Sat 7 Nov 2015
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE HOWARDS OF VIRGINIA (1940).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[9] Comments
THE HOWARDS OF VIRGINIA. Columbia Pictures, 1940. Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Alan Marshal, Richard Carlson, Paul Kelly. Director: Frank Lloyd.
During his long and storied film career, Cary Grant appeared in films of different genres and portrayed a wide array of characters. It’s very easy to close one’s eyes and picture Grant in a screwball comedy or as a soldier and spy. What about as a backwoods Virginian adorned in Daniel Boone attire? That’s more difficult, wouldn’t you say?
But somehow, kind of, sort of, Grant manages to pull it off.
That’s a statement that could be applied in general to The Howards of Virginia, a slightly above average historical melodrama set in Virginia during the colonial era and the American Revolution. Based on Elizabeth Page’s novel, The Tree of Liberty, the movie features Grant in a starring role. He portrays Matt Howard, a man of western Virginia who falls in love with and marries Jane Payton (Martha Stewart), a woman from the Tidewater aristocracy.
The movie traces the couple’s relationship from its tumultuous beginnings through their settlement in a western Virginia tobacco plantation, Howard’s election to the Virginia House of Burgesses, and the Revolutionary War. Although the film is unevenly paced, it ends up all coming together by the end. The last half hour of the film, in which Grant’s character really comes into his own, makes sitting through a rather sluggish first hour worth it.
All told, while The Howards of Virginia is no forgotten classic begging to be rediscovered, it’s nevertheless a significant entry in Grant’s early film career and a surprisingly gritty portrayal of soldiering during the campaign for American independence.
November 7th, 2015 at 3:18 pm
I read somewhere that Grant was the most-bathed male star in the movies, and this was one of them.
November 7th, 2015 at 6:42 pm
I mostly recall Ralph ‘Dick Tracy’ Byrd as Grant’s father early on. This one is okay, but there is nothing here for Grant to work with really other than a rather dull history lesson. At least in PRIDE AND THE PASSION we had Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra and Cary more or less playing Horatio Hornblower.
November 7th, 2015 at 7:24 pm
Jon and I were wondering a while ago why there are there are so few successful movies that take place during the American Revolution, and my suggestion, not an entirely serious one, was that it was because of all the funny clothes they had to wear.
Even if that’s not the reason, most of them turned out, to use your words, David, dull history lessons.
This was back before TURN was reasonably successful on TV.
November 7th, 2015 at 9:21 pm
Dan, Comment #1 —
November 7th, 2015 at 10:06 pm
Re Steve’s comment in #3.
Way back in 1924, D.W. Griffith made AMERICA set in Revolution times.
Even then, American Revolution movies were box office no-no’s.
Griffith speculated it was all those powdered wigs men had to wear.
He carefully made his hero (Neil Hamilton) be on the frontier, so no wig…
November 8th, 2015 at 7:27 am
And for some reason they don’t do well when released in the UK either.Guess they just never caught on over there.
November 9th, 2015 at 3:42 pm
American history before the Civil War with the exception of Texas and California set films or mountain men — and they are usually Westerns or swashbucklers like Zorro — doesn’t generally fare well on screen despite bestselling books and the success of documentaries on television.
A few films set in the French and Indian Wars did better, but again it is frontier stuff and Fenimore Cooper as was de Mille’s UNCONQUERED and Ford’s DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK set just before and around the Revolution. Vidor’s NORTHWEST PASSAGE was a famous flop at the time, but may have been too dark and violent rather than its historical setting since it is basically cowboys and Indians without horses.
At least two films dealt with the Seminole campaign in Florida (SEMINOLE and DISTANT DRUMS)and a couple with the Creek war — but again frontier films get the Western vibe like Wayne’s FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN.
In general anything set before the 1860’s that isn’t a western seems doomed to failure. In fact anything before the 1890’s with a historical setting that isn’t in the West is iffy with some exceptions like IN OLD CHICAGO.
The exception to any of these is usually swashbucklers or adventure films with some sort of seafaring background like TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS, REAP THE WILD WIND, CARIBBEAN, LYDIA BAILEY, BUCANEER, and CAPTAIN CAUTION. Pretty ships, or swords, and or pirates seem to help.
Re this film I seem to recall Grant was not happy to be in it. Since it is Columbia and his studio was Paramount it is clear he was loaned out for it, and I wonder if he a willing participant. He had to know this was not his forte. Other than his star name I can’t imagine why anyone would think of him in relation to the project.
I do know that David Mamet wrote BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS with Grant in mind to play the Buffalo Bill part that ended up Paul Newman in the film when Grant turned it down. Even the few historical and costume films he did make in his career were generally pretty true to his urban personality.
Dan,
I can’t imagine why American Revolutionary period films don’t fare well in the UK. For some reason when I brought it up while I lived there the conversation trailed off, and while everyone was very gracious about the Embassy 4th of July events it was with a slightly strained enthusiasm.
Something we said no doubt.
The French were a bit more enthusiastic though did tend to remind us that the cost of our Revolution to them was a major cause of theirs. It doesn’t help Bastille Day is only ten days after the 4th and the wound kept fresh.
Seriously though it doesn’t help that there have been some huge duds like Hugh Hudson’s REVOLUTION, that made the idea of non Western American history harder to sell. Frederick Jackson Turner’s Theory of Westward Movement has always applied to film.
That, or its the powdered wigs.
November 9th, 2015 at 5:16 pm
There simply is no comparison in terms of quality between British made films and TV shows about the French Revolution and American made films and TV shows about the American Revolution. I think it has something less to do with politics and more to do with audiences not wanting to see Al Pacino in a wig
November 10th, 2015 at 2:31 am
The thing about Revolutionary War movies is that there were certain periods where they weren’t going to be made. By the time that DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK was made, Britain was at war with Germany, so John Ford made sure that the villains are describe as ‘Tories’ rather than British, since he didn’t want the movie to turn into anti-British propaganda. During WWII the studios wouldn’t make them for the same reason.
After WWII there were a small cluster of films around the end of the ’50s, but we were allies in the Cold War, and it was as though making anti-British movies during the British Invasion of the early ’60s was somehow not Cricket. Since the ’80s it’s been the case that the few big-budget movies about it have been notable flops. I’ve no idea how much THE PATRIOT made at the box-office, but it was a pretty dire film and the days of families saying ‘Let’s go and see the latest Mel Gibson movie’ are long, long, long past.