The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford (1915)

My taste for literary Modernism has always been fluid, at best, so I have always had some reluctance in approaching the work of Ford Maddox Ford (1873-1939).  A man of formidable and varied talents – novelist, poet, critic, editor – Ford was also a literary Impressionist; employing out-of-sequence storytelling, unreliable narrators, and conflicting recollections.  Not my literary line of country at all, but when The Good Solider (1915) was given to me as a gift this Christmas, I knew it was time to take the plunge.

This was a fortuitous present indeed!  Ford considered The Good Soldier to be his masterpiece, and it is certainly one of the finest novels I’ve read in years.  It is available at Project Gutenberg and Manybooks.net, as well as in a handsome Barnes & Noble edition.

In other hands, The Good Solider would descent into simple melodrama.  But Ford carefully structures his tale as a series of reminiscences told by John Dowell; a rambling narrative told to an imaginary audience beside an imaginary fireplace.  It concerns Dowell and his wife, Florence, and their friends, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham.  The tale ends with two suicides and one descent into madness – and yet, our narrator says it’s the saddest tale he’s ever heard, as if he, himself, were not a player in the events.

In short, Edward Ashburnham is a career solider during the waning days of Empire.  He is in a marriage of convenience with Leonora; while spending their winters abroad they meet American couple John and Florence Dowell.  Florence and Edward become lovers, while Leonora struggles to maintain some stability in their lives and John slowly falls in love with Nancy Rufford, the young ward of the Ashburnhams.

Because the novel is nonlinear, both the story and the true nature of its characters are gradually revealed.  This structure does not allow for surprises in the plot – but it is wonderful for surprises in character.  Ford is the master of the gradual reveal, and by the midpoint of The Good Solider, we have to rethink our opinions of all the major characters.

Take Edward, for instance.  Dowell repeatedly calls him a “sentimentalist,” but what he really means is that Ashburnham is a Romantic.  He is a heroic soldier, a charitable landlord, a stolid friend, life-saving sailor, capable horseman and a considerate squire.  He is a figure out of Sabatini or Dumas, and if he was a character in a film, he would be all Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.  But – and this is the overall point of the novel, and perhaps Ford’s overarching worldview, as well – the world is not a Romantic place. 

Ashburnham is quite a bad husband, and in a world of bland and mundane reality, that is enough to ruin him.  In the construct of a realist novel (and in the real world), a figure like Ashburnham could not, must not, function successfully, and therefore ceases to exist.  This tension is the fulcrum upon which the novel rests – Ford is writing about the antagonism between romance and stark reality, or, perhaps more pointedly, the encroaching modern world.

The Good Solider is a prototypical Modern novel in that it is about the triumph of Anti-Romantic sentiment.  By offering Edmund (and, later, Nancy) as a sacrifice on the alter of middle-class respectability, it distinctly draws the line between two conflicting worldviews.

The Good Solider is also a profoundly “Catholic” novel: it deals with guilt, expiation and penance.  Ford was a convert to Catholicism, but it seems as if inwardly he remained doubtful and unconvinced.

Ford also has a very interesting view of women – one that is perhaps more true, though less politically correct, to posit today.  To Ford, form and function are more important than passion and love; and all the women in this novel are ultimately calculating.  Here is Ford writing on Leonora after the death of Edward and her subsequent remarriage:  They were like judges debating over the sentence upon a criminal; they were like ghouls with an immobile corpse in a tomb beside them. I don't think that Leonora was any more to blame than the girl—though Leonora was the more active of the two. Leonora, as I have said, was the perfectly normal woman. I mean to say that in normal circumstances her desires were those of the woman who is needed by society. She desired children, decorum, an establishment; she desired to avoid waste, she desired to keep up appearances. She was utterly and entirely normal even in her utterly undeniable beauty. But I don't mean to say that she acted perfectly normally in this perfectly abnormal situation. All the world was mad around her and she herself, agonized, took on the complexion of a mad woman; of a woman very wicked; of the villain of the piece. What would you have? Steel is a normal, hard, polished substance. But, if you put it in a hot fire it will become red, soft, and not to be handled. If you put it in a fire still more hot it will drip away. It was like that with Leonora. She was made for normal circumstances—for Mr Rodney Bayham, who will keep a separate establishment, secretly, in Portsmouth, and make occasional trips to Paris and to Budapest.

It was difficult for your correspondent not to sympathize with Edward – and I found myself often uncomfortably nodding in self-recognition.  (Sadly, though, not at the parts of his effortless heroism.)  Edward is a displaced person in time.  His tragedy is that dull reality was allowed to kill his sense of romance, and this this sense of romance gave him no alternative other than suicide.

