The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

Cast:

Norma Shearer ... Elizabeth Barrett
Fredric March ... Robert Browning
Charles Laughton ... Edward Moulton-Barrett
Maureen O'Sullivan ... Henrietta Barrett
Katharine Alexander ... Arabel Barrett
Ralph Forbes ... Captain Surtees Cook
Marion Clayton Anderson ... Bella Hedley
Ian Wolfe ... Harry Bevan
Ferdinand Munier ... Dr. Chambers
Una O'Connor ... Wilson
Leo G. Carroll ... Dr. Ford-Waterlow
Vernon Downing ... Octavius Barrett
Neville Clark ... Charles Barrett
Matthew Smith ... George Barrett
Robert Carleton ... Alfred Barrett

Directed by Sidney Franklin.
Produced by Irving Thalberg.
Based on the play by Rudolph Besier.
Screenplay by Ernest Vajda.
Original Music by Herbert Stothart.
Cinematography by William H. Daniels.
Film Editing by Margaret Booth.
Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.
Costume Design by Adrian.
Sound Recording by Douglas Shearer.

Box Office Information:
Cost of Production: $820,000
Domestic Gross: $1,258,000
Forgein Gross: $1,085,000
Total Gross: $2,343,000
Profit: $668,000

Released September 21, 1934.
A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Picture.

Background:

For her second and final movie of the year, Norma Shearer reached the commercial peak of her career playing real-life poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Irving Thalberg’s screen adaptation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Rudolph Besier’s play made its Broadway debut on February 9, 1931 at the Empire Theatre in New York. Running until December of that year, the play, which starred Katharine Cornell and Brian Aherne as Elizabeth and Robert Browning, was one of the most successful of that season.

Despite the success of the play, however, Norma wanted nothing to do with the film version after she saw the Los Angeles opening with husband Irving Thalberg in April, 1932. While she agreed it was a good play, she suggested that he have the stage actors reprise their roles. She found the role of Elizabeth to be lifeless, to which Cornell even responded that the character was “Such a boring girl, always lying on that couch.”

Irving Thalberg purchased the movie rights for $80,000. But production was delayed when he suffered a heart attack in December, 1932. The project remained on the shelves for two years.

Remaining off the screen for all of 1933 to be with Irving, Norma made her movie comeback in Riptide (1934). The story, based on The Green Hat, a play also originated by Katharine Cornell (Trivia: Kay Francis was her understudy), brought Norma back to her sexual sophistication roles. Lady Mary Rexford, her character in the film, was the type of “modern woman” she had played in The Divorcee, Let Us Be Gay, Strangers May Kiss, A Free Soul, and Private Lives. Smilin’ Through and Strange Interlude, were adaptations of famous stage plays, to which Norma had great successes in both movies.

Unfortunately, with a war on censorship highlighted by an interesting article in the October, 1934 issue of Photoplay Magazine, those sophisticated parts became a thing of the past. Hollywood was no longer able to produce films like Riptide, and Norma began to look at the Barretts project in a different light.

But her wait for the assignment aroused problems. William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies had their eyes on the part, casting Marion in the role of Elizabeth. The two had gone as far as to make Marion do an hour-long test for the part, clips which were edited by Margaret Booth. But Louis B. Mayer and Thalberg remained insistent, however. As Marion commented in her autobiography:

I couldn’t be a sick, consumptive Elizabeth Browning because, they said, “Marion’s too lively. She’s got to do comedy.”

I was frustrated at each end. [Hearst] was more mad than I was. He said “I don’t want you to ever have more to do with the MGM studio.”

With Marion and Hearst moving on, the part went back to Norma, and the casting of Moulton Barrett, Elizabeth’s father, was Irving’s next task.

Basil Rathbone had originated the part of Elizabeth’s overbearing father in the Los Angeles production of the play. In New York, Charles Waldron had originated it on the stage. But when Charles Laughton learned that the part was up for grabs, he insisted on having it for himself. He elaborated to Photoplay in October, 1934, “When it was published that Irving Thalberg would produce ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ I telephoned him from London to say I had always wanted to play the father.”

According to legend, Laughton was so dedicated to his role, that he lost fifty-pounds, at Irving’s suggestion, for the part. Rounding out the rest of the cast was Maureen O’Sullivan, Katharine Alexander, and, taking the role originated by Brian Aherne, Fredric March as Robert Browning.

The film today seems to be a companion piece to Norma’s work with Fredric March in Smilin’ Through. Both highly successful critical and commercial pictures, both are distinguished works for each actor’s respective careers.



