Mourning Becomes Electra

Description

Near the end of the Civil War, the proud residents of Mannon Manor await the return of shipping tycoon Ezra Mannon (The Old Dark House's Raymond Massey) and son Orin (Dead of Night's Michael Redgrave). Meanwhile Extra's conniving wife Christine (Rocco and His Brothers' Katina Paxinou) and daughter Lavinia (Auntie Mame's Rosalind Russell) vie for the love of a handsome captain (Leo Genn) with a dark secret while well-meaning neighbor Peter (Academy Award® winner Kirk Douglas) sets his sights on Lavinia. Poisoning, infidelity, gunshots and shocking family secrets explode in a haunting climax that will never be forgotten. Adapted from the classic play by Eugene O'Neill, this powerhouse classic is a tour de force of American cinema! This often censored drama features a dramatic all-star cast! Now presented in the longest restored version in existence!

Customer Reviews:

a worthy interpretation.......2007-03-14

Dudley Nichols's widely panned adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's ambitious three-part tragedy starts off on shaky footing, frontloaded with stagy exposition, but I think it settles nicely into a sort of grim, gothic melodrama centered around a fatally dysfunctional nineteenth-century New England family. Performances, especially Katina Paxinou as the treacherous Mannon matriarch, are exceptional. The English actor Michael Redgrave (The Browing Version, 1951), while a curious choice for oedipally deranged but well-meaning son Orin, is very good (his monologue on the futility of war is riveting); Rosalind Russell, on the other hand, as daughter Lavinia is tough to pin down-- is she too old for the part or spot-on as the spinster-apparent? I'm still undecided. Image's transfer is not quite pristine, but nothing to get your hackles up about. Three-plus stars. (For five-star O'Neill, treat yourself to John Frankenheimer's 'The Ice Man Cometh' available from Kino.)

A Place in Film History..........2005-12-23

"Mourning Becomes Electra" is notable for many reasons.RKO Studios was trying to get the word out that it was a serious studio making serious pictures. The original film featured an Overture, Intermission & Entr'Acte, which explains various discrepancies in the running time. The DVD, long overdue, is fine, and in a 159 minute running time. This "prestigious" film still fell flat at the boxoffice, and subsequent cuts were made to make it more palpable to the Post WW2 public. O'Neill is not to be fooled with, not should his work be taken lightly. His works certainly were showcases for Actresses in Oscar-friendly performances (Garbo in "Anna Christie", Kate Hepburn in "Long Day's Journey Into Night", and Roz Russell in this one; all nominated). Indeed, Roz was expected to win the Oscar in 1947; there seemed to be no question about it, and when she lost to Loretta Young for "The Farmer's Daughter" (a comedy, no less) there was an audible gasp from the audience. Actually, Loretta probably deserved it, because Roz' performance is inconsistant at best. Surely, she handles the singularly amazing demands of this central character but often fell back into those hammy mannerisms that I've grown accustomed to from her. She was much better at comedy ("His Girl Friday", "My Sister Eileen", Auntie Mame"). It's admirable that she didn't succumb to any Joan Crawford histionics; rather gave a subdued, almost one-note performance. RKO also thought high-class demanded famous British actors, and there are a few; Michael Redgrave (also nominated), Leo Genn and a fine performance from Henry Hull (as the Greek chorus). Redgrave was inconsistant, and Genn was OK. Katina Paxinou, the wonderful Greek actress (Oscar winner in "For Whom the Bell Tolls"), was miscast, if only because of her accent. The performance was good, but you'd think a woman who'd been in this country for so many years would've shed some of that accent. It just felt out of place for this very American piece by a very American playwright. Maybe the powers-that-were thought a Greek actress would be appropriate for this up-dating of the "Oresteia". I didn't dislike the film. O'Neill is certainly an acquired taste, and I was never bored. Production values were fairly high, and I appreciated the generous close-ups (thanks to director Dudley Nichols) and the crisp b&w cinematography of George Barnes. His use of shadows and back-lighting add immeasurably to the proceedings. Despite the fairly elaborate sets, this is really a filmed play, and the dialogue is the driving force. Definitely a curiosity, I would recommend this film to fans of O'Neill, and forgotten Hollywood artifacts.

Hotter than Hell.......2005-04-29

All of a sudden, after World War II, Rosalind Russell seemed poised to become Hollywood's greatest star. The studios were bowing down to her, and she started flexing her muscles and chewing up the kind of parts that hitherto she had been excluded even from dreaming about. Previously there had been a sort of appreciation for her clipped comic roles, most notably in Cukor's THE WOMEN, and she was deemed a serviceable leading lady in glossy MGM romantic dramas and thrillers, nothing too special. I wonder what happened to signal to Hollywood that she was actually an actress of some range? Were people tired of Bette Davis and thought, let's give Rosalind Russell the parts we used to give to Davis automatically, the droit du seigneur distaff side?

