Moviecut—My Son John

source: My Son John

In its way, this film is a historical document (albeit a misguided one), and certainly a product of its time. Made at the height of the infamous red scare, "My Son John" is so fervent in its anti-Communist message that it becomes somewhat fascinating as a piece of social history.The film has become famous (or perhaps more correctly notorious) as propaganda; despite the sometimes; overwrought script, the film is not without a talented cast. The great theatrical actress Helen Hayes, in one of her relatively rare movie appearances, is really very good as the mother, as is Dean Jagger as the father, and Robert Walker is fine as the son who is the object of his parent's suspicions. (Walker actually died before filming was finished, so some scenes were shot with a double or prepared with footage from Walker's earlier film "Strangers On A Train", or re-written to exclude Walker's character or requiring his presence.) In response to another reviewer, who wondered who had actually seen this film - I saw it a couple of times on Canadian television, once in the 1970's, and the last time in December, 1990. To my knowledge, it hasn't been shown on Canadian TV (at least in my viewing area) since that time. Update: The film was released on DVD and blu-ray in 2015.

MY SON JOHN has been a bit of an obscure legend for decades. After finally seeing it, I can say "Deservedly So". It's an embarrassment to everyone involved... so much so that I have to wonder if the script was written to broadly parody the film's stated purpose. In many ways, the script seems like an elaborate joke. The film concentrates on reinforcing and perpetuating the hysterical and often baseless propaganda stereotypes of McCarthy era America. It concentrates on upholding "American Cultural Values"... sometimes in ridiculous ways. In a rather amusing and decidedly quaint early sequence, women are well and truly put in their place as the family doctor forces pills on Helen Hayes for an unstated malady (clearly the effects of menopause). No explanations, just stern orders to TAKE THE PILLS, and no questions or backtalk permitted!!! You're clearly not able to understand an explanation even if it was offered... women shouldn't bother their heads with such matters. Dean Jager is forced to deliver dialog that portrays him as a simple minded dolt who knows nothing more than the blind patriotism preached by the Joe McCarthys and Roy Cohns. In an embarrassing sequence Dean passionately and almost hysterically belts out the mindless lyrics of an anti Red song dredged up from the days of the Palmer Raids and Red hysteria of the 1920s. There is a REALLY warped and twisted bit of business as Mother sends two of her sons off to the war in Korea. One son promises to send her back an OPIUM PIPE! What is Mama gonna do with THAT??? Perhaps opium is intended to be a means more effective than pills for dealing with Hot Flashes??? In a particularly jolting Freudian moment, they refer to her as their "Sweater Girl"... a reference to Jayne Russell's WW2 pin-ups that deliberately displayed her ample breasts, carefully camouflaged by a sweater. WHEN is the last time you heard somebody make reference to his mother's breasts... let alone in a context of sexual titillation? Most astonishing of all is the end of this amazing sequence... Mama leans into the window of the car to bestow a final kiss on her son... a MUCH LONGER than motherly kiss... and is rewarded by HER SON giving her a passionate hug that threatens to pull her thru the window and into his lap! This script HAD to be a put-on... NO writer would construct so many awkward, off-putting situations unless he was doing it deliberately. The rest of the script is replete with awkward, strained ideological claptrap, some of it delivered by the Right Reverend Frank McHugh!!! The Reverend Frank as comedy relief in GOING MY WAY; he did it again here, but usually in situations where comedy wasn't called for. The third son, our protagonist, is a college educated egghead who is a dupe and Fellow Traveler for the International Communist Conspiracy. The clear message... intellectuals are NOT to be trusted. They'll become Commies EVERY time. Most astonishing... when Our Hero is tagged for assassination, The Dirty Commies come out in a sinister looking, high power black sedan, and MACHINE GUN him in the streets of Washington DC!!! No one is apparently captured for the crime; they get away clean. That happened just about EVERY DAY in Washington. Yeah. I have to hand it to the writers of the script... they succeeded in poking a finger in the eye of the every Red scare witch hunter in Washington with a patently absurd movie. They skated a fine and very dangerous line here. It was absurd enough to get the point across to thinking audiences, but not so far over the top that Neanderthal ideologues could directly attack it. It makes them look ridiculous. It's no wonder that this film vanished from circulation so quickly, and remained buried all these years; it flips The Bird at every anti Red demagogue of the era.

I saw this film when it appeared on Canadian TV some years ago. Yes, it has an agenda which seemed to really bother most reviewers, but it is worth preserving and seeing for a really wonderful performance by Helen Hayes, the best that I've seen from her. We feel her pain as she suspects, then has her suspicions gradually confirmed, that her son is a Communist spy. I also liked the performances of Van Heflin & Dean Jagger. The ending is laughable, and there are some really clunky insertions of Robert Walker taken from Strangers on a Train. There is even one telephone scene using an actor who obviously is NOT Robert Walker. One can't help wondering how this film would have turned out if Walker had not died in the middle of production. But still, someone, maybe Criterion, will put this one out on DVD to satisfy film buffs.

