Plot Intro
After the end of the Civil War, the wealthy Mannon family await the return of their army patriarch, Ezra (Raymond Massey) and his son Orin (Michael Redgrave). But all is not well - Ezra’s wife, Christine (Katina Paxinou), has been caught snogging sea captain Adam Brant (Leo Genn) by her daughter Lavinia (Rosalind Russell). Eager to save face, Christine plots to murder Ezra upon his return, and Lavinia plots to expose and avenge herself on Christine. It all sounds very Greek tragedy, doesn’t it?
Rosalind Russell is probably best remembered now for her comedic roles - her turn in The Women is exceptional with her using extraordinarily honed physical comedy to outshine most of her co-stars (there’s one bit where you just see her eyes flitting around the room from behind a perfume counter, and it is pure pantomime and cackle-inducing).
But Russell was - in her time - also known for her dramatic roles too. She never won an Oscar but was nominated multiple times and this was considered her closest moment at nabbing it. Indeed she was so sure of winning that she stood up ready to receive it at the ceremony, only for it to go to her friend Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter.
So we set out to watch it with great interest. Eugene O’Neill is considered one of the Great American Playwrights - with his magnum opus A Long Day’s Journey Into Night frequently seen in ‘best plays ever’ lists. Mourning Becomes Electra is a pretty notable feat - as an attempt at redoing Aeschylus’ Oresteia - three ancient Greek tragedies around Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Electra and Orestes. It’s a well known and bloody trilogy, and O’Neill’s intentions in rewriting and setting it in the time of the American Civil War aren’t particularly apparent.
A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that the original Mourning Becomes Electra is actually a set of three plays - each comprised of four or five acts. When staged fully, it’s horrendously long and so usually directors cut it down ruthlessly so it can be done in one performance. In fact - the original cut of this film (which we saw) is just under three hours. After it won no Oscars, they cut it down to just over ninety minutes.
And boy, can you tell why. It is overlong, overacted and frankly a bit too pleased with itself. It’s my first encounter with O’Neill’s writing but he clearly likes to use fifty words instead of one, and it means by the end you are just willing the film to end. I didn’t care about any of the characters particularly - and as someone who is familiar with the original Greek plays - that’s quite a feat.
Russell as a murderous daughter doesn’t particularly shine for me. She does well in the role but there’s nothing to suggest that she would win an Oscar for it, other than it’s so bloody long. The one actor who does emerge well is Greek actress Katina Paxinou who plays Christine (the Clytemnestra role) with a real drive, especially in the first half of the film.
While Russell is still very highly regarded, I think this may be because of the comedic roles in which her performances are timeless. Here, it’s very overacted and of its time - which results in it feeling dated. If you finish a Greek tragedy and aren’t brimming with catharsis - something’s gone wrong.
Katina Paxinou’s first scene with her returned husband is brilliant - the one great scene of the whole film. She sits motionless as he implores and bullies her by turn for her love and attention, but you can see her brain whirring as she tries to out-dodge his attacks.
The script was apparently several hours long on the first draft. Despite being edited down to two hours and forty minutes - it should have lost at least another hour.
Mark
4/10
Mourning Becomes Electra is relatively fun to watch if, like me, you’ve read the various ancient Greek tragedies (particularly The Oresteia by Aeschylus) and studied them at some point in school or university. Matching up the modern characters with their mythical counterparts and noticing the Ancient Greek theatrical touches such as starting and ending the film outside the doors of the gargantuan Mannon family home, replacing the Trojan War with the American Civil War and even incorporating interested visitors and “working” characters to provide a Greek Chorus and ways in which the main characters can reveal their schemes to the audience without monologuing.
I’m a sucker for modern reworkings of old tales, especially if it makes them more relevant to modern day. But as satisfying as it was revisiting these myths under an updated veneer, I agree with Doug that O’Neill’s style is turgid, overwritten and pretentious. I can’t even begin to imagine an uncut theatrical version of this in a dark environment where you can’t pass the time looking at Instagram or nipping out for a wee. Unless you’ve written something of the calibre of Angels in American, keep your play under two hours please, some of us have stuff to do.
I found Rosalind better than Doug did. I liked her husky voice and the gusto with which she embraced the histrionic source material. But whilst it’s certainly a more “Oscar-y” performance that Loretta Young, Loretta’s charm, nuance and comic timing makes her the more worthy winner for me.
It’s a shame comedy is not rewarded as much at the Oscars because Rosalind may well have got the recognition she deserved. Born in 1907, she snuck off to acting school and told her parents she was training to be a teacher. She was initially signed to Universal (back when studios owned actors’ very souls) but was ignored and mistreated so she managed to get out of that contract and got one with the (at the time) more prestigious MGM. Her fame increased quickly and she was almost typecast as a refined, upper class lady, something she expressed discontent with. To combat this, she gained comedic roles in The Women and His Girl Friday which are easily the best examples of her acting. As Doug says, her physicality in The Women is hilarious and she gets a lot of the funniest moments (of which there are many even if the film is outmoded and sexist).
Her performances in these films also led to her meeting her husband, producer Frederick Brisson. Apparently Frederick was on a ship where The Women was being played. After watching it, he declared “I’m either gonna kill that girl, or I’m gonna marry her”. Thankfully, he only did the latter. Frederick’s good friend was actor Cary Grant, who became Rosalind’s co-star in His Girl Friday the following year. Cary was Frederick’s best man at the wedding and the two remained married for the rest of their lives and had one son together.
Details of Rosalind’s personal life are hard to come by. She appears to have led a pretty modest and quiet life (in comparison to the more rambunctious and gossip-laden private lives of Swanson, Crawford and Davis), but the foreword of her autobiography suggests she had a mental breakdown in the mid-40s following the deaths of two of her six siblings. There doesn’t appear to be much more information than that.
Her career continued in both comedies and dramas and she later originated the title role in the hit Broadway musical Auntie Mame and gained her fourth and last Best Actress Oscar nomination for this in 1958 (she was defeated by Susan Hayward). She also played the lead in the movie version of the musical Gypsy, but Doug and I agree that Imelda Staunton did it better in the more recent West End production.
Rosalind eventually succumbed to breast cancer in 1976, aged 69, and was survived by her husband and son.
Like Doug, I thought Katina Paxinou’s performance was great and hits all the right notes. A popular actress in her day, Katina was Greek and garnered a Best Supporting Actress award in her Hollywood debut. Perhaps we will add her to our Best of the Rest list.
The sheer length of Mourning Becomes Electra is completely unnecessary. If a film or theatre production supersedes two hours, it has to really, really, REALLY need it. And this story does not.
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