Just found this film on my Amazon Prime. So interested in the story of it, and also the story of child actor Kevin Coughlin. And then I ended up here. Thanks for expanding the scope of the film for me! Thanks for stopping by, Randall. So glad this film continues to interest new viewers, and that Amazon Prime is a part of that. Post a Comment. Thursday, March 15, Storm Center - Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt. The movie starts out with a bold title sequence and music theme that, like the movie we discussed on Monday, Trial , seems forward-looking and carries a hint of a turmoil of the early s.
The title sequence is by Saul Bass, another favorite among old movie buffs. Similar in style to the title sequence of Vertigo , we have a face, in this case a pair of eyes superimposed over the typeface of a book. The eyes are eagerly reading the pages as if searching for some information. We hear the ominous sound of the kettle drum and soon the words and the blinking eyes are enveloped in flames. It is a premonition of things to come.
The movie has an interesting premise. Bette Davis carries a book in her library about communism. It is a kind of manifesto on the idealized communist society. Bette Davis admits herself that it is propaganda, and she believes it is a foolish book. We are told from the beginning that she is an open-minded guardian of free speech. She keeps the book in her library not because she agrees with its premise, but because she believes it will educate that the communist way of life is unappealing, false, and inevitably strips the citizens of such a society of their freedoms.
The film wants the viewer to know this right off about her to have no doubts about her sincerity or her being a nice person , and the film is not very subtle in pointing out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The other problem is that the movie was not made earlier. It would have been better had this movie been made in , that certainly would have been a bold move. Hollywood is famous for concocting films as an afterthought. First, we see again her admirable willingness to work as a character actor.
She found character parts far more interesting and this probably gave longevity to her career. On the other hand, this is one movie where Bette Davis performs at her most heavily mannered. Her prim and proper intonation becomes somewhat grating after a while. Her character has been widowed many years. She lost her husband early in their marriage when he was killed in World War I. She never remarried, she never had children. They found out what you were doing! You don't belong here! Your not the librarian anymore.
Your a communist! A communist! Sign In. Director Daniel Taradash. Daniel Taradash story and screenplay Elick Moll story and screenplay. Top credits Director Daniel Taradash.
See more at IMDbPro. Photos Top cast Edit. Joseph Kearns Mr. Morrisey as Mr. Edward Platt Rev. Then, a few years later I was on a panel to look at parent complaints about books in our district's school libraries.
Once I came down in favor of censorship, and once I fought it So, I was delighted when this film was finally dusted off and shown on TCM. While I have changed my view about censorship, this film does a fairly good job of exploring the topic, although here the focus is a book about Communism in the midst of the McCarthy era , rather than sex.
This film does a very nice job of bringing forth the many issues that are involved: censorship of a book, a librarian being paid by a town council but refusing to take orders as an employee, a city council that is bowing to popular public demand, and the pure politics of it. Alicia Hull Bette Davis is a widowed librarian who -- at this stage in her life -- really looked the part, and did a superb job of acting here. This was, in my view, the last great acting role of Davis' career.
The city council asks her to withdraw a book about Communism, and points out that she once belonged to several organizations that were later identified as Communist fronts.
Leading the charge is politician Paul Duncan, played well by Brian Kieth. The town begins to turn on the once beloved librarian, and one boy sets the library on fire. They all live happily ever after as the town asks Davis to return as librarian and supervise the construction of a new library.
Interestingly, the role of librarian was first taken by Mary Pickford, and then by Barbara Stanwyck. But Davis was perfect in the part.
Kim Hunter is good as the assistant librarian and love interest of Brian Kieth surely a conflict of interest, under the circumstances. The other members of the city council and many of the townspeople are faces you'll recognize including Bing Crosby's second wife0, and they do well. This is an excellent film.
Idealistic, yes. Imperfect, yes. But it was also quite brave for its time. Highly recommended, and it's going on my DVD shelf. As a post script, I remembered this film for many years after seeing it on television once.
I recently re-watched it and was again very impressed by it. I guess sometimes one mood can affect one's evaluation of a film. Highly recommended. Hull allows this very pro Communist book "The Comunist Dream" in the liberty's bookshelf and that leads to her being fired form her job and almost run out of town on a rail by the local town fathers as well as population.
In her refusing to give into the pressure put on her Mrs. Hull ends up losing all her friends in town and slandered as a Pinko Commie and that lead to little Freddie Slater, Kevin Coughlin, who thought the world of here to turn against her. Even though Mrs. Hull seemed to take all the slings and arrows at her in stride little Freddie soon went over the deep end in not being able to handle what he was brainwashed, by the local townspeople, into thinking that his once good friend Mrs.
Hull was made out to be. It was at the dedication of the town library's new children wing that Mrs. Hull did so much to get built that little Freddy finally lost it and went completely bananas when he was ask to be in a photo op with her. By then they die was cast into what was going to happen next with little Freddie going from a book loving young boy to a book burning Nazi type. By then it was too late to stop the damage that all this red bating started with Freddy setting the library on fire and possibly, it's not quite sure, ending up killing himself.