Anyhow her casting in MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA was an inspiration that could have been good, but somehow, the movie got away from the makers. It wasn't just putting Russell into it--though some believe that casting JANE RUSSELL as Lavinia might have made more sense--it was that every last part was filled with some cockamamie choice. The casting director must have been on drugs. And yet, that is part of what makes this 1947 movie such a gem.

By the way, Lucille Ball is said to have lobbied heavily to land the role of Lavinia, in a production which would have co-starred Jane Darwell as Christine. But who did they get for Christine?

Katina Paxinou--the revered Greek actress who had made a sensation playing a Spanish peasant in FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. Audiences just barely made out what she was saying in BELL TOLLS. Here she plays Rosalind Russell's mother, a New England aristocrat. As many have noted, she seems to be encountering the English language for the very first time, and, as she has the most important role for the first half of the movie, it only gets better after she shuts up and lets Russell, as Lavinia, take over the ranting and raving. Michael Redgrave! He's great but where did they get him from? Had he made any US pictures before, or did they just say, he was super playing the nutty ventriloquist in DEAD OF NIGHT, let's bring him over to RKO to play Orrin--the "Orestes" character in O'Neill's secong hand Oresteia. And on and on it goes, right down to Kirk Douglas and Raymond Massey and the insufferable Leo Genn as the man both mother and daughter desire. I'm sorry, but that fire hydrant over there has more sex appeal than Leo Genn in this movie.

They say that somewhere, there is even more footage waiting to be joined up to extend this long, long picture into a fourth hour. I'm looking forward to a "special edition" of this DVD, perhaps with the later, Joan Hackett version from PBS as an extra. That one is good too, with Peter Weller from ROBOCOP playing the Kirk Douglas part, hey, why not?

A watered down and rather cold version of O'Neill's plays.......2005-02-11

"Mourning Becomes Electra" is not simply Eugene O'Neill's updated version of the "Orestia" by Aeschylus. The ancient Greek tragedy, which has the distinction of being the first dramatic work to be performed a second time, was a celebration of the Athenian system of justice. But what O'Neill focuses on in turning the story of the House of Atreus after the Trojan War into the Mannon family of New England following the end of the Civil War, is the cycle of vengeance. O'Neill changes the precipitating event for the cycle, forgoing an Iphigenia-like figure to talk about a Mannon ancestor being a judge at the Salem Witch Trials and to reinvent Thyestes as a disinherited relative whose progeny comes back for revenge. Likewise, the uplifting ending of the "Orestia," where Orestes claims his right to be forgiven, is foregone to place the onus on ending the cycle squarely on the Electra-character. Furthermore, with a justice system in place the first murder results from an act of remission, while another is covered up as a robbery and a third become a suicide, all of which play against the original tale.

This black & white 1947 film, directed and scripted by Dudley Nichols, runs 173 minutes, but given that the original drama is really three plays, just like the "Orestia," this is reducing the scope of O'Neill's work by half. Adding insult to injury, there is was a 105-minute edited version at one point (the mind shudders to think of reducing O'Neill's epic to about the length of a single, long act). Titles appear to let the viewers now when we are moving from one part of the drama to the next. First, is "The Homecoming," in which General Ezra Mannon (Raymond Massey) returns home from the war. His doting daughter Lavinia (Rosalind Russell) is happy to see him, but Ezra's wife, Christine (Katina Paxinou) is not. She has been having an affair with Adam Brant (Leo Genn), a sea captain who is son of the disinherited Mannon and a servant girl. Ever since Ezra went away to war, taking her beloved son, Orin (Michael Redgrave) with him, Christine has been wishing for her husband's death. When he comes home seeking to reconcile with his wife, she refuses his advances and with her confessions bring on a heart attack, she does not give him his medicine. But before he dies, Ezra points an accusing finger at Christine and declares her "guilty" in front of Lavinia.

"The Hunted" begins with Orin returning home, having recovered from a head wound he received in the war. The beloved son of his mother, Lavinia has to convince her brother that Christine in responsible for the death of their father. Confronting Orin with proof of their mother's infidelity, Lavinia does not spur her brother to kill his mother, but rather to kill Brant. Getting way with the murder he tells Christine what he has done which drives her to suicide, leaving Orin crazed with remorse. The final part, "The Haunted," is where O'Neill diverge the most from Aeschylus. Instead of Orestes haunted by the Furies for slaying Clytemnestra and avenging Agamemnon, Orin's torment is entirely psychological. Meanwhile, Lavinia is being courted by Peter Niles (Kirk Douglas), who represents the possibility of a happy life freed from the Mannon curse. But instead of ending with a new notion of justice, "Mourning Becomes Electra" concludes with the symbolic end of the Mannon family.