Having just watched a mint 35mm transfer of MY SON JOHN, I can say it is very definitely worth seeing. But it is mostly for its individual idiosyncracies than for its success as a complete work. First and foremost, there is no getting around the fact that the horribly tragic death of Robert Walker resulted in, at best, a cobbled-together hodgepodge of cinema. Scene after scene has abrupt insert angles to cover lapses in material. Material that was probably shot but deleted due to necessary story restructuring following Walker's death. Dean Jagger is, for the most part, awful as John's father. Jagger was an odd actor who, when a part wasn't letter perfect for his distinct personality, often seemed ill-at-ease. Here he is often VERY ill-at-ease. Walker shows much of his brilliance and gosh only knows how many of the takes that wound up in the film would have been redone had he lived. Helen Hayes is brilliant with what she is given. Her characterization is heavily layered and perhaps if the film had been completed as designed her "Battle Hymn" scene might even have worked. Frank McHugh reprises his GOING MY WAY role as Father O'Dowd. Van Heflin is excellent as the FBI man (Todd Karnes is his partner). The biggest problem with the story is that there is really no narrative explanation of just what John was doing as a Communist. Had the film remained a pure character study of a clash of ideals and personalities it would have succeeded. It would even make a very good play. The procedural scenes with Heflin & Company are uninvolving. Again, how much of this was contrived after Walker's passing. So, if you have an opportunity, see the film. It's neither fish nor fowl; as a whole it is by no means good; but its individual elements are often fascinating and very rewarding. Probably the best line in the film is when Helen Hayes chastises Van Heflin, "What are you trying to do - fire up my patriotism?" Don't let the anti-anti-Communist zealots scare you away.

Ever since a friend in grad school described it: "Robert Walker is mean to his mother, so everyone suspects he's a Communist." It was worth the wait: it is spectacularly awful. Some other reviewers say the last 3rd is spoiled because of Walker's death. Not true: This movie is a disaster from the first scene. McCarey tries to present everyone but Walker as a simple, patriotic American. He succeeds in making patriotism look simple-minded. Walker seems to be still playing Bruno, ironic in a world of terminally sincere people. (He's literally Bruno in the scenes spliced in from "Strangers on a Train.") And Helen Hayes! She seems to think she's playing Mary Tyrone in a road company of "Long Day's Journey," and she's pitching it to the back balcony: only morphine addiction and withdrawal could justify the split-second mood swings that occur within a single sentence. Thanks to TCM for making my dream come true. And for showing pro-Soviet films that are as wonderfully bad in their way as "My Son John." Apparently the thought of the Soviet Union turned everyone in Hollywood, friend and foe, into hysterical simpletons.

My reason for giving this film a 4 is for some problems with the acting as well as the contrived ending necessitated by the untimely death of Robert Walker. My complaints about the actual subject matter of the film are minimal, as, despite some revisionist history, there apparently was some Communist infiltration of parts of the US government (particularly the State Department)--as shown by the release of records from the Soviet archives in the 1990s. Was it as bad a problem as the film shows--perhaps not. And, did justifiable concerns about this justify trampling the First Amendment right to free speech--of course not. But it was a serious problem and it was a very scary time in the world--with two nuclear powers nearing a deadly showdown. And, while there was a 'Red Scare' (with some terrible abuses of civil rights), there actually was a reason to be scared. So it's natural that a film would dramatize this struggle. Sadly, despite the timeliness of the movie, they sure didn't do a particularly good job of it. Instead of the film being informative or entertaining, it came off as silly and contrived. My first biggest complaint was with Helen Hayes. For a while, I liked her playing of this role. She was sweet and believable...to a point. But, late in the film, she began overacting horribly and I felt embarrassed watching her. I'm not sure how much of this was due to the poor writing or her acting...or both. Unlike Robert Walker and Van Heflin (who both were quite good), she did NOT underplay her role in the least! Dean Jagger, for his part, overacted a bit as well--but nearly to the level that Hayes reached. Another problem was the result of the film makers trying to work past the fact that Walker had died towards the very end of the production. I think it would have been better to scrap the scenes he made and re-shoot them with another actor. Instead, they changed about the script, used a double in a darkened room scene and substituted a shot from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" for his final scene--and had his voice indifferently dubbed. If you aren't looking for this, the ending will confuse you as it makes little sense. If you are, it's pretty obvious what they did--it shows. Overall, the film comes off as a bit hysterical, disjoint and confusing. What could have been an interesting idea for a film just comes off as cheap propaganda in the end--though it could have had something to say had it been done better.

It's such a distinguished cast and crew, and they look as though they felt they were part of something important--the dark, somber lighting, slow pacing, and portentous music suggest Paramount's "A Place in the Sun" from the year before. But screenwriters John Lee Mahin (can this really be the same guy who wrote the lively, bawdy "Red Dust" 20 years earlier?) and Myles Connolly make elementary mistakes: They make Walker's secret ridiculously obvious without even telling us what D.C. department he works for, and they end scenes arbitrarily. McCarey and DP Harry Stradling, another distinguished name, traffic in irrelevant tracking shots and unimportant details. And McCarey badly misdirects his actors: Hayes and Jagger are way, way over the top, and she gesticulates like a silent-screen heroine. Walker overdoes prissy (which I guess equaled Communist in that climate), and Heflin's underplaying, while not much fun to watch, is refreshing in contrast. Most anti-Red pictures of the day were Bs, and it's instructive seeing what A-picture production values could bring to the party. But the picture's, meaning McCarey's, viewpoint is odious, and even such basic functions as plotting and pacing are substandard.

Patriotic Jagger and Hayes must confront the grim realization that son Walker is a Communist. The hysteria that follows seems ludicrous by today's standards. Trust me, it did then too, but in a different vein. Hayes is in her element, emoting to beat the band. Walker is appropriately opaque, but Jagger is spellbindingly awful. What a waste of talent!