The Good Solider is gripping, chilling and profoundly moving.  Ford’s genius is that the final line of the novel puts the entire story in perspective, and provides the final insight into the characters that we need.  It is a tour de force and highly recommended.

Important Birthdays: Judy Garland and Basil Rathbone

I could not let the week close without marking two birthdays important to our shared popular culture: singer-actress Judy Garland (June 10, 1922) and actor Basil Rathbone (June 13, 1892).  This year marks the 90^th anniversary of Garland’s birth and the 120^th for Rathbone.  An unusual paring, to be sure, but we at The Jade Sphinx are nothing if not eclectic.

So much has been written about Garland since her death in 1969 that most anything I could add at this point would be superfluous.  Let us note, however, that she was a remarkable talent: simply one of the most gifted singers or her era (and a focal point of the Great American Songbook), as well as an actress of unusual depth and sensitivity.  Younger audiences perhaps know her best from her turn as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), and this is something of a shame.  Not that she is less than terrific – in fact, it remains one of the few “perfect” movies – but that there is so much more to Garland’s oeuvre than this one perfect film.

Readers interested in knowing the woman that Garland eventually became should seek out several films that showcase her varied talents.  Garland delivers a magnificent, subtle, non-singing performance in The Clock (1945), where she is wooed and wed by soldier Robert Walker in a brief 24-hour period; she is equally delightful in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which may be her best musical film.  (Yes – better than Oz.  Rent it and see.) 

Garland was set loose by her studio, MGM, after executives managed to squeeze everything possible they could out of the young woman, casting aside the exhausted and ruined husk as no longer viable.  Garland was to prove them wrong in 1954, when she financed A Star is Born, her ‘comeback’ picture, which garnered her an Academy Award nomination.  This started the second half of her career, which was more interesting (if not as stellar) as the first half, and included a series of concert performances culminating in her great success at the Palace. 

The challenge in writing about Garland today is that any critic has to deal with the cult that has grown up around her.  Cult status has ruined our ability to fairly assess – to greater or lesser degrees – such diverse figures as Garland, James Dean, H. P. Lovecraft and fictional constructs like Star Trek or Sherlock Holmes.  (One day I will tell of my visit, as a journalist, to a Dark Shadows convention, which might rank as the single most surreal and grotesque occurrence of my life.) 

The problem with cults is that the one must cut through the miasma of fandom before reaching some kind of sane critical evaluation – and that is often the thing most cults want least.  It is my belief, for instance, that the well-meaning but fatuous groups of Sherlock Holmes aficionados (“Sherlockians”) have kept both aesthetes and academe from seriously assessing the literary contribution of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Cultists protect their fetishistic properties with a fierce devotion, and woe to any of the uninitiated who seek to make a balanced critical judgment.

The Garland cult is somewhat less potent today: Tracie Bennett currently stars on Broadway in End of the Rainbow, which chronicles Garland’s final days.  This has met with some success, but also with uncomprehending shrugs.  The great  multitude that made up most of her fan base – gay men of a certain age – are no longer cultural arbiters, and younger fans are often without a clue as to what the fuss is all about.  I contend that if Garland’s legacy was shared by the multitudes rather than a smallish cult, her cultural currency would be greater today.

Sir Philip St. John Basil Rathbone was something commonplace today but unique in his era: a classical actor who specialized in popular entertainments.  Rathbone was, simply put, one of the most gifted actors of his generation:  handsome in a leonine way, blessed with a mellifluous voice and perfect diction, poise and hauteur, and an incredible range and physicality.  If Rathbone were alive today, his career would be similar to that of Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen, both classical actors who have made popular successes.  (Indeed, one can only imagine Rathbone as Professor X or Gandalf!)

Like many actors with a gift for the classics, Rathbone was often most effectively cast as characters from a more romantic and swashbuckling past: Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Murdstone, Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Karenin, Levasseur and Ebenezer Scrooge.  Sadly, only one of his Shakespearean performances survives on film: Tybalt, in the largely ill-conceived MGM 1936 production of Romeo and Juliet.  Rathbone and John Barrymore, as Mercutio, are the only members of the cast to deliver striking performances.

The most gifted fencer in Hollywood, Rathbone was the “go-to” guy for costume dramas.  He often joked that he could easily have bested his frequent co-star Errol Flynn in most of their on-screen duels, significantly changing the plotlines had he done so.  This close identification with swashbucklers led him to be cast, later in his career, in the Danny Kaye comedy The Court Jester (1955), where he effortlessly sent-up his own image.

