Book to Stage to Screen
Son of Fury as Son of Dickens
 |
| Charles Dickens Surrounded by the Fabulous Characters He Created |
Movies had to derive from something, or some things, among them literature and the stage. Virtually any film tells a tale already told, just a matter of what, how often, or from where. To pick a single writer who influenced pictures most profoundly, I propose Charles Dickens, whose specter looms over most all, period-set or not, England, greater Europe, or the Ozarks. He still impacts, structure and people-wise, on what has been, or is being, made. Characters in Dickens’ day were really characters. No one, it seemed, was ordinary. When did un-commonality among men and women cease? Dickens himself was like no one living then, or since. Convention was less observed because there was perhaps less convention to observe, or am I backwards? Growing up I knew doctors and lawyers who were bigger than life, each on top, or getting there, porterhouse steak at the Elk Lodge to show for success and life taken on their terms. Dickens creations were believable because these people I knew seemed right off his colorful pages. We wonder what became of very well-defined character actors that once thrived on stage, later in movies. Dickens being an actor himself based many of his creations on players he had known or observed, so naturally actors drew on characters that Dickens had devised. I read a Broadway play review from 1910 where one performance was identified as “Pickwickian.” No telling how often observers spotted on-stage borrowing from Dickens. He supplied a blueprint, I think, for much of what would be acted on screens, many a performer cut from molds Dickens-cast. Son of Fury is filled with such specimen, is far from being alone among movies for being so, but one where the application is most apparent and splendidly satisfying.
“Every writer of fiction, even though he may not adopt the dramatic form, writes, in effect, for the stage,” said Dickens, who regarded his characters as “real persons” to cement a lifelong affinity between the author and his readership. Dickens did reading tours wherein he portrayed the hundreds of personalities accumulated by his novels. Acting was second only to writing for Dickens’ fascination. He kept it up upon gaining fame, wistful at having missed a life spent on stages and having “the public at my feet” (as if that wasn't achieved by the novels). Such magnificent ego, Dickens raking in wealth as to put plum puddings on each day’s table, feasting multitudes that were friends and neighbors (plus ten children he sired). Dickens wanted to be a presence in every home and became so. His novels were popular beyond modern capacity to grasp. Most were serialized in magazines. Fans used to chase down mail carriers to get theirs first or gather at taverns where someone shared aloud the latest chapter. This was help for those illiterate, but knew what they liked. Many learned to read just so they could read Dickens. The author often composed letters in the voice of his characters, becoming “Wilkins McCawber,” for instance, where a point might be better made through that memorable figure from David Copperfield. Dickens would walk fifteen to twenty miles through London nights to dial down from writing rigor of the day so he might return home well spent and get some sleep. I’m told there were four authors who achieved immortality above all the rest: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain, this consensus from those who know better our literary past, at least better than I could hope to.
 |
| Edison Marshall Bags More Big Game |
Son of Fury did not per se derive from Dickens, but sure plays like it did. Source novel was by Edison Marshall, who wrote a whopping forty-eight novels besides this one, having been talented, lucky, at least motivated enough to make a living off books from earliest on, as in comparative youth just out of WWI uniform. Think of discipline required to write 49 novels, and Marshall was a high adventurer as well, once tracking a “man-killing tiger,” then grizzly bears (aren’t they supposed to be the worst kind?), plus “the wild ox of Malaya” (which I assume there was more than one of, unless “the” really means the). Marshall and wife moved to Augusta, GA, lived a high life, of which he said best, “I went after the two big prizes --- fame and fortune --- and I got them both.” Would he care that posterity sort of forgot his works? If plum puddings were any criteria, I’d say no. Besides, he wrote Son of Fury, and that will do for my eternal vote. The book was originally Benjamin Blake, which I tried reading, 443 pages, thus fidget, then abandon, as who wouldn’t prefer 98 minutes to tell this story? I read slow besides, especially where not fully engaged, which I wasn’t by Benjamin Blake, narrative sprawling and my focus dimming. Incidents differ much between book and film, always to advantage of the film, which was screen-written by Philip Dunne, who like any scripter that adapted from novels had to hear “The book was better” from any number who probably never read the book. Dunnes of the business bore burden that was unwieldy tomes they were charged with turning into coherent films. Benjamin Blake reminded me of plowing through whole of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae to realize the 1953 movie dramatized but a portion of what went to unpardonable length in print. You can tell a phony by reflex they have to malign movies in favor of source books. Two different arts, each with much to appreciate and enjoy.
