Film Review
Melodrama was not William Wellman's strongest suit (in fact it was a
genre he personally disliked) but the director makes a reasonable fist
of this shameless weep-a-thon, ably supported by a fine cast headed by
the incomparable Ruth Chatterton, one of the feistiest American
actresses of the day.
Frisco
Jenny has what is probably the most contrived plot of any
American film melodrama, so most of its better points (and there are a
few) tend to get washed away by the homespun narrative, which seeks to
extract tears from its audience with as much subtlety as a dentist
pulling teeth with an industrial size pair of pliers (and nearly as
much pain). Made before the Hollywood Production Code
came into force, the film does at least manage to portray
the seedier side of San Francisco life without the clumsy compromises
seen in later films of the decade. The early scenes
set in a drinking house-cum-bordello are refreshingly to the point,
although given that this den of iniquity is then laid to waste in
an earthquake you can't help suspecting that the screenwriting
team included one or two Bible bashers.
To his credit, Wellman does his best to manoeuvre the creaking plot
into social realist territory, picking up on themes that were highly
relevant at the time - for example, young women having to give up their
children for adoption during the Great Depression. Jenny's first
sacrifice just about manages to ring true - the scene in which her
infant son rejects her being the most authentic in the entire film -
but her subsequent series of calamities soon becomes too much to
stomach and you can't help wishing she would just walk under a bus to
spare herself and her audience any more misery. Wellman's
direction lacks the inspired touch of his subsequent films, although he
brings pep into an otherwise stilted courtroom scene by using a 360
degree whip-pan to avoid edits that would weaken the tension.
Whilst Wellman and Chatterton do the best they can with the mediocre
material they are hampered with,
Frisco
Jenny reeks of low-grade schmaltz and is a struggle to take
seriously. At times, you could almost mistake this as a cruel
send-up of the early 1930s weepy - and you can't help wondering if that
was Wellman's intention all along.
© James Travers 2012
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Next William A. Wellman film:
Female (1933)
Film Synopsis
San Francisco, 1906. Jenny Sandoval is in love with pianist Dan
McAllister but her father, the owner of one of the town's most
disreputable saloons, is against their marriage. When the
earthquake strikes, Jenny loses both her father and Dan, and shortly
after gives birth to a son, whom she christens Dan. Tired of
begging for alms, Jenny opens a brothel with the support of a crooked
lawyer named Steve Dutton. Within no time, Jenny is a self-made
woman, but she risks losing everything when Steve kills a man and she
incriminates herself to protect him. Steve manages to secure her
release from custody, but only after she has placed her son in the care
of a childless couple. When Jenny calls to collect her son,
little Dan refuses to go with her, so she decides to leave him with his
adopted parents. Over the years, Jenny keeps an eye on Dan as he
triumphs at university and embarks on a promising law career. As
prohibition begins, Dan becomes the district attorney and one of his
first acts is to clamp down on Steve's illicit trade. When Steve
threatens to confront Dan and reveal the identity of his mother, Jenny
shoots him dead. Jenny's one hope of saving herself from the
noose is to tell Dan that she is his mother. But if she does
that, she will surely ruin his career...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.