Webmaster's Review:

Doctor Chambers is visiting Elizabeth Barrett in her home. An invalid, she hasn’t left her bedroom for years now. Regular company includes her dog, Flush, and maid, Wilson. Chambers persuades her that she has to “want to get well,” citing the problem that she doesn’t want to go anywhere or see anyone. Elizabeth tries to tell him that she is doing something she loves, she writing poetry, but he doesn’t feel its enough to keep her going.

Still, she has immersed herself into the literary world, being most influenced by a young poet named Robert Browning.

After the others have dinner, Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters crowd into her room, where there is a celebration over their father’s leaving on business. Moulton Barrett, Elizabeth’s strict father, enters enraged over their presence at her bedside. They leave, and he sends for a coup of porter, a drink Elizabeth despises, though there is some medical gain from her drinking of it.

Alone in her bedroom after everyone leaves, Wilson enters and draws back the curtains, announcing that flowers she had just placed in Elizabeth‘s room have just died. “Nothing lives in this room,“ Elizabeth tells Wilson, who turns out lights so the moonlight can shine through the window, then leaves Elizabeth.

Believing her life is coming to an end, she embraces flush, breaks down and cries.

Cousin Bella arrives one day, telling Elizabeth and her sisters, Arabel and Henrietta, about her wedding. Henrietta, a romantic at heart, longs for the day she may marry herself, though she knows her father will never permit it. Still, Henrietta sees Captain Surges Cook, an admirer who wishes to marry her.

Robert Browning gets tired waiting for the day to meet Elizabeth, and sends her a message announcing he is waiting in her hall to meet her. Arriving in her room, he announces that everything is just how he remembers it. That he has been in her room before. She laughs, and his inspiring energy gets her overexcited, and she insists that she will never leave her bedroom, that she is a dying woman.

He inspires her with a speech about how we are all dying in one way or another, and insists on calling on her again. After he leaves, she gets out of bed by herself, and pathetically makes her way to her window, breaking down and crying.

Winter turns to Spring, and Elizabeth is able to walk freely, inspired by her love for Robert. He arrives at her house one day, and she surprises him by meeting her downstairs, walking all by herself. He calls for a celebration, though Moulton remains “most displeased.” He tells her that she is taking too much fight out of herself, and, as she makes her way back upstairs, he discourages her by saying “Elizabeth, you can’t do it.”

She falls down into Robert’s arms, and is grabbed up by her father, invading Elizabeth’s personal comfort.

One of Elizabeth’s goals is to venture to Italy. Now she has the health to do it, and Robert plans to go with her, but her father once again spoils the plans for her. Concerned for their future together, Robert and Elizabeth meet in her room, where they begin to discuss their love for one another, but Elizabeth tells him there is nothing they can do. That they can never really be together as man and wife.

Robert accepts the situation for what it is.

Moulton goes away. Henrietta enjoys the company of her Captain Surges, while Elizabeth enjoys a walk in the park with Robert. “Oh, it’s so beautiful,” she realizes, becoming more inspired by the outside world around her.

After Elizabeth and her brothers and sisters enjoy quality time together, a letter arrives from their father, announcing his intentions to move the family. He throws in a few lines about their change in lifestyle, hinting at Elizabeth’s infatuation with Robert, whom reads it later and insists that they must leave for Italy immediately to be married.

She finally tells him that she would be “haunted by the ghosts of his unborn children.” She could never fulfill the true obligations society expects of a real, loving wife. He could care less, insisting that they will leave anyway, and bring Wilson with them.

“Suppose I were to die on your hands?” She asks. “What would you feel if I were to die?”

“I’m prepared to risk your life, as well as mine. To get you out of that house and into the sunshine and, as my wife.”

“You love me like that?”

“I love you like that.”

She promises they will be married. Returning home, Henrietta enters Elizabeth’s bedroom with Surges, showing him off in full uniform. He has just met the Queen. “Don’t ever let you keep from doing what you in your heart think is right,” Elizabeth tells Henrietta. Just after she gives her sister that advice, Moulton Barrett enters the room, pulling out his watch as a sign that Surges should leave. He gets the hint and heads for the door.

“This house is becoming a rendezvous for half London,” Moulton announces.

“This is the first time I have ever had the pleasure of meeting Captain Cook,” Elizabeth tells him.

“Indeed, but I infer from what I saw as I came into the room that Henrietta’s acquaintance is from somewhat of a longer standing, or am I mistaken?”