Still, it’s concept and basic ideas that count, and we must credit authors with those, but where or from whom did studio scribes get recognition for yeoman’s work their thankless lot? Viewers gave scant attention except to H’wood writers family related, or hailing from hometowns. Tyrone Power paid what he thought was a complement to Dunne by citing “Nice words” in Son of Fury’s script. How’s that for praise but faint? A Power or anyone who spoke dialogue figured same came from jigsaws that were screenplays. The things were puzzling, as in pages added, yanked out, different colored to designate changes made overnight. By the time a movie finished, scripts looked run over by a trolley. Then there were directors, stars, bootblacks .. claiming they had rewritten what was lousy by their inexpert estimation. I’d drink to excess like so many writers were this my daily grind, or play dumb tricks on fellow sufferers as “Shmucks with Underwoods” were wont to do. But then I wonder how much better Zanuck had it. Bucks stopped at his desk, DFZ the final fixer of all sick scripts. Did he see himself as anything more than a cobbler who got last lick at shoes? I read his memos and think how brilliant this man was. So who walked up and told him that? --- nobody I figure, because the only ones who knew were minions under his heel, and he’d not trust praise from them. Besides, what did a Son of Fury matter? Just another crotchet of action, exotica, Tyrone Power doing what he does to expectation of fans who’d seen approximate same before and were ready to spring paid admission for more. Still, there were standards to meet, and Zanuck took those seriously. By what was Son of Fury by studio estimate in comparison with How Green Was My Valley? That was one DFZ might be stopped on the street to take bows for (Best Picture of the Year!, so why have I seen How Green once and Son of Fury dozens of times?).
When a film was new, it was epochal, but not for long. Fruit doesn’t last either, no matter how ripe or cherry red it starts out being. I bought bananas two days ago that will never get ate, just because the market has prettier ones now. Studios knew a public’s fascination was brief, and so again, why attach undue importance to any one of offerings? No wonder so many looked upon Academy Awards as jokes, except of course those who wanted an Academy Award all their own. No worry though, because Son of Fury was not and never intended to be a world-beater, but where you look at ads and publicity and realize the thing is going to come and go like last month’s Collier’s, well, one could cry. I remember when the monster magazines would print a lavish promo from back when some chiller off late shows was spanking new, and I’d think, wow, Dead Man’s Eyes was a big deal once. Here is the thing: They were all big deals once. By the time Son of Fury first came my way in the early seventies, it was … what’s the cliché term … chopped liver. There was a UHF channel in the town where I attended school. They had a Fox package, expired, only they didn’t send all the prints back, Son of Fury among laggers. Got to where I would call them in the afternoon and “request” it for that night. Like asking the radio outlet to play a Top 40 favorite, except this was a full-length feature. But what did they care? Broadcast time had to be filled, so why not with Son of Fury? A station in Charlotte did Sunday morning movies with animal themes, My Friend Flicka one week, Thunderhead --- Son of Flicka the next. Somehow Son of Fury turned up. I asked a friend who worked there. He said they thought it was about son of “Fury,” the horse. Oh, but to bring back befuddlement that was UHF in antiquity.
It was the people whose loyalty to film was forever. Would we, if given authority, have allowed Hollywood’s past to deteriorate or be destroyed? Best custodian for movies was always the fans, but they did not have a voice. I watched some of Nightmare Alley last night, from Criterion on Blu-Ray. They had to use a surviving 35mm print for the transfer, Fox’s negative dealt out years ago. How was a thing like this permitted to happen? Had that 35mm not been at UCLA, we’d have really been up a crick. Alright, so back to topic re fan fealty. You Tube has a 1979 episode of Merv Griffin, also a Mike Douglas show, each with Gene Tierney the principal guest. We would have called Merv and Mike “fanboys” had we used such annoying terminology then, as both revered a film past in ways we have lost. To sit beside Gene Tierney and converse with her was an undoubted highpoint in the careers of these men. Mike Douglas was born in 1920, Merv Griffin in 1925. Each would have come upon Laura at impressionable age. They are carried utterly away by Gene Tierney's presence. Mike even serenades his guest by singing the Laura theme, having done so long ago as vocalist for Kay Kyser’s band. Further magic of a 1944-45 moment that we can scarcely calculate: the impact of Laura’s music (by David Raksin). I spoke with Conrad Lane about this. He was as much transported by Laura as anyone, recalls well an RCA Red Seal soundtrack album he bought in August 1945 (flip side: music from Universal’s Flesh and Fantasy). Then there was Dick Haymes’ recording of the Main Theme, the 78 of which Conrad also had.
