Pretty Good

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

After the brilliance of "Those High Grey Walls" it was inevitable that director Charles Vidor would most likely be stuck with a lesser screenplay for his next assignment. In fact, Edward Small now asked for Vidor's services on My Son, My Son (1940), an adaptation of Howard Spring's best-selling English novel about a best-selling English novelist, who does everything he can to spoil his son. Brian Aherne is the excessively fond father. Louis Hayward plays the wayward son who, after failing to seduce his future step-mother (Madeleine Carroll), succeeds instead in seducing the daughter (Laraine Day) of his father's best friend (Henry Hull). In the book by Howard Spring, the son dies by hanging; in the film, however, he dies a hero! Admittedly, director Vidor and his players give this potboiler from Howard Spring's remarkably successful novel the full treatment, but I would normally doubt if "My Son, My Son" would earn many brownie points among moviegoers and television fanatics today. But I stand corrected , however. The movie has earned some enthusiastic reviews at IMDb even though it betrays the book and provides an entirely different outcome for its degenerate "hero"!

Some sincere performances by the cast characterize My Son My Son about the doings of a young cad and how he affects the lives of all around him. The title role here is played in adulthood by Louis Hayward who while pretty much forgotten today was a fine player and equally capable of playing heroes as in The Return Of Monte Cristo, villainous cads as in this film or both sides of the coin as in The Man In The Iron Mask.Brian Aherne plays his long suffering father who realizes he's spawned a completely selfish cad in his desire to provide the best of everything for his son. Aherne and best friend Henry Hull are a pair of poor Irishmen who are determined to better themselves. Hull becomes a rich designer of furniture and Aherne a celebrated author. Both marry and have children, Aherne his one and only son and a boy and a girl for Hull.Early on Hayward while still a child and played by Scotty Beckett is discovered to be charming but bad. His mother Josephine Hutchinson wants to discipline him severely, but she dies early and Aherne spoils him rotten.Hayward ruins the lives of all around him, but in the end redeems himself somewhat so that Aherne can be proud of him. For how Hayward ruins and redeems you see the film for.Madeline Carroll is also in the film as Aherne's second wife who Hayward makes a play for. Hull's grownup children are played by Bruce Lester and Laraine Day and both are touched negatively by Hayward.Aherne maybe next to David Niven was the actor who was cast in roles that required charm and little else to carry a film. He never became as big a star as Niven among other of his contemporaries, but was on occasion called on to do more than be charming as in the case of My Son My Son. In this as in Smiling Through Aherne has to age many years and with the help of good makeup does so gracefully.My Son My Son got an Oscar nomination for Art Direction for and black and white motion picture. Dated severely it still is a credit to the cast and crew who made it.

MY SON, MY SON is an over-sized independent film released by United Artists, based on a popular novel of the 1930's. While the film may not have been completely true to the novel, I can't imagine the book being any better than this film given the absurd situations and characters.Brian Aherne and Henry Hull are two young buddies who dream of the day they will have sons. Hull wants his son to be courageous and with honor but Aherne, tired of poverty and struggle, wants his son to enjoy the luxuries in his life he never had. Eventually each man marries although they remain lifelong friends. Hull has a son and daughter while Aherne has a son as a result of a loveless marriage to a baker's daughter whose shop he helped run.Aherne becomes a best-selling novelist. He indulges his boy with the best of everything. The kid grows up feeling the world owes him a living without an honorable bone in his body, tracing drawings for school contests and stealing friends' books. He's also a pathological liar, able to lie himself out of any situation with his father. His conservative, religious mother Josephine Hutchinson fully sees her son for what he is but Aherne rejects her attempts at disciplining the brat. Years past and sonny boy is now 21 (and now played by Louis Hayward) but as selfish and spoiled as ever. Aherne goes uncover as a coal miner to obtain material for his next novel and meets young artist Madeleine Carroll who bewitches him completely but he cuts off their friendship since he is still married. Shortly thereafter he is widowed but has no way of tracking down the girl since he never knew her name and she never knew his real name. Meanwhile who should sonny Hayward happen to be pestering in the city but the lovely Miss Carroll who is apparently a few years older than he. She is amused with his company and lets him escort her to events although there is no real romance for either of them. Hayward happens to bring her to a play written by his father (and starring Hull's daughter, Laraine Day) and the star-crossed couple meet again. Aherne and Carroll are thrilled to be reunited and she's upfront with both men about their past relations. Hayward feigns to be OK that his dad has now won the affections of his date but behind the scenes is scheming and making Carroll as miserable as possible.While generally well acted, this story is so hackneyed the viewer can tell every plot twist in advance. There is major irony when Carroll, discussing a novelist (and unaware she is actually talking to that novelist, Aherne) comments about the author's inability to write credible female characters, given the stereotypical women that populate this potboiler: the frosty saint (the wife, Josephine Hutchinson), the walking perfection (Carroll), the silly, emotional girl (Laraine Day). One particularly tasteless scenario has Day secretly in love with Aerne, a man she as known all of her life as a "uncle" (as she and her brother have always called him). I also have to wonder why on earth the wonderful Madeleine Carroll even accepted this film. Although she enjoys top billing, her part is far smaller than that of Aherne and Hayward and not much larger than Hutchinson's or Day's.This was a rare starring film for Aherne, usually cast as a second lead, and frankly he is not up to the challenge. His speciality on screen was always something of a cad himself, in personality if not in actual roles, so this persona fails to mesh with this obsessively loving father role. Hayward is better though obviously older than his role; he was only seven years Aherne's junior, and while at 6'3" Aherne dwarfs the 5'10" Hayward, their scenes are shot at angles to play up the height difference to apparently make Hayward seem younger but at times only manage to make him look like a shrimp. This was also one movie that badly needed to be shot in sequence; Aherne's graying hair in the later scenes vary with each segment and in the final confrontation with Hayward it appears Aherne has his natural hair color from his youth! It's a bit silly that a mediocre film like MY SON, MY SON gets what airplay on TV it does via TCM's "Oscar month" since it received a lone nomination in production design. It certainly didn't get any votes for the acting, directing, or the film itself! And certainly not the writing, despite the reliable Lenore Coffee doing what she can with this uninspired reversed-sex "mother love" soap opera plot.

Not having read the novel upon which this tedious film was based, I can only guess that it must have been epic and dense with lots of character detail, one of those historical romances the reader can get lost in. Translated to celluloid it becomes a long series of episodic sketches transporting us from the Victorian age to World War One. Brian Aherne comes across as a bland variation of Erroll Flynn; he seems to stand around looking vaguely disappointed much of the time. Amazingly, his character is a highly successful novelist-turned-playwright but we get no sense of what relationship his art has to who he is as a man. Ostensibly he is from the slums but never does he look, act or speak like someone from that social stratum. Madeleine Carroll as always is lovely to behold but is given very little to do. Louis Hayward has the meatiest role as the rotter son but even his character lacks depth. His delivery reminds one of Noel Coward, who, by the way, mentored him early in his career. The whole enterprise has a highly artificial look and feel, particularly in the battle sequences featuring Hayward. All this adds up to a most unengaging 2 hours.