Clarence Brown’s Idiot’s Delight offers a first-rate production of an antiwar narrative that’s been shorn of its claws.
The Production: 3/5
Robert E. Sherwood adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot’s Delight for MGM in 1939, three years after it had given Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne another Broadway triumph. Under Clarence Brown’s direction, the movie version is softened of some of its anti-war sting, but it’s been given two of the studio’s most lauded stars as the leads and a first-rate cast to support them resulting in a shallow if still spottily entertaining comedy-drama.
Twenty years after returning from World War I and trying his hand in every form of show business, performer Harry Van (Clark Gable) and his troupe of dancing girls Les Blondes find themselves detained in an Alpine hotel resort for an indefinite stay as the Swiss border is closed as Europe is about to plunge into World War II. Among the cross section of humanity also being held at the hotel by Captain Kirvline (Joseph Schildkraut) are an English couple on their honeymoon (Peter Willes, Pat Paterson), a German Doctor Waldersee (Charles Coburn) seeking a cure for cancer, American pacifict Quillery (Burgess Meredith), and an arms baron Achille Weber (Edward Arnold) destined to make millions on the upcoming conflict. With Weber is his companion Russian expatriate Irina (Norma Shearer) who shocks Harry by bearing a striking resemblance to an acrobat he had met in Omaha and had a one-night stand with after his mind reading act with the drunken Madame Zuleika (Laura Hope Crews) had gotten him kicked off the bill. Together, everyone waits to find out their fates as bombing begins and retaliation from the enemy seems imminent.
In bringing his play to the screen, playwright Robert Sherwood has written the Omaha prologue that’s only referenced in the play, and it’s among the most entertaining sequences in the movie as Harry’s act goes up in flames and high-flying acrobat Irene offers her sympathies, clearly smitten with Harry’s good looks and offhandedly charming demeanor. Once high in the hotel in the Alps with war planes massing in formation below them, the original play takes over and director Clarence Brown seems more restricted to the bounds of a proscenium. Earlier, he’d filmed some engaging montages of Harry as a huckster, a chorus boy singing “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” and a traveling salesman in between his “At Liberty” ads in Variety and Billboard showing the passage of years that inevitably bring him to Europe and a measure of success with his girlie act. Because the Second World War had not yet begun and MGM hoped to play it safe by not offending any European countries that might eventually take part in it (in vain, the movie was still banned in the Axis nations), Sherwood was instructed to soft pedal the antiwar preaching though each of the various international patrons concerned about an inevitable conflict certainly got a speech or two to declare their points of view. It doesn’t have the punch it might have had, but the salient truths about war’s tragic waste and its predictable losers on all sides still get made. The version offered on the disc is the international edition of the film with a slightly more jarring ending.
Allegedly, MGM had commissioned a film shot of the Broadway production when they purchased the screen rights which allowed Norma Shearer to study Lynn Fontanne’s much acclaimed stage performance and mimic her heavy Russian accent and accentuated gestures as Irina. Supposedly, the impersonation was on-the-mark, but to today’s eyes, it appears as a hyper-artificial performance that will leave viewers more irritated than entertained. She’s much better and more effective swooning over Gable in the film’s early scenes (even though she’s putting on an act for him even then). Clark Gable has enormous fun with Harry Van, bulldozing through every tight situation and showing off his limited singing and dancing talents in “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” and the climactic “Abide with Me” with Shearer as their hotel is under attack and their survival seems hopeless. Burgess Meredith gets a couple of spotlight moments as the earnest peace-loving anarchist facing down the German soldiers quartered at the hotel (no surprise as to his fate), and Charles Coburn likewise gets an inspired late-film monologue despairing over his lost Nobel Prize which he sacrifices to a humanity not worthy of his medical efforts. Joseph Schildkraut is commanding as the soft-spoken but despotic captain with the power of life and death in his decisions. Edward Arnold is appropriately smarmy and selfish as the heartless arms broker, and Skeets Gallagher makes for an appealing major domo.
Video: 4.5/5
3D Rating: NA
The film’s original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 is faithfully generated in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Despite an occasional soft shot, the bulk of the image quality is first-rate and boasts a grayscale that’s really impressive with crisp whites and rich black levels. There are no visual anomalies to spoil one’s viewing pleasure. Idiot’s Delight has been divided into 28 chapters.
Audio: 5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono sound mix is quite strong, surprisingly so especially in the climactic scenes during an air attack with planes zooming by and bombs dropping. Idiot’s Delight is sonically very impressive for a film of this age. There are no problems at all with age-related hiss, pops, crackle, or flutter.
Special Features: 3/5
Animated Shorts (HD): 1939’s Technicolor The Good Egg (7:36) and 1938’s It’s an Ill Wind (7:29)
Theatrical Trailer (3:58, SD)
Alternate Ending (3:23, HD): the ending used for U.S./Canada audiences during the initial release.
Overall: 3/5
Clarence Brown’s Idiot’s Delight offers a talented cast and a first-rate production of an antiwar narrative that’s been shorn of its claws making it only partially effective. The MGM polish is still there in spades, and this Blu-ray disc does offer both the international and domestic endings of the movie.
Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
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