Fonda Comedies (Non-Wuss Division):
While we're anointing
Henry Fonda as Biggest Wuss in Classic Movies--a charge that I think is only sometimes justified--I thought some of us might like to check out one of his most relaxed roles on film early this Friday, Oct. 12th, at 1:15am, when he saddles up with
Glenn Ford for the highly amusing
The Rounders (1965).
Fonda is alot of fun here and while laid back and rather quiet in much of the film, not a wuss. I wish that he could've done more comedies like this during his career.
Another comedy to check out sometime, in part because of
Fonda's good comic acting opposite an effectively used
Gene Tierney, but also because it has grand parts for con artists
Spring Byington and
Laird Cregar, is the little known
Rings on Her Fingers (1942), which I've only seen on HBO.
Fonda as Adventurer:
Other non-Wuss Fonda parts that I was disappointed to see omitted from this month's tribute on TCM were
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936) and
Spawn of the North (1938). Where in heck are these outdoor adventure movies?
They have rousing stories, some great location footage, and the first movie pairs
Sylvia Sidney with
Fonda and
Fred MacMurray and the second has
Fonda, John Barrymore and
Dorothy Lamour! Oh, yeah, "Spawn" also has George Raft, which I'm prepared to overlook because of the other virtues of this seemingly forgotten movie. Both deal in interesting ways with the clash of modern society and the more natural, sometimes harmonious cultures of Appalachians and Native Americans.
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More Fonda Victimhood, but may be interesting:
I wonder if one of the reasons why many of us haven't warmed to
Henry Fonda over the years might be because--unlike most American leading men--he played victims of society so well?
When he did play authoritative roles he wasn't a man who proved this quality by his actions, but most often by his expressing himself through words. Also, Fonda showed how wrongheaded authoritative men could often be, as in
Fort Apache, when his martinet officer was sure he was right all the time. I like the thoughtful, reflective qualities of this actor, but this quality gives him a distance from the audience that may make him hard to warm to. Come to think of it, he's probably one of the few leading actors who could play an intellectual convincingly from this period.
The other day, after dutifully enjoying the story of
Slim, as I'd been instructed by a certain Mr.
Klondike, (good, non-wuss flick, very similar to the later movie,
Manpower. I loved the final scene of Hank climbing the tower in the snowstorm), I ran across a
Henry Fonda movie that I'd never seen called
Let Us Live (1939).
Like the much better known
Hitchcock movie,
The Wrong Man (1956),
Let Us Live, directed by the underrated
John Brahm deals with an unjustly accused man whose initiative as a cabbie who wants to marry his girl (Maureen O'Sullivan) earns him a trip to the big house and possible ride in the electric chair for something that he didn't do. The film effectively shows how he's gradually stripped of his touching faith in justice in this world. This movie seems to parallel the
Fritz Lang precursor to noir movies,
You Only Live Once (1937), but I think it may have been an influence on Hitchcock's later movie, since there is a dollop of Catholicism in this movie, as well as a sense of blind fate toying with the lives of decent people. I'm glad I saw this film. Fonda's plight in this movie is touching rather than irritating because of his relative passivity and his optimism.
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One other movie of
Henry Fonda's that I'd like to see sometime would be
The Moon's Our Home (1936) which is allegedly one of the better screwball comedies and would be interesting to me as a
Margaret Sullavan fan.
But even with these, I spent the better part of both films wishing he was Gary Cooper. 
