Leo And Son

I finally got around to seeing Leo McCarey's My Son John (1952), an artistically and commercially horrendous miscalculation. It's an anticommunist film, common around the time, but I think it's an earnest attempt from conservative Irish Catholic McCarey to deal with the issue. Still, it is weird. Robert Walker plays the weak (probably gay) intellectual son of the title. His brothers play football and go off to war, while he goes to college and learns to question his country. Meanwhile, he's got a mother who smothers him and a father who's essentially an ignorant, jingoistic buffoon who tries to beat religion into him. Seems designed to drive a guy into the arms of the commies, but it would also seem McCarey wants us to side with the father. Better to be stupid but right.

(It didn't help the film that Walker died during production and McCarey struggled to fill in for the missing scenes. He even used footage of Walker from Strangers On A Train, and the finale has a law school class listening to a tape recording of Walker's big speech.)

McCarey, with his improvisational style, was able to get the kind of personal performances out of actors that more conventional directors couldn't approach. He also had masterful comic timing, cutting his teeth on Laurel and Hardy and other great clowns. But his great decade was the 1930s. It starts with great clowns (L&H, the Marx Brothers) and then moves into great story-based comedies (with the occasional drama).

He was even more successful in the 40s, with Going My Way (which won seven Oscars) and The Bells Of St. Mary's, both giant hits. But something's been lost. The films are slower, and not as smart. By the 1950s, he seems to have lost it. But I'll give him credit--My Son John may be a disaster, but it's a delirious, personal disaster.