The year 1939 was a pivotal one for Rathbone.  Author Margaret Mitchell supposedly wanted Rathbone to play Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind (imagine his icy delivery of “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”).  Instead, he made The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, two films that would forever identify him with the Great Detective and limit his career as a serious actor.

Today, such an identification would lead to greater roles in big-budget junk movies (look at Robert Downey, Jr.); in Hollywood in the 1930s-40s, it meant an endless procession of B-pictures.  Rathbone toiled on Hollywood’s Baker Street for nine years before returning to Broadway.  There, he made a triumphant return in 1948 as Dr. Sloper in The Heiress, winning the Tony Award for Best Actor.  But, in the eyes of Hollywood, he was only Sherlock Holmes and the role in the film adaptation went to Ralph Richardson.  That Rathbone’s performance was not committed to film remains one of the great tragedies in movie history.

Sadly, Rathbone ended his career in low-budget horror films in the 1960s.  Despite these indignities, he also managed to perform a one-man show at the White House for President John F. Kennedy, recorded many classics for Caedmon Records (including the finest interpretations of Edgar Allen Poe ever conceived), and appearing in a live television musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol, The Stingiest Man in Town.

Rathbone was a singular film persona: he managed to bring a sense of glamour and romance to each and every role, often taking audiences out of the contemporary world into a more romantic vision of the past.  Ours is, sadly, a world too often too busy for such romance, and the world is poorer without it.  For those who relish such things, Rathbone’s many film performances remain a delight.

The Heiress of 1949

I recently had the pleasure of viewing The Heiress, the 1949 film starring Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift, based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James.  It is a remarkable piece of work, essential viewing and accessible on DVD.

The film was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, who adapted their 1947 play.  It is a masterpiece of adaptation, one of the few instances of a film adaptation far outpacing its literary predecessor.

The film concerns Catherine Sloper (de Havilland), a simple girl of few accomplishments and much money.  She lives with her widowed, bitter father, Dr. Sloper (Ralph Richadson), who constantly compares Catherine unfavorably to her late mother.  Also in the household is Dr. Sloper’s sister, Catherine’s Aunt Lavinia (a magnificent Miriam Hopkins), a well meaning, but meddlesome and silly woman.

Catherine’s life changes when she meets the dashing Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), who woos and wins Catherine.  Townsend manages to do something unexpected – he awakens passion in Catherine, bringing her to life and providing excitement, energy, color and a sense of self-worth.  However, Dr. Sloper suspects that the handsome Townsend is a fortune hunter, and spirits Catherine away on a six month European cruise, hoping she will forget.

Upon her return, Catherine is in love as much as ever.  During a rainy night rendezvous, Catherine and Townsend make plans to elope.  She tells him her father has cut off his portion of her inheritance, but they will be happy on her smaller income.  They plan for him to take her away at 12:30 that night.

Catherine, with her bags (along with all of her aspirations, dreams of love and self-respect) wait for Townsend to arrive, but he never does.  Townsend only wanted her money, and the bitter, unyielding, frosty Dr. Sloper was right all along.

Years later, after Dr. Sloper dies, Aunt Lavinia arranges for Catherine and Townsend to meet again.  He has greatly come down in the world, working as a lowly sea-hand, and he once again promises her love.  She arranges for him to leave his seedy lodgings and marry her, but when he returns to the house at Washington Square, Catherine locks the doors, the light inside slowly fading as she climbs the grand staircase.  Townsend will never have her love or her money, and Catherine’s revenge is complete.

One of the many remarkable things about the film is that its most potent set pieces are nowhere found in James’ novel, which is a much more insular character study.  The changes wrought by the Goetz duo make for a more dramatically satisfying work.

For instance, in the novel, Townsend is never depicted as anything other than a smarmy fortune hunter; while in the film, this is ambiguous until he jilts Catherine after midnight.

Dr. Sloper in James is ironical and detached, but nowhere near as bitter and mournful for his lost wife as he is in the film.  And Catherine, for James, is largely swept along by events.  She’s delighted to be the object of a handsome man’s ardor, but nowhere is there the sense that here is a woman wretched, starved for love, and slowly dying from want of attention.

The two great set pieces of the film: Townsend’s desertion of Catherine and his later comeuppance, never appear in the novel.  In James, Townsend mostly drifts out of the picture … he appears comfortable and portly to Catherine 20 years later only to be politely sent away.

The Heiress is a textbook example of how to adapt a literary work.  The overall structure and plot are the same, yet incidents are invented (or dropped) to translate the work into a dramatic medium.  In addition, the characters are modified only to the extent necessary for actors to interpret them more effectively.