“I’ve known Captain Cook for some time now,” Henrietta answers.

“Since when has it been your accustom to buckle on his equipment?”

She says that she has never seen Cook in full uniform, and he responds that is the only way she will see him from now on (ouch!). Henrietta pleads love of Cook to her father, and that she wants to be with him. Enraged, Moulton grabs her by the arm and brings her over to a Bible, making her swear that she will never see Cook again, or she will leave the house with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Henrietta leaves, and Moulton asks Elizabeth what has happened between them, that she was once so passive and so understanding to his wishes. He continues, and he tells her that she must never leave him, embracing her more like a wife than daughter. He carries on, causing Elizabeth to mentally breakdown, giving her the final ambition to muster up the energy and leave her home behind.

Running off with Wilson and Flush, Elizabeth marries Robert, who can now take her away as his wife.

This is an incredible movie, one of the most romantic ever made. And while it is considered by most historians as a Norma Shearer film, the acting and presence of the rest of this distinguished cast force Norma to share the spotlight entirely.

Charles Laughton has the meatiest part of the film, and upstages the rest of the cast considerably. He makes no attempts for audience sympathy whatsoever, and does little gestures which add to his tightness, and his clipped speech make him more stiff and empty of human affection. His character here has dealt with the loss of his wife by forcing unhappiness onto himself and all of his children. He refuses them to marry and wants them to live with him in the house alone until they all shall die.

For his best points in the film, Laughton does extremely well in the scene where he enters the room to find Captain Surges with Elizabeth and Henrietta. His intense anger, forcing Maureen O’Sullivan to take an oath that she will never see Surges again is most realistic. He grabs her, brutally shaking her around because he feels the same betrayal a man would feel if it were his own wife.

That’s what makes his character so different. And while the majority of the critics openly discuss Moulton Barrett’s ill-conceived affections towards Elizabeth, here director Sidney Franklin makes sure the audience knows he feels this way about all of his daughters.

For Laughton to take on such a character at the time this movie was made, and his ability to pull it off and win critical appraise for his work, up his notoriety considerably.

He really was one of the finest actors of the cinema.

Fredric March is able to bring in enough energy to inspire Norma Shearer, yet he is subtle enough to stop himself before he goes over the top. While March was never crazy about his appearance in the finished film, he handles it in a way that no other actor of the time, with the exception of Paul Muni, could have. Anyone else would have gone over the top, bouncing off the walls and taking the love scenes too gushy.

Maureen O’Sullivan has one of her best assignments given to her. Sidney Franklin gives her a lot of deserved camera time and really good scenes. In fact, she upstages most of the other actors considerably here, placing second only to Charles Laughton, and putting herself on the same level as Norma.

Sometimes the talents of one actor can bring out the worst in the other players, but in the scene at the end where Laughton and O’Sullivan have their bit with her taking an Oath on the Bible at his insistence, she remains on his level. The two compliment each other fine with a dysfunctional father/daughter relationship.

Given the fact that her character is bedridden for the first quarter of the film, Norma is upstaged in the beginning by O’Sullivan and Laughton. But she’s in one of her most difficult screen assignments; making the audience remember she is here when all she does is sit on a couch while everyone moves about around her.

Things change when she first takes that pathetic attempt to make it on her own to the window. This, and the scene where she sits alone in the dark, with the light from the moon shining through her window, are her most touching.

All of the Norma Shearer charm has left her performance in this one. In many of her movies, her personality, squinting of her eyes, and beautiful smile take over. But Norma throws all the moviestar glamour away, allowing herself to be standard photographed without modeled lighting, and giving a sincere performance from her heart. She comes to life via Fredric March beautifully, and with her new change comes a change in appearance.

It is after she finds herself healthy enough for romance where Norma appears as beautiful as the audience would typically recognize her. Even then she is still realistic.

Watch for the scene where she and Wilson leave for good. Alone, Norma stops in the doorway and gives a look-over to the room where she suffered so much. A light comes over her face, and she pulls away to leave forever.

That, and the final shot at the chapel are the first images that pop into my mind when I think of this movie. And I like how Norma watches March, who has his eyes closed, while the Father confirms their marriage. There chemistry as an onscreen couple was so believable, and it’s a shame they didn’t establish themselves as a recognized movie team.

Katherine Alexander is good as Arabel. And watch Una O’Connor glide across the rooms.



Vintage Reviews:

Having enjoyed a beginning of unusual promise, the young cinema season has now crowned itself royally with a distinguished film edition of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," which was presented at the Capitol yesterday. Since comparisons are not only futile but often misleading, you will find no mention here of Rudolf Besier's stage play or of the Miss Cornell with whom it is so closely identified. Within the limited pictorial scope of Wimpole Street, the Barrett house and the park, Sidney Franklin has filmed a drama of beauty, dignity and nobility. There will be applause for Norma Shearer's Elizabeth, Fredric March's Robert Browning and Charles Laughton's Mr. Barrett. But, for the high-minded aspirations which went into its production, there can be nothing less than a shout of benediction. Hollywood could make no more fitting answer to her critics than this.

The success of the photoplay is the more remarkable since the play on which it is based happens to be less than perfect screen material. This is the romance of two celebrated poets and the heart-warming struggle of the young Browning to free the invalid Miss Barrett from the cruel domination of her father. Being a vibrant drama of the spirit, it works out its solution in the darkness of Elizabeth's sick mind and the tortured impulses of her neurotic father. The eloquence of the story resides in the conversations between Mr. Barrett and his daughter in her sick room and in the young Browning's impassioned words to Elizabeth as he tries to set her free from her own inhibitions. Obviously its limitations in pictorial variety and scope are great, and the film's reliance on dialogue is at times almost painful.

Yet the play has been filmed so shrewdly and acted with such courage and conviction that the spectator is rarely conscious of these ordinarily severe handicaps to the film's fluidity of motion. The composition and settings of the work are consummately lovely and the intelligence and impeccable good taste which Mr. Franklin brings to it are genuinely striking.

Perhaps Mr. Barrett's tyrannical rule over his eleven children is only the mistaken care of a God-fearing man who is anxious to protect his brood from the perils of the flesh. Since he loves Elizabeth best, he exerts his influence on her the more vigorously. His repressive tactics keep Elizabeth a helpless invalid in the foreboding house on Wimpole Street. When an extended literary correspondence with Mr. Browning finally brings the young poet to the house to meet her, his ebullience and good health are like a life-giving potion to the fragile and fettered girl. The bitter father and the brave young man fight a desperate battle for her soul and, when she finally discovers the strength to oppose her father's will, it is evident that the poet has won. The drama ends with the elopement, after scenes of such warmth and depth of feeling that you feel tears in your eyes.

Miss Shearer's Elizabeth is a brave and touching piece of acting, and she is successful in creating the illusion of a highly sensitive and delicate woman who beats her luminous wings in vain against the chains which bind her. Charles Laughton is, of course, superb as the stubborn, selfish and pious father. Fredric March makes a healthy and virile Browning, although his performance will impress the critical as a highly competent job by a versatile actor rather than an inspired portrayal of the great poet. The other players are admirable and Una O'Connor, in particular, as the faithful servant of the Barretts, manages an element of humor which is refreshing. A report on the acting would be woefully inadequate without a tribute to Flush, the cocker spaniel of Elizabeth. His almost human and occasionally superhuman powers of expression are so remarkable as to cause some alarm for the superiority of the human race.
Written by Andre Senwald. Published in the New York Times, September 29, 1934.



As a film it's slow. Very. The first hour is wandering, planting-the-plot stuff that has some difficulty cementing the interest, but in the final stretch it grips and holds. It's talky throughout - truly an actor's picture, with long speeches, verbose philosophical observations.

The romance between Elizabeth Barrett (Norma Shearer) and Robert Browning (Fredric March) is a beautiful exposition in its ethereal and physically rehabilitating effect on the ailing Barrett. The unnatural love of Papa Barrett is graphically depicted by Charles Laughton, as the psychopathic, hateful character whose twisted affections for his children especially daughter Elizabeth, almost proves her physical and spiritual undoing.

Not the least of the many good performances is the nifty chore turned in by Marion Clayton as the lisping Bella Hadley. Maureen O'Sullivan, Katherine Alexander, Una O'Connor (exceptional as the mincing Wilson, the maid) and Ralph Forbes all register in a long but not too involved cast which director Sidney Franklin has at all times kept well in hand and never permitted to become confusing.

The confining locale of London's Wimpole Street in 1845 limits the action to the interior of the Barretts' home, but the general persuasiveness of all the histrionics achieves much in offsetting the lack of physical action.

March's bravado style is well suited to the role of the ardent Browning, the poet. Shearer is at all times sincerely compelling in her role, even in the bedridden portions.
Originally published in Variety, October, 1934.

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