Kings Row

With the world plunged into World War II and in desperate need of morale boosting, it seems like an odd choice for Warner Bros. to release a film at this time that is so full of sorrow and bitterness. But that is what they did when they adapted the 1940 best-selling novel Kings Row by Henry Bellamann. The novel, and the film that came out of it, seem to relish in the idea that the world is a pretty miserable place and that bad things happen all the time. While that may be true, we go to the movies to escape reality, not relive it, and highlighting misery makes for a bad film-going experience. 

Contemporary reviews seem to back up this sentiment with The New York Times calling it a “Heavy, Rambling Film…” and calling it “gloomy and ponderous”. Reviews and subject aside, this film managed to be a financial success anyway and was one of the ten films honored with an Academy Award nomination for Outstanding Motion Picture. Now that it’s over eighty years old, it is interesting to go back and look at it and ask: “Does it stand the test of time?” What about this film propelled it into the ranks of the most celebrated films of 1942?

The title of the film comes from the small Midwestern town of King’s Row. There, five children grow up together in the 1890s. Parris Mitchell (Scotty Beckett/Robert Cummings) is polite and clever, living with his grandmother; Cassandra Tower (Mary Thomas/Betty Field) is the daughter of the secretive Dr. Alexander Tower (Claude Rains); Drake McHugh (Douglas Croft/Ronald Reagan) is orphaned but wealthy, fun-loving, and free-spirited and best friends with Parris; Louise Gordon (Nancy Coleman), daughter to the town physician, Dr. Henry Gordon (Charles Coburn); and the tomboy, Randy Monaghan (Ann Todd/Ann Sheridan), who is from a working-class family whose father, Tom, works for the railroad. We will spend the next two hours following the lives of these kids as they grow up and the world changes, showing its cynicism around them. 

Parris is attracted to Cassandra, but her father takes her out of school, and he loses track of her. When he finally sees her again, years have gone by. He goes to see Dr. Tower to begin his medical studies under his tutelage, and she is the one who opens the door for him. She is, however, very hesitant to even speak with him and says almost nothing. Drake has grown up and intends to marry Louise but faces the hurdle of her father, who disapproves of him. She refuses to defy her father and won’t accept his proposal. Meanwhile, Parris and Cassandra begin a secret romance, despite his friendly relationship with her father. During this time, Parris’s grandmother grows ill and dies under the care of Dr. Gordon, further souring his opinion of the man. 

One evening, Cassandra comes to Parris, begging him to take her away, but when he hesitates, she flees back home. The next day, she is dead, killed by her father, who took his own life shortly afterwards, leaving his entire estate to Parris. Drake loses all of his inheritance to a crooked bank manager, then loses his legs in an accident at the train yards where he has been forced to take on manual labor to sustain himself. This leads him into a spiral of depression. He marries Randy at this time, and she takes care of him, but his depression keeps him from leaving his bed, and she fears he will never recover, emotionally. Eventually, though, Parris will discover that there is more to Drake’s physical condition than initially realized, but he fears revealing this will only further destroy his best friend. 

The only thing keeping this film from being completely depressing is the romance between Randy and Drake. He marries her but thinks it is out of pity, only to discover that she really does deeply love him, no matter what. This comes very late in the film, though, after a lot of unpleasant material. By the time we get this stuff, we have spent well over an hour mired in unpleasant characters bringing down the few that we actually like. It overwhelms the emotional core of the film, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. The book was so dense with characters and moments that it couldn’t have possibly been translated to the screen properly in the allotted time, so by doing so, it leaves out too much necessary character development to salvage what we do get. A larger format than a single movie was needed to do this justice. It was later adapted into a 7-episode series in the 1950s. At the time of this writing, I have not found a copy to watch for comparison, though. 

At a time when we needed morally uplifting pictures, having a movie that made audiences feel bad just doesn’t really make sense. It’s depressing, uninspiring, and doesn’t give us a good enough reason to sit through over two hours of it to get to the finale. This could have been a good story but not the way it was created. It contains some really great performances, especially Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan, but those are juxtaposed with Robert Cummings, who looks overwhelmed and is consciously acting, and Betty Field, who is often playing it up like she is on stage trying to reach the back row. It’s inconsistent from one scene to the next and needed to be reigned in by their director, Sam Wood. Sam has done an amazing job here in most elements, but his struggles with the actors feel obvious whenever they have to act against each other. 

When this film was released, it was looking back at a time just forty years in the past. To some, that would seem like an opportunity to wax nostalgic. This film, and the book that predates it, is doing the opposite. This is an anti-nostalgic look at the recent past, taking a pessimistic view of life and small-town America. While this might represent the world more accurately than something Frank Capra would put out, that doesn’t make for compelling cinema. Instead, it makes for a rather depressing two hours where we feel bad and leave the viewing wishing we had watched something a bit more uplifting. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Outstanding Motion Picture: Hal B. Wallis

Best Directing: Sam Wood

Best Cinematography - Black-and-White: James Wong Howe

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Release Date: February 2, 1942

Running Time: 127 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, and Maria Ouspenskaya

Directed by: Sam Wood