A most “electrifying” scene in Laura? Conrad says it was when Tierney enters her apartment halfway through the film to find Dana Andrews as “Mark McPherson” asleep in her chair. Merv Griffin plays that portion in his lookback with Gene, so we can assume many including Merv got a same jolt as Conrad. Griffin and Douglas clearly count Laura among defining experiences of moviegoing life. Never mind “moviegoing” … let’s just say “life.” So giddy as to often interrupt Gene, she simply talks through her hosts to conclude points she’s making. Tierney was there to promote Self-Portrait, her just-released memoir, point of the book to pre-empt unauthorized explore of mental illness the actress long had, and now freely discussed for promotion purpose. Talk shows were gentler arenas then, as were perhaps all places, so Tierney has a soft pillow to sit upon, that is until a next guest Griffin introduces, of all people Cornel Wilde, Gene’s one-time co-star of Leave Her To Heaven. Merv wants to pursue ongoing topic of Golden Days, but Cornel will have none of it. “What Golden Days?” he asks. Tierney reminds him of all the money they made as Wilde looks back instead on Zanuck having never liked him and him not liking Zanuck. Griffin mentions “that extraordinary film” Leave Her To Heaven, a balloon Wilde pops, “It was an ordeal for me to make it,” to which Gene reproofs, “You must never say that about a picture that was successful. It just isn’t done.”
 |
| At-Center Dudley Digges Takes Character Acting Command |
 |
| Again At Center Dudley Digges on Broadway |
 |
| Baddest Aristocrat Sanders Prepares to Take Down Another Opponent |
Dudley Digges then. He is a highlight in Son of Fury, Dickension as the author might so easily have conceived him. Digges had been around since seeming Creation, a face that might register any emotion save glee. “Character” was the fence that confined him, as what else could Digges begin to be accepted at? Dudley Digges surely dreamed of a morning he might wake up and be Tyrone Power, just as Power hoped he could approach Digges for color and conviction, but would either have been well-served by such role-reverse? Digges had scratched his way slowly up, beginning in small parts, but showing more aptitude as George Arliss’ stage manager, a job at which he proved too good, Arliss not of a mind to forfeit backstage assist just to have another actor to play against. Digges realized he would get nowhere as an actor with Arliss and so struck out alone, his 1919 legit breakthrough (after years effort) in John Ferguson, where he’d not be the title figure, but “a cowardly, braggart, oily tradesman.” Digges and Tyrone Power would feed upon one another to register in Son of Fury, oily and water so to speak. Eccentric Elsa Lanchester needed Power to represent what for her character is a fleeting vision of romance. Same down the character line: John Carradine a refugee from debtor’s prison whose face was mutilated by captors, him the cracked reflection of Power. Then George Sanders the brute heavy who can never be attractive to a woman and hates Power because he is. Son of Fury was occasion for Sanders to put real physical strength behind his villainy. It’s almost implausible having Power defeat him at the end. Melodrama, steeped heaviest in contrasts and conflict, was policy upheld through literature, the stage, and pictures, a broadest and most satisfying category for reading or watching, a hot wire to emotions not disposed toward nuance. Son of Fury places outstanding from that noble tradition, but what are chances Disney will get it out on Blu-Ray? They too might think it was a son of Fury the horse, that is, if any of them could recall Fury the horse.
posted by John McElwee at 5:17 AM
9 Comments:
I read Marshall's THE VIKING when I was a teen and the small amount of sex and nudity in it was still shocking to me at the time. It became THE VIKINGS, of course.
P.S. I wish you'd not include pictures like EM with the dead tiger (as a boy I raged through the PA woods with a .22 and did horrible harm to the wildlife). I feel my share of guilt as we destroy the earth now.
Oh, John, what an epic post. "They were ALL big once." "...Misfits in knee breeches." You made my morning.
On the commentary of "Son of Fury", Powers's son points out how his father was a persuasive listener when sharing the screen with Digges and other showy actors. Recalls the story of Jack Benny, who recognized that other performers getting big laughs (usually at his character's expense) contributed to his show's long success.
For me, the problem with the title is that it implies a sequel to SOMETHING. Wonder if anybody ever paired it with modern-day "Fury", the Spencer Tracy movie, or "Black Fury", with Paul Muni as a coal miner. Also questioned the final fight. The story begins with adult Sanders beating child Powers; adult Powers taking down older Sanders is satisfying but not quite heroic. But it's a good film.
The challenge in adapting Dickens and others of that breed is to fill in those minor characters just enough for viewers to infer a whole life just offscreen, rather than a flashy show of makeup and schtick. Haven't read the Harry Potter books, but the films do a good job of giving eccentric fantasy characters a day-to-day reality.
Whenever I see the name Dudley Digges in the opening credits, I know there'll be some entertainment in the offing.
I've never been able to make it through any Dickens novel -- and this is a guy who's read at least three novels by Ivan Turgenev, whose characters' names alone throw me for a loop for the first half of the books. Yet the 1940s version of "Great Expectations" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. So I guess I'll stick to the movies.
The title is a head-scratcher, but 'Son Of Fury' is indeed very Dickensian, with its plot of an inherited birthright being unjustly denied and taken by a villain, the action then showing how the villain is ultimately exposed and undone by the law and the deprived restored to their proper rights, mainly through the latter