We see in the final moments of the movie all the great books that enlightened mankind being burned to a crisps and the townspeople who in fact, in their mindless actions against Mrs. Hull, initiated this horror watch helplessly as the entire town library went up in flames. And with that the both humanism and all that was good in being an American go up in flames along with it along with it.
Bette Davis is a determined librarian who refuses to kowtow to the local board of supervisors when they demand she take a "communist" book off the shelves of her library. It's a very sincere piece of work, but it's hurt by a bit too much sentiment in the wrong direction. Kim Hunter gets some good scenes, and generally speaking the character relationships are well developed. But it bothered me that the film would put so much effort into being "courageous" about the inclusion of this book, yet they use a fictional book "The Communist Dream" instead of the book they're obviously talking about, Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto.
It's like a Stanley Kramer film, one step behind real progress but full of congratulatory claps on the back. It's not really worth watching except for Bette Davis fans, and those who enjoy laughing at how scared people were about communism back in these days, such that a film like this would be necessary.
McCarthy hysteria was largely ignored or deliberately avoided by Hollywood, so any movie of the era that acknowledged it is worth investigating. But this low-budget, very dully photographed melodrama it looks like a TV show suffers from weak writing and two annoying performers.
There's Bette Davis at her most mannered, in frumpy frocks and old-maid hair, as the town librarian who is branded a red when she refuses to lift a Communist manifesto off the shelves.
Her way of being a librarian is to pitch her voice higher than usual and snap her consonants; it's a monotonous performance, and though we eventually hear what brought her to this spinsterish life, nothing in her manner suggests her livelier past. Far worse is Kevin Coughlin as the adoring little boy who's confused and eventually maddened by the town controversy; it might be Daniel Taradash's undisciplined way with actors, but he's one of the most obnoxious child actors I've ever seen.
The always-good Brian Keith is an ambitious young local pol who uses the dustup for political gain; it's a poorly drawn character, one we alternately like or hate depending on the scene. The movie's firmly on the side of the First Amendment, but it's simplistic and unconvincingly beholden to mob mentality; you can't believe the whole town would be this frightened and prejudiced, or that the explosive denouement would be so quickly and patly resolved.
I figure the kid's going to need years of therapy, or maybe end up in the nuthouse. In today's environment--with civil liberties in question and with a book praising Joe McCarthy on the best-seller lists--this powerful and eloquent anti-censorship film needs to be reissued. Bette Davis plays a small-town librarian asked to remove a communist-oriented book from her library. The city council tries to buy her off by offering to build a children's wing to the library that she has been asking for--after thinking, she refuses to remove the book.
Not only do they try to take her job from her, but she becomes the target of a smear campaign based on half-truths and innuendo. As other reviews have stated, both the "good" and the "bad" characters are three-dimensional, and Paul Kelly in particular is superb as an old friend of Bette's who tries to defend her but is caught up in the hysteria.
The scene where Kelly is asked to vote to condemn her, pauses, and lowers his head in shame is quite moving. Columbia always made good, solid B-movies, and the direct, matter-of- fact presentation of this material only strengthens the overall impact. Also, The musical score, although subtle and not calling attention to itself, is perfectly crafted.
In fact, the film is filled with nice little touches. It will get uniformly positive reviews from the critics and it has a message needed now more than ever. If you have any opportunity to see this, do not miss it. It is amazing that Bette Davis disparaged this great film as a failure and blamed 9 year-old Kevin for not being affectionate enough!
She complained so much on the set that the boy wouldn't cry on cue, that his poor mother had to resort to pinching and slapping him.
In fact, just about everything about this film is perfect, the acting, the pacing, the music, the subject, the casting, the gorgeous black and white photography. Although there is a well-crafted plot, the real protagonist of Storm Center is not a nice librarian and a bookish boy, but an entire town going mad with fear, afraid of its own shadow.
How many movies can deliver this sort of inspiration? The great seriousness of the film's purpose elevates it above most others. The first explicitly anti-McCarthyite Holly-wood movie, Storm Center took five years to reach the screen.
Davis plays a small-town librarian who refuses, on principle, to remove a book called 'The Communist Dream' from the shelves when the local council deems it subversive. Her stand is undermined by a political opportunist Keith who plays on the citizens' intrinsic suspicion of intellectuals and anything remotely pinko. The only film directed by Taradash who scripted From Here to Eternity and Rancho Notorious , it is, sadly, a didactic, laborious piece, making far too much play with a confused small boy driven from an eager exploration of books into angry arson on the library.
Post a Comment. Monday, 1 December Storm Center When it comes to defending freedom of speech and protecting the library system from censorship, Bette Davis would seem to be pretty high up on the list of people to do the job. She's up against it here though. She's Alicia Hull, who got the free public library built in this unnamed small town 25 years ago, still runs it today and is something of a pillar of the community.
She's in the process of pushing for an expansion, a children's wing, which the local council are happy to finance. However they have something they want her to do in return. On the shelves of her library is a book called The Communist Dream , which is pure red propaganda and not very palatable, and they want it removed.
Hull agrees initially, as a sort of trade off given that she's going to get a children's wing out of it, but she spends the rest of the day thinking about it, about the question, 'How do you get rid of a book? She has strong principles and she's more than willing to stick to them, asking the council a lot of valid questions about what happens when you break them.
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