ONLY YESTERDAY (1933)
Posted: September 15th, 2012, 5:10 pm
Palo Alto’s Universal series opened this week with ONLY YESTERDAY (1933). All the films being screened are 35mm prints provided directly by Universal, according to The Stanford management. The print quality of ONLY YESTERDAY was very good – no scratches, skips and only slightly soft. This was my first viewing of this movie, although I had recalled seeing a clip that had been posted on Youtube of a critical moment in the plot. I had known that this was Margaret Sullavan’s film debut, but I had not been aware until recently that this screenplay was based upon the same novel that was the source for LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. Starring opposite Sullavan is John Boles, secondary roles handled by the delightful Billie Burke and Reginald Denny, also with Benita Hume, Jimmy Butler. Edna May Oliver is listed high up in the credits, but I was disappointed in that she is only featured briefly in the opening party scene, as well as Franklin Pangborn, with Jane Darwell also in a short scene in the beginning of the film.
There is the most spectacular cocktail party in any movie I’ve seen which opens this film, on the very eve of the stock market crash of 1929. Wow, a stunning penthouse apartment with a two-story foyer with winding staircase accessed by a private elevator from which the most exquisitely attired party guests emerge. Every one of the women are just dripping in fur stoles, fur collars and muffs, diamond necklaces, broaches and multiple diamond bracelets galore! There is a dance orchestra playing in the background, and I hear the strains of Are You Lonesome Tonight (hey - I thought that tune was written for Elvis!). Enter John Boles who is returning from his office a financially ruined man, faintly greeting his indifferent, unfaithful society wife Benita Hume, and then retreats to his den to pull a revolver out of his desk, and starts composing a suicide note when he notices a letter lying in front of him marked “personal and urgent”. He opens it and starts to read a tale from a woman from his past...“it seems as if only yesterday”... flash back to 1917, and enter Margaret Sullavan.
I’ll not be giving a detailed plot review here - you can find the full story synopsis on TCM database, as well as on IMdB - I’ll just convey some personal musings. Margaret Sullavan displays all of her unique charms and qualities that we’ve seen in her later films in this, her very first film outing where she carries the picture on her shoulders. She came from Broadway, as did Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, yet it seems to me those two other actresses took several film outings before solidating their screen personas. Co-star John Boles, whom I’ve always enjoyed, seems to be a one note actor? The character he plays here (James) is so much like his other roles in BACKSTREET and STELLA DALLAS - upperclass, sincerely romantic, yet open to hanky-panky at the drop of a pin. Here he has only met Sullavan’s character (Mary) at a dance less than 20 minutes ago, and they both adjourn to the distant garden outdoors to express their ardor. Is James a player, or a cad? I don’t think he comes across that way, but my goodness you don’t expect a man to show any hint of control do you, when Mary practically throws herself at him at the dance. She finagles her way into an introduction by way of a counterfeit dance card, snuggles herself at once deep into his arms and proceeds to tell him how she has had a fantasy romantic relationship with him for the past 2 years! And all so wistfully innocent the way you’d expect from Margaret Sullavan.
So my quibbles with this film have to do with the storytelling and not the acting. James has a one night stand with Mary, out in a garden in the middle of the night, and yet one year later can’t even recognize her when she goes up to meet him at a victory parade when he comes back from WWI? 10 years or so pass, they meet up at a nightclub, she lets herself be picked-up by him again, goes with him to his bachelor pad for ANOTHER one night stand, and he still cannot remember her?? I’ll just say I find this story treatment is conveyed much more plausibly (for me at least) in Ophul’s latter film.
I did want to mention how much I liked Billie Burke in this film, as Mary’s progressive thinking aunt Julia. She has just the right amount of effervescence and fluttery line delivery, without going over –the-top, as I find in her later screwball comedy performances. She was also quite touching in her supporting dramatic scenes. Reginald Denny (another favorite performer of mine) was her younger beaux, later husband in this film and I thought they made a cute couple.
There is the most spectacular cocktail party in any movie I’ve seen which opens this film, on the very eve of the stock market crash of 1929. Wow, a stunning penthouse apartment with a two-story foyer with winding staircase accessed by a private elevator from which the most exquisitely attired party guests emerge. Every one of the women are just dripping in fur stoles, fur collars and muffs, diamond necklaces, broaches and multiple diamond bracelets galore! There is a dance orchestra playing in the background, and I hear the strains of Are You Lonesome Tonight (hey - I thought that tune was written for Elvis!). Enter John Boles who is returning from his office a financially ruined man, faintly greeting his indifferent, unfaithful society wife Benita Hume, and then retreats to his den to pull a revolver out of his desk, and starts composing a suicide note when he notices a letter lying in front of him marked “personal and urgent”. He opens it and starts to read a tale from a woman from his past...“it seems as if only yesterday”... flash back to 1917, and enter Margaret Sullavan.
I’ll not be giving a detailed plot review here - you can find the full story synopsis on TCM database, as well as on IMdB - I’ll just convey some personal musings. Margaret Sullavan displays all of her unique charms and qualities that we’ve seen in her later films in this, her very first film outing where she carries the picture on her shoulders. She came from Broadway, as did Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, yet it seems to me those two other actresses took several film outings before solidating their screen personas. Co-star John Boles, whom I’ve always enjoyed, seems to be a one note actor? The character he plays here (James) is so much like his other roles in BACKSTREET and STELLA DALLAS - upperclass, sincerely romantic, yet open to hanky-panky at the drop of a pin. Here he has only met Sullavan’s character (Mary) at a dance less than 20 minutes ago, and they both adjourn to the distant garden outdoors to express their ardor. Is James a player, or a cad? I don’t think he comes across that way, but my goodness you don’t expect a man to show any hint of control do you, when Mary practically throws herself at him at the dance. She finagles her way into an introduction by way of a counterfeit dance card, snuggles herself at once deep into his arms and proceeds to tell him how she has had a fantasy romantic relationship with him for the past 2 years! And all so wistfully innocent the way you’d expect from Margaret Sullavan.
So my quibbles with this film have to do with the storytelling and not the acting. James has a one night stand with Mary, out in a garden in the middle of the night, and yet one year later can’t even recognize her when she goes up to meet him at a victory parade when he comes back from WWI? 10 years or so pass, they meet up at a nightclub, she lets herself be picked-up by him again, goes with him to his bachelor pad for ANOTHER one night stand, and he still cannot remember her?? I’ll just say I find this story treatment is conveyed much more plausibly (for me at least) in Ophul’s latter film.
I did want to mention how much I liked Billie Burke in this film, as Mary’s progressive thinking aunt Julia. She has just the right amount of effervescence and fluttery line delivery, without going over –the-top, as I find in her later screwball comedy performances. She was also quite touching in her supporting dramatic scenes. Reginald Denny (another favorite performer of mine) was her younger beaux, later husband in this film and I thought they made a cute couple.