stagebound. Nugent himself played the role of the professor on Broadway.

The lyrics of Jerome Kern's "Who" resonate throughout this movie as the lead characters battle one another, both rhetorically and physically, for answers to the big question "Who?" Who does Ellen Turner (Olivia de Havilland) really love? Who does Ed Keller (Eugene Palette) like? Who invited Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), erstwhile beau to Ellen and football hero/legend at Midwestern U.? Who will save Ellen and Tommy from themselves? Who can save Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson) from "Hot Garters" Gardner (Jean Ames)? Who is Wally Myers (Don DeFoe), the current football hero, really courting? Joe or Patricia (Joan Leslie)? And who is Bartolomeo Vanzetti? and what does he have in common with people like these? Tune in to the song: i.e. "Who stole my heart away?/Who makes me dream all day,/Dreams I know will never come true,/Seems like I'll always be blue./Who makes my happiness?/Who would I answer yes to?/Well, you oughta guess, Who? No one but you." Don't guess.

See the movie. You not only gotta see the movie, but you gotta hear it, too.

James Thurber is best recalled for his wonderful cartoons (mostly printed in The New Yorker magazine in the 1920s through 1950s) and his remarkably fine short stories and essays. He recently got an ultimate accolade (posthumously) by having a volume of his prose and cartoons published in "The Library of America" series. The two longest pieces of writing that he created that people remember are his short story, turned into a film, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", and his other short story turned into a television dramatization, "The Greatest Man in the World". Also his writings were the basis of a wonderful television series (in 1969 - 1970) "My World And Welcome To It" starring William Windom. Quite a bit of mileage for Thurber's work.

He only (as far as I know) wrote one play. He collaborated with Elliott Nugent on THE MALE ANIMAL, a comedy set on a college campus, that dealt with the limits of free speech and academic freedom on a college campus. Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda), and English professor in a mid-western college, is happily married to Ellen (Olivia de Havilland) when two disasters hit him in one weekend. One of his students, Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson), is the editor of the college newspaper, and he writes an article praising Turner's outspokenness and encouragement of democracy, and mentioning that Turner is going to conclude a course on great epistolary (letter) writing with the final letter of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the convicted anarchist murderer(?) / martyr. This turns out to be unwelcome publicity to Tommy. Secondly it is timed for the alumni weekend, when the arrivals include the bullying head of the Board of Trustees Ed Keller (Eugene Palette) and Tommy's former rival for Ellen, Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson).

Sex and the battles of the sexes play as much a role in the play as does political correctness and censorship. First off, Michael/Anderson apparently wrote the article because of his disappointment concerning his floundering romance with Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie), who has been showing interest in the football hero of the campus Wally Myers (Don De Fore). This younger triangle mirrors the older one of Fonda, de Havilland, and Carson. Fonda is a fine teacher, but he was giving a pep talk to the disheartened Anderson. That was why he wanted to show his appreciation in writing his piece in the paper.

Everyone on campus is upset by Fonda's choice of literary example. Carson (now a successful car salesman, whose marriage is rocky and he can't understand why), feels it's wrong. So does de Havilland, who can't understand why Fonda would jeopardize his job by reading that anarchistic trash. And Palette is livid - a prime example of super capitalism triumphant, he has no use for those trouble-making lefties like Vanzetti. And since Palette is the head of the Board of Trustees, his anger can't be simply brushed aside.

The play has many nice moments in it - Carson and Palette reliving football glories of the past, with the winning "Statue of Liberty" play, that Fonda manages to simply reduce to absurdity that Carson is left wondering what happened when he is literally ball-less. The pep talk that Palette gives regarding messages from various people who can't come in that weekend - and how banal the messages from all of them are. The attempts by Fonda to protect De Havilland with an unsuspecting (and surprisingly honorable) Carson in case Fonda's future is over. And the climax, when the letter is read to the entire school body.

It is still quite an effective movie, though not thought of among Fonda's or de Havilland's leading performances. Interestingly enough, the letter (while still a masterpiece of English prose) is now known to have been ghost written between Vanzetti and a news reporter who befriended him. But that does not take away from it's effectiveness. As a study in the pros and cons of free speech and academic freedom, you could not do wrong starting out with this film.

Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) is a happily married book-smart professor at Midwestern University. It's homecoming weekend and the return of All-American Joe Ferguson. It's so happens that Tommy's wife Ellen (Olivia de Havilland) is Joe's ex. It's been six years since they've seen him. Tommy is expecting a promotion. It is all threatened with him planning to read a controversial letter. He didn't mean to be a radical but only sees it as a good example of English composition.

I thought this is going to be a light comedy. At most, I was expecting a love triangle drama. It could deal with a broad matter like censorship. Then the red scare gets the front page treatment. This is trying to combine Revenge of the Nerds with the McCarthy hearings. It's a very odd mixture. It is even more odd when one considers the times. What exactly is it trying to say? Let's not be rah rah rooting for Americanism, whatever that is. Whenever it tries to be funny, the heaviness of the politics muddies the water. It's all a very odd mixture.

Henry Fonda is our intellectual, idealistic professor at Midwestern University. He is married to a woman much younger than him played by Olivia de Havilland. Fonda is going to read a letter as an example in his English class to give an example of great speeches written by illiterate people. The problem is, the man was condemned as an anarchist and traitor and sentenced to death. This gets the trustees of the University bent out of shape and try to stop him. His wife, an ex-cheerleader is being romanced by this ex-football QB played by Jack Carson. They once dated and he feels less of a man around him. The trouble in his professional and domestic life propel this comic satire. This film is based on the play by Elliot Nugent who also directs. Obviously, this movie is taking on current issues of the day to which I am unfamiliar but eager to research. It is so current that it can be applied to today's environment and politics; people who are fearful and criticize things they haven't heard or seen as the letter Fonda intends to read; nobody knows the contents. The pressure to conform and governments who censor political opinion that is dissenting or alternative, school bodies who train our students to focus on the material issues over the immaterial ones. For, the Chancellor is only interested in the winning football team they have and he feels that has ensured his greatness and reputation making him a man to be reckoned with. But other things make a man and Fonda who probably has delivered the best monologues in movies in such movies as The Grapes of Wrath, 12 Angry men, Ox-bow incident, Mister Roberts and Fail-safe delivers another one here that makes the movie. Study this movie for its take today on the follies of censorship.