Main Cast: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Mary Astor, David Niven
Release Year: 1936
Country: US
Run Time: 101 minutes
Plot
In this highly acclaimed adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel, Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth, a good-hearted, middle-aged man who runs an auto manufacturing firm. His wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton) is obsessed with the notion that she's growing old, and she eventually persuades Sam to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe. He agrees for the sake of their marriage, but before long Fran has begun to think of herself as a cosmopolitan sophisticate and thinks of Sam as dull and unadventurous. Craving excitement, Fran begins spending her time with other men and eventually informs Sam that she's leaving him for a minor member of royalty. While in Italy, Sam runs into Edith Cortright (Mary Astor), an attractive widow whom he first met while sailing to Europe. Edith seems to understand Sam in a way his wife does not, and they fall in love. However, Sam impulsively breaks off their relationship, only to discover in her absence just how deeply he cares for her. Dodsworth was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Walter Huston), and Best Supporting Actress (Maria Ouspenskaya), though only art director Richard Day walked away with an Oscar. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
William Wyler's Dodsworth was one of the most mature and adult film dramas of its day, with its interlocking stories of two halves of a marriage turning bad, as the partners realize that they have aged and changed. That it made it to the screen intact was something of a triumph for producer Samuel Goldwyn, director Wyler, and screenwriter Sidney Howard, adapting his own play, based on Sinclair Lewis's novel. In 1936, with the Production Code restricting the kinds of stories one could tell on screen, it was not a time for movies to depict marital infidelities, especially those in which parties are not made to suffer. The beauty of Dodsworth, apart from Academy Award-caliber performances by Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton, is that it tells its story so frankly and effortlessly that the viewer realizes only halfway through that s/he's watching the break-up of a family brought about by the vanity of one member. Ruth Chatterton's Fran Dodsworth has not aged gracefully; she's found nothing to love in her life now that her husband Sam (Huston) is retired and a lot to fear, including the fact that she is older, and a grandmother by the movie's end. Huston's Sam Dodsworth is unfulfilled by business success, but he has a firm enough grasp on who he is to face starting over in late middle age as a new adventure. Thus, she thrusts herself at every young man that she thinks attractive, in a desperate quest to hold onto her youth, while he drifts awkwardly and guiltily into a relationship with a woman like himself (Mary Astor), and the crosscurrents of their disintegrating marriage keep us riveted to the screen for 100 minutes. It was movies like this that Hollywood had in mind, but almost never achieved, when it started adapting Broadway dramas to the screen. Dodsworth never made the kind of money that Goldwyn hoped it might--it was too serious and demanding a drama for audiences in 1936--but it has held up better than almost any other drama from that decade. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Middle-aged Sam Dodsworth is the head of Revelation Motor Company, an automobile manufacturing firm. His wife Fran, a shallow and vain woman obsessed with the notion of growing old, convinces her spouse Sam to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe. Before long, Fran begins to view herself as a sophisticated world traveler and Sam as boring and unimaginative. Searching for excitement in her life, she begins spending time with other men and eventually informs Sam that she's leaving him for a member of the nobility. While in Italy, Sam reunites with Edith Cortright, a divorcee he first met aboard the Queen Mary en route to Europe, and the two fall in love. When Fran's plans to marry the nobleman fall through and she calls off the divorce, Sam rejoins her on a ship to sail back to America but in the climactic scene, Sam realizes his marriage to Fran is over and gets off the ship at the last moment to rejoin Edith after he realizes just how much he cares for her.
The film was named one of the year's ten best by the New York Times and was one of the top twenty box office films of the year.
In 1990, Dodsworth was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2005, Time named it one of the 100 best movies of the past 80 years [2].
In his review in the New York Times, Frank S. Nugent described it as "admirable" and added, "William Wyler . . . has had the skill to execute it in cinematic terms, and a gifted cast has been able to bring the whole alive to our complete satisfaction . . . [the film] has done more than justice to Mr. Howard's play, converting a necessarily episodic tale . . . into a smooth-flowing narrative of sustained interest, well-defined performance and good talk." [3]
Time said it was "directed with a proper understanding of its values by William Wyler, splendidly cast and brilliantly played." [4]
