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Our Town [DVD]

Screenplay : Thornton Wilder, Frank Craven, Harry Chandlee (based on the play by Thornton Wilder)

MPAA Rating : NR

Year of Release : 1940

Stars : William Holden (George Gibbs), Martha Scott (Emily Webb), Fay Bainter (Mrs. Gibbs), Beulah Bondi (Mrs. Webb), Thomas Mitchell (Dr. Gibbs), Guy Kibbee (Editor Webb), Stuart Erwin (Howie Newsome), Frank Craven (Mr. Morgan, the narrator)

Playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder believed that life was only worth living if you treasured each moment in time. In the late 1930s, he won the Pulitzer Prize for one his first long plays, "Our Town," a three-act piece that was designed to be performed without sets.

In that sense, it is somewhat ironic that the 1940 film version of "Our Town" was heralded for the wonderful set design by William Cameron Menzies, who also designed the sets for "Gone With the Wind" (1939). While the film was greatly successful at the time of its release (it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture), today it seems quite dated in its theatrical clunkiness.

This is not to say that the film does not retain a certain level of effectiveness. In fact, much of the dialogue still sounds fresh and realistic, even by today's standards that usually relegate older movie dialogue to camp status, and there are a number of truly arresting scenes that capture the eye and burn into the mind. One of the best is a high shot of a line of people under identical black umbrellas trudging up a hill in the rain toward a funeral. It is a cliched shot to be sure, but it is so simple and primal in its emotional impact that it still packs a wallop.

"Our Town" takes place in a fictional New Hampshire village at the turn of the 20th century (one of the film's persistent themes is the unavoidable nature of natural change). The story is narrated by the local druggist, a man named Mr. Morgan, who essentially takes the audience on a guided tour through the folksy town, introducing characters and locations while offering a bit of history.

The movie version is clunky precisely because it relies on the theatrical device of Mr. Morgan (Frank Craven) as an omniscient narrator who both interacts as a character within the story and also speaks directly to the audience. The breaking of the fourth wall between the narrative and the audience is so complete in "Our Town" that, at one point, the narrator asks various characters to "talk" to the audience about the town. He even asks if members of the audience have any questions, and we hear several fabricated voices from the "audience" throw out queries. This may have worked well in the close, physical environment of the theater, but on celluloid it comes across as goofy and forced.

However, "Our Town" does have its strengths, most notably the fine performances of the lead actors. A young William Holden, ages away from the embittered, dying outlaw he would play in Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (1969), plays a genial teenager who longs for his next-door neighbor, Emily (Martha Scott, reprising the role she created in the original stage production). Much of "Our Town" is their story, a youthful melodrama about burgeoning love and the realization of the need to enjoy each moment in its own. The narrative uses a near-death experience as a device to allow Emily to look back on her life and reassess all the moments she had taken for granted. In a way his devices is hokey, but at the same time, the eloquent manner in which it is staged by director Sam Wood allows it takes on great emotional and spiritual significance (it is also aided greatly by a wonderful score by Aaron Copland)..

Sam Wood directed many other notable films in the '30s and '40s, many of which were melodramas in the same vein as "Our Town." Here, he keeps the emotional lid fairly tight and doesn't let the melodrama go overboard (as he did in the ludicrously over-the-top 1942 film "Kings Row"). In some ways, this makes "Our Town" seem a bit staid, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of pounding forward with tragedy after tragedy, the film moves with the gentle, sometimes tragic rhythms of life that one would associate with an idealized small town.

Many scenes are content to depict simple conversations between friends and family members, and it is in these exchanges that we grow to understand why Wilder cherished each moment so much: because they are, in the end, fleeting.

©2000 James Kendrick