Highly Overrated But Still Good

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The life story of a nonentity. Incredibly, Hollywood let this amateur write the script herself (something they wouldn't let even a pro like William Faulkner do) and the script is just that - amateurish. True it has something, authenticity, drive, even wit and sparkle and Mike Curtiz makes it all go by so fast for the first hour or so; but then the interest of the director seems to die with the script and, oddly enough, the disappearance of Donald Woods. Woods is a mechanical and unconvincing actor, far too old for an undergraduate, but Curtiz spikes up his scenes with elaborate camera movement (the dolly shot through the snow in the proposal scene) and effects (repetition of the record scratching out "Rock-a-Bye Baby") - maybe he felt Woods needed help. He sure did! But when Carson makes his belated entrance, Curtiz is content to let the camera run for long takes on such incredibly boring material as Jack's simulation of a vacuum cleaner salesman.After this low point, the script even starts to repeat some of the sharp one-liners from the first half of the film. It all ends, inconclusively and somewhat downbeat, in a railroad station as the camera dollies away from Russell and Carson through the scurrying crowds (we suspect that is Harry Hayden's voice on the loudspeaker) to The End title. Mind you, the film doesn't lack production values. A fortune has been poured into it. It has sets and atmosphere, good acting (the principals are their usual selves, but the script also has parts for a goodly parade of character actors including Alan Hale (one scene only) and some believable kids, but most of all an original Steiner score consisting mostly of generously and richly repeated excerpts from By The Light of the Silvery Moon and Bulldog Bulldog. Also We're in the Money, Oh You Beautiful Doll, It Had to be You. Oddly enough, it's the downbeat, very ordinarily directed scenes that stay in the memory, like the Pierson's losing their shirts because of a glut of roses. Fortunately, Walker's moody black-and-white photography overcomes and dampens Miss Russell's relentlessly jolly, perky performance (about which even Donald Woods justifiably complains).

When Robert Osborne said, "This is a real gem," I decided to watch... he doesn't lie. Being a big Rosalind Russell fan since "Auntie Mame," I'm both surprised and delighted that I did! In these early days, there was no such thing as "women's lib" or women's rights, or anything of the kind. That's why I believe this film is a truly ground breaking work of classic film. Unlike the "Pollyannish" movies of this era that tried to make light of those Depression era times with things like big MGM musicals that tried to sugar coat the difficulties of those days, this film takes on a myriad of historical troubles in a way that is both heartbreaking and incredibly optimistic (kudos, incidentally, to a superb star turn by Jack Carson in another wonderful characterization). It never preaches or feels sorry for itself—much like the female protagonist—but continually moves forward without getting bogged down in self-pity, which the characters certainly had the right to. It doesn't pull any punches. I suppose the best way to describe it is: "A tale of towering highs and gut wrenching lows, with the indomitable spirit of man aways conquering adversity." But a far better way of learning the many important lesson this entertaining film has to offer is simply by watching it.

Granted, this movie is somewhat entertaining. Russell & Carson perform admirably, but there is something definitely missing in the screenplay. Perhaps depth of character. I never feel that I really understand the people portrayed in the film. The same year, the fantastic "Mildred Pierce" was released, also directed by Curtiz, and that film provides its leads with some of the "meatiest" roles of that year. Carson excels in that film, whereas his "Speaking" character just appears to drift in a one-note fashion, from one set piece to the next.Russell's "Louise" is stalwart, to be sure, but also somewhat blindly perky, and hardly an early women's rights activist, as some would declare.I suggest renting both "Pierce" and "Speaking" as a Curtiz double-feature, and witness just how essential strong source material is, in producing a truly successful film.

Having lived throughout the depression and the Presidency of F D R, I was pleasantly surprised when I happened upon Roughly Speaking on T C M last week. Somehow,in all these years of movie going and viewing,I never had a clue about this moving film.The author expertly weaves into the plot glimpses of those bygone days.. The early airplanes,the the struggle to ride out the lean times. The staid mother's daughter having fought the same crippling disease as had the President,the stock market crash the early war years. Her heart wrenching scene watching all three sons go off to war.Although the movie depicted the triumph over adversity women of the thirties/forties achieved, the young women of today are the daughters and grand daughters of the multi taskers of my mother's dayI wholeheartedly recommend this movie to all American women. Edouarto.