And interpret them they do.  The Heiress is a little master’s class in film acting.  De Havilland, so often the vapid love-interest of Errol Flynn, was a fine dramatic actress when given a chance.  Her transformation as Catherine Sloper is perhaps the greatest performance of her career.  From young, callow and somewhat insipid, to hard, bitter and vituperative, De Havilland etches a portrait hard to forget.  She won the Oscar that year for her role, and it is richly deserved.

Montgomery Clift is fine as Townsend, but he lacks dash.  He is certainly a handsome presence, and he is artful enough to mask his ultimate caddishness.  However, he is too modern a figure, perhaps, for a period drama.  Oddly enough Flynn, though too old at this point, would’ve been a perfect choice: it would be easy to believe his pretty face hid a black heart.

Miriam Hopkins, a leading lady and pin-up girl of the 1930s, is a revelation as Aunt Lavinia: intrusive, stupid and silly, yet also human and touching.  Why this remarkable actress did not work more steadily throughout the 1950s is a mystery.

Ralph Richardson was nominated for an Oscar portrayal, and he does a fine job.  Richardson played the part in London in the 1948 production directed by John Gielgud.  However, the part was originated on Broadway by Basil Rathbone, and one cannot but regret that this wonderful actor’s performance was not recorded on film.  (See photo below.)  All of Sloper’s character traits – the incisive reasoning, the frosty demeanor, the masterful carriage – were all Rathbone trademarks; indeed, Rathbone won the Tony Award for his portrayal.  Wendy Hiller, who played Catherine on Broadway, stated that his performance was definitive, and it must sadly remain lost to posterity.

The film was directed by William Wyler (The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver and scores of others) and the score was written by Aaron Copeland.  It is perhaps Copeland’s score that is the weakest link of the film: listening to it, one expects at any moment Washington Square to be besieged by Jesse James.

I recommend that anyone interested in the art of literary adaptation spend some time with the Slopers of Washington Square.

The Master of Ballantrae

My recent musings on the movie Black Magic cast my mind back to one of my favorite swashbuckling novels, The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) written in 1889.

Ballantrae is the story of two brothers, one good, the other bad, and the conflict between them that mars their lives. (Think of Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde turned into a familial drama).   This novel is a great, Gothic-flavored adventure featuring a fascinating villain, Jamie Durie, the Master of Ballantrae.

Jamie Durie is the most colorful character in the book; as is often the case in swashbuckling adventure tales, the villain gets all the best parts.  Like the Cagliostro of Black Magic , Ballantrae features the villain as the main protagonist.  The attainments of Jamie are formidable: master swordsman, soldier of fortune, athlete, dandy, scholar and possessor of a fatal charm.  Jamie is aggressively charming – and his is a fatal charm.  He treats people badly, but it doesn’t matter.  He is more highly regarded than his decent (and publicly despised) brother Henry because Jamie’s charm is charged with color and vitality and energy.  Life around him is an event, leaving even his bitterest enemies entranced.

Think of what the great charmers of the classic movie era would’ve done with him!  John Barrymore may well have made the definitive Ballantrae.  Or Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  Or George Sanders or Basil Rathbone or even Louis Haywood.  All, for different reasons, would’ve been great.

It is notable that the most memorable swashbuckling characters, and characters who define what it is to be a swashbuckler, are the villains. It is almost as if there is something in the makeup of the swashbuckling hero – the theatricality, the dandyism, the artifice, or some other quality (the freedom, perhaps?)  – that reads more effectively outside the realm of angels.  The best swashbuckling villains often embody the attributes of the best swashbuckling heroes – almost as if these qualities in abundance lead to villainy.

Like Cagliostro, Jamie is undone by his own overarching passions.  Jamie lacks Cagliostro’s Gothic flourishes – he would never hypnotize a woman to make him love him, he’d move on to the next wench.  But he has insouciance, a sense of fun, a delight in his own villainy that makes Master of Ballantrae, the book and the man, delicious.

There are two movie versions of Ballantrae.  The first, starring Errol Flynn as Jamie, was released in 1953.  It is a very disappointing affair.  Flynn (1909-1959) famous as a screen hero, could not play an out-and-out villain, and the screenplay by Herb Meadow had a last-reel turnaround to clean up the character.  The other, infinitely superior, adaptation was in 1984, a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.  That starred Richard Thomas as good-boy Henry, and a wonderful Michael York as Jamie.  (York exuberantly portrayed D'Artagnan in the Richard Lester Musketeer films, again proving that the line between charming hero and beloved rogue is a thin one).  Sadly, this version is not currently available on DVD, but it can sometimes be found on eBay.  It is worth searching for.