Dodsworth

#12 in my ranking of William Wyler’s filmography.

Continuing his move to make films based on respected plays with strong dramatic cores centered on well-written characters, William Wyler brings the stage play by Sidney Howard (which itself was based on a novel by Sinclair Lewis) with his customary visual acumen while managing performances expertly and expertly weaving together the different narrative elements into a satisfying conclusion. Wyler had really found his comfortable space making challenging, intelligent dramas about characters that feel like real people.

Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) is a rich industrialist who built up his own auto manufacturer and sold it to a larger company. Suddenly faced with retirement and a life without being arm deep in mechanical things, he sets out to get to know his wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton), really for the first time as they go on a trans-Atlantic cruise to spend time in Europe. The trip over feels more like a honeymoon than a vacation of two people who have been married for twenty years and just attended their only daughter’s wedding. The way they talk about what they want from life is two people talking past each other since they aren’t really the same thing. It becomes obvious that Fran wants the finer things in life, to move from their small Midwestern town and social circle into something grander, which Europe represents. He is already unmoored and looking for something to do with his hands, the main excitement for him on the crossing is seeing a lighthouse from afar and bragging about how quickly he could reach the light in a speed boat. She, though, likes to spend time with the classy Brit Captain Lockert (David Niven) with whom she develops a flirtatious relationship that she may or may not want to go all the way to something adulterous, but she can’t commit to it in the end. Sam happens to meet a woman on the cruise as well, Edith (Mary Astor), but his relationship with her is far less flirtatious though, perhaps, far more meaningful in the end.

It’s obvious from their first stop in Paris that the two are already drifting apart. They spend little time together, negotiating when they’ll meet later in the day like they’re trying to arrange a business meeting. While he’s off seeing museums, she’s meeting people in society, mostly Arnold Iselin (Paul Lukas). When their relationship strains to the breaking point, Sam decides that they should go back home to rediscover why they loved each other to begin with, but she refuses, staying in Europe with Iselin for months.

Sam is a good man, and as played by Huston, he’s an active man who suddenly must figure out this new life without drive. He wants to stick by Fran even while she’s cuckolding him on the other side of the world. Essentially, he just waits until Fran offers him a divorce. Fran, as played by Chatterton, is some kind of monster. Completely selfish and ungrateful, she’s perfectly willing to cast aside the entire life she’s lead because she wants to be part of a society that will never fully accept her. She wants to be someone she’s ultimately not, part of the Old World that she was never born into.

After a quick reconciliation after the breakup with Iselin, the relationship frays quickly with the entrance of an impoverished baron, Kurt Von Obersdorf (Gregory Gaye) with whom Fran develops an infatuation that gets to the point where she pushes for the divorce. This leads to a perpetual split with Sam, unconnected to anything anymore, just wandering around Europe alone until he happens upon Edith once more. Edith is, of course, perfect for him. Adventurous in the same ways and willing to love Sam for who he is, not the kind of life he can lead her into, they connect deeply and quickly.

The resolution is the culmination of all the intricate character work and plotting (this isn’t a plot heavy film, of course) that takes these well-rounded characters and has them follow through on what makes sense for them. The joy of the finale is how Sam decides to finally take what he feels like he deserves instead of just accepting what someone else says he must have. Sam standing up for himself in the face of a woman who ended up hating him, leaving him, and then, the capper, blaming him for the entire thing, is just so satisfying.

William Wyler was a truly great filmmaker. It almost feels like he could do no wrong, and by the 1930s, when he had risen to such a powerful position and reputation in the studio system, he was flexing his muscles to make mature, intelligent films about real people while never sacrificing his ability to make things simply look great, even when the entire story really amounts to a couple of dozen conversations across a couple of dozen rooms. If I were his contemporary, I’d anxiously anticipate every single film he put out. As a man living decades after Wyler’s death, I get the joy of having all of his films to watch all at once, and I’m really, really enjoying it.

Rating: 4/4