The maritime background of O'Neill is present in these dramas, but more important is the Puritanism of his native New England. The curse on this family is entirely sexual in nature, from what happened with the servant girl before the current Mannon mansion was built to the sins of this generation. Even though Agamemnon brought home Cassandra from Troy as his concubine, Clytemnestra killed him because of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. But for O'Neill it is all about the sex, including having Brant talking Lavinia for a moonlight walk before settling on her mother as his conquest. The problem is that this is the sort of sex that is behind closed doors, the results of not only the inherent Puritanism of the characters but also the strictures of early 20th-century American theater and the Hayes office. The result is talking about it without really talking about it, and with a cold passion that is rather disconcerting.

Ironically, the stiff formality of the acting performances are more in keeping with ancient Greek drama than with modern American theater, which only serves to distance the drama from the audience. For me there is another intervening layer because I know that when RKO bought the rights to "Mourning Becomes Electra" Katharine Hepburn tried to put together a production in which she would play Lavinia and Greta Garbo would come out of retirement to play Christine. Once your eyes bug out at the thought of that casting it is hard to watch Russell and Paxinou without being disappointed at what might have been. The result is an odd and decidedly not "little" film that fails to do O'Neill justice.

Waste of money.......2005-01-06

Almost 3 hours of an unintelligible dialog take all the pleasure of what appears to be an intelligent version of the theatrical piece. For this price, IMAGE should have provided at least subtitles. It has no extras, what it is not so bad after all. Don't waste your money on this issue.

Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (Broadway Theatre Archive)

Average customer rating:

Accept for Joan Hackett and Bruce Davidson, not enough Expressionism
Excellent Production of Great Play

Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra (Broadway Theatre Archive)
Starring: Jeffrey DeMunn , Thomas Hill , Richard Russell Ramos , Josef Sommer , and Peter Weller
Director: Nick Havinga
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005OCL5
Release Date: 2001-10-30

Description

This expressionistic work is Eugene O'Neill's classic American drama of love, revenge, murder and suicide. Set against the backdrop of a small New England town in the post-Civil War era, O'Neill's saga of family discord fueled by psychological undercurrents is from Aeschylus' "The Oresteia." The end result is one of the American theatre's most shattering epic works.

Customer Reviews:

Accept for Joan Hackett and Bruce Davidson, not enough Expressionism.......2005-08-23

I saw this production when it first aired on PBS in the 1970's and I believe that I was a little too greatful for the chance to see O'Neill's play "Mourning Becomes Electra" in any form and thought I was entranced by the performance. Seeing it 30 years later, I was disappointed. I must say that since that time I have also experienced (on TV) Glenda Jackson's superior "Strange Interlude" which is not considered as good a play as the former. I think the problem lies in the director's choice not to give us the stark acting of Expressionism that "Mourning Becomes Electra" needs to send it into the theatrical stratusphere of Hitchcockian detached horror. I do applaud the late, highly underrated Joan Hackett whose feverish portrayal and heightened make-up put us in the O'Neill ball-park. Also, Bruce Davidson approaches the realm of over the top which his manic "Orin" calls for. I find myself lucky to have attended the Met's performance of Martin David-Levy's opera based on "Mourning Becomes Electra" and although the faux atonal orchestrations tended to obliterate the beauty of much of the music the production itself designed by the formidible Boris Aronson to the audience right back to the Greeks. All in all if you have never seen this play you might check out for the hot tempered fagility of Ms. Hackett and the rapid ravings of Mr. Davidson.

Excellent Production of Great Play.......2002-06-02

O'Neill doesn't get much representation these days. Staging his plays isn't always practical. This is a really excellent video version of the play that was produced for Connecticut public television. The cast, including Joan Hackett, Roberta Maxwell, Bruce Davison and Jeffrey DeMunn is really excellent. They breathe such natural life into these supertragic, archetypal, and arguably over-Freudian, characters that you really understand why this is a magnificent tragedy and not just some soap opera. The settings are good and the staging takes advantage of the medium with scene transitions that wouldn't have been possible on stage, but would no doubt have gladdened O'Neill's heart, and give further power to his already lavish dramatic design.

Unfortunately, this IS produced for public television, and there is no attempt to hide the fact. The play is presented in a series of "Episodes," with "scenes from last time" and an opening of waves on cliffs that can not fail to remind viewers of the series "Dark Shadows." But the score by Maurice Jarre is perfect and evocative throughout the production. There is
also a clinching review/discussion/commentary at the end of each episode by, for some reason, Erich Segal. I avoided this like the plague.

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