The Male Animal

• Director: Elliott Nugent
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Comedy
• Movie Type: Psychological Drama
• Themes: Fighting the System, Love Triangles, Teachers and Students
• Main Cast: Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, Eugene Pallette
• Release Year: 1942
• Country: US
• Run Time: 101 minutes

Plot

In this screen version of the James Thurber-Elliot Nugent Broadway play of the same name, Henry Fonda stars as bespectacled, bookish college professor Tommy Turner, who puts his career on the line by insisting upon standing up for his right to free speech. Determining to read a letter written by executed anarchistic Bartolomeo Vanzetti to his classroom,Tommy not only risks dismissal and castigation by the conservative college trustees, but seriously jeopardizes his marriage to his wife Ellen (Olivia DeHavilland), who wishes that Tommy would stop making waves and start lobbying for a raise. Coinciding with all this is the arrival of former college football star Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), who many years earlier had been Tommy's rival for Ellen's affections. Eminently successful and aggressively athletic, Joe seems to be everything that Tommy isn't, and the little professor is worried that he's going to lose Ellen to Joe after all. An all-night drinking session with equally idealistic student Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson) convinces Tommy to stick to his principles no matter what the cost-and miracle of miracles, this resolve makes him a hero in everyone's eyes, including sweet Ellen. The Male Animal was remade in 1952 as She's Working Her Way Through College, with the liberal ideology of the original film sacrificed in favor of McCarthy-era banalities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Henry Fonda - Tommy Turner
• Olivia de Havilland - Ellen Turner
• Joan Leslie - Patricia Stanley
• Jack Carson - Joe Ferguson
• Eugene Pallette - Ed Keller

Herbert Anderson - Michael Barnes; Ivan Simpson - Dr. Damon; Don DeFore - Wally Myers; Minna Phillips - Blanche Damon; Regina Wallace - Mrs. Myrtle Keller; Jean Ames - Hot Garters Garner; Hattie McDaniel - Cleota; Tod Andrews - Student; Raymond Bailey - Newsman; Byron Barr [Gig Young] - Student; Eddie Brian; Walter Brooke - Reporter; Glen Cavender - Reporter; William B. Davidson - Alumnus; Charles Drake - Student; Creighton Hale - Reporter; Howard Hickman - Faculty Member; William Hopper - Reporter; Audra Lindley - Student; Audrey Long - Student; Hank Mann - Reporter; Frank Mayo - Coach Sprague; George Meeker - Newsman; Ray Montgomery - Student; Will Morgan - Reporter; Spec O'Donnell; Jane Randolph - Secretary; Cliff Saum - Reporter; Dave Willock - Student; Joan Winfield - Student; Don Phillips - Student; Al Lloyd - Reporter; Ann Edmonds - Student; Bobby Barnes - Nutsy Miller; Juanita Stark

Credit

Wolfgang Reinhardt - Associate Producer, Elliott Nugent - Director, Tom Richards - Editor, Heinz Roemheld - Composer (Music Score), Arthur Edeson - Cinematographer, Hal B. Wallis - Producer, Julius J. Epstein - Screenwriter, Philip G. Epstein - Screenwriter, Stephen Morehouse Avery - Screenwriter, Elliott Nugent - Play Author, James Thurber - Play Author

Male Animal, The (1940), a comedy by James Thurber and Elliot Nugent. [ Cort Theatre, 243 perf.] Tommy Turner (Nugent), a professor of English, suddenly finds himself confronted by two problems: the return to campus of Joe Ferguson (Leon Ames), a former college football star and old flame of Turner's wife, Ellen (Ruth Matteson), and an editorial in the college newspaper protesting Turner's reading of a letter sent by the anarchist Vanzetti to Vanzetti's daughter before his execution. Turner's edginess about Joe leads to getting them both drunk and engaging in fisticuffs. But the letter proves reasonably harmless, and Joe soon returns home to his own wife. Richard Watts Jr. of the Herald Tribune saw the Herman Shumlin–produced comedy as “a singularly happy combination of Thurber's comic brilliance and Nugent's gift for human and likable characters.” A 1952 revival, with Nugent, Robert Preston, and Martha Scott, outran the original production.

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