So Big!

Dir. William A. Wellman

81 Minutes

USA

1931

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Dickie Moore, Bette Davis, Mae Madison, Hardie Albright, Alan Hale, Earle Foxe

Often lovely and very entertaining generational sag

Another Stanwyck/Wellman vehicle (with a very brief appearance by a second billed George Brent!) is an often lovely and very entertaining generational saga. Stanwyck plays Selena who, after the death of her father, takes a job as a teacher in a small town. She takes residence on the farm of the Poole's, a Swedish family, and is often the butt of jokes for her questions ("what's in regular fertilizer?") and assertion that fields of cabbages are beautiful. She does maintain a strong relationship with the young Roelf Pool (nicely played by Dick Winslow) who reads the dictionary at the dinner table, agrees with her ideas of cabbages, and becomes very jealous when she starts a relationship with a local. The film flashes ahead several decades and follows her son Dirk (Hardie Albright), who abandons his career in architecture for the more lucrative business of selling bonds. Along the way he meets Dallas (played by Bette Davis, already marvelous even in such an early role), and eventually meets the older (and successful) Roelf (George Brent).

The screenplay based on the Edna Ferber falls into several melodramatic and potentially overly sentimental traps, but I found it so easy to fall under the spell of this story and began to just luxuriate in spending time with these characters. Wellman feels connected with the material, and finds so many engaging ways of portraying everyone from Selena's eyes (I particularly love a dinner table scene on her first night as the men in the family stuff their faces and undo their belts). Small comic details are scattered throughout emphasizing bizarre personalities, but are always lovingly included in their characteristics and are not simply jokes at their expense. It just gives a nice little memorable detail about players that would otherwise be forgotten.

The film does admittedly lose some momentum when the narrative shifts to the older Dirk, though Bette Davis is a terrific addition to the sturdy cast and inflicts some life in her scenes when it runs the risk of falling stale. But the conclusion is fitting, calm, and, in a way, unexpected in what it decides to tie up (which is perhaps not very much at all). Quite liked Stanwyck in this fully sentimental role, but I think much credit goes to Wellman for balancing so many different tones at once with some nice style to boot. Very nice film.

August 18th, 2019