[Pen-l] The Male Animal

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Last weekend I took in the first five minutes of "The Male Animal" on 
the Turner Classic Movie channel. This was a 1942 movie based on a 
James Thurber play that I had never seen before. Five minutes was 
about all I needed since it seemed to be one of those standard 
comedies set on a college campus that usually has somebody like 
Mickey Rooney or Dick Powell running around in a raccoon coat trying 
to impress some cheerleader.

In the opening scene, Henry Fonda-playing a professor named Tommy 
Turner-exchanges repartee with his wife Ellen played by Olivia 
DeHavilland and their maid Cleota played by Hattie McDaniel. It seems 
that they were having a dinner party later that evening for some 
bigwigs at the Michigan university where he works, including the dean 
and a powerful trustee but Cleota has mistakenly put the caviar in 
the oven to heat up. Since DeHavilland played a Dixie bell in "Gone 
With the Wind" and McDaniel was playing essentially the same kind of 
eye-rolling part she played in the racist classic, that was enough for me.

About 90 minutes later, while surfing across the TV dial, I paused to 
watch a bit more of "The Male Animal" out of morbid curiosity. Fonda 
is in front of a packed lecture hall giving some kind of speech on 
the need for free speech on campus. That piqued my curiosity. But 
when it turned out that the context was his risking his job to read a 
prison letter by Bartolomo Vanzetti to his classroom, I decided to 
get my hands on the movie so much so that when I discovered it was 
not available from Netflix, I bought a VHS copy on amazon.com. As you 
will see from the case I try to build for the movie, it is one of the 
most striking Hollywood movies ever made on the question of academic 
freedom that resonates deeply with today's witch-hunting environment. 
It will have a strong appeal for left audiences today despite the 
stereotypical role played by Hattie McDaniel and despite its affinity 
for the collegiate comedies of the 30s and 40s, most of which deserve 
the obscurity they languish in.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/the-male-animal/

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