The Male Animal

After all off the kerfuffle over the schedule for the end of Daylight Savings Time dies down, you can sit down to watch The Male Animal, at 8:00 AM Sunday, Nov. 5.

The inventively-named Midwestern University is one of those big state schools out in the US midwest where college football is just as important as academics, and the movie starts off on the day before the big game, oddly enough against a real school, the University of Michigan. Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) is an assistant professor of English at the university who is up for a full professorship, which would please him since he'd like to be able to support his wife Ellen (Olivia de Havilland) better. But there are going to be a couple of problems along the way.

Both are ultimately based on the fact that Turner seems to be more interested in academics than anything else. Definitely he's cares less about football. Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson) was the big star of the team a decade ago, and he's back in town to watch the big game, living in Pittsburg with a marrige that doesn't seem to be going so well. Back in the day, Joe had at least a bit of interest in Ellen, and he was actually able to dance with her, something Tommy doesn't seem to care so much about. Tommy worries that Joe would be more appropriate for Ellen than he is, and that the two are going to wind up together.

And then there's Tommy's lack of interest in office politics. One of the students, Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson), has written an article for one of the student magazines about what a bunch of fuddy-duddies the trustees, led by Mr. Keller (Eugene Pallette) are. And Michael specifically singles out Turner for tweaking the trustees, as Turner's freshman composition class is going to be reading a letter written by anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial) as an example of good composition by someone who wasn't a professional writer, or even writing in his native language. In theory this shouldn't be a big deal, but free speech and academic independence have always been a big issue on college campuses. Heck, they still are today, just with a different set of views that will get you in hot water. The trustees decidedly want "American" values, in an era when that clearly didn't include socialists and anarchists.

Rounding out the movie is the existence of a second love triangle among the present-day students. Michael is interested in fellow student Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie), but she seems more interested in the jocks, enjoying the temporary presence of Joe but really desiring present-day football hero Wally (Don De Fore).

As I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but think the presentation looked a lot like a play that hadn't been opened up enough for the screen which doesn't have the limitations that the stage does. Sure enough, The Male Animal had been a Broadway play by James Thurber and former movie actor Elliott Nugent, who took the Henry Fonda role in the play and actually directs the movie. But the much bigger problem is that the characters all seem like unrealistic caricatures, given unbelievable dialog. They're also generally not terribly likable. So it made the movie quite a slog for me.

That's a bit of a shame since the stars all do a professional job with the material they're given; it's just that for me it's decidedly sub-par material. As always, however, you may want to watch and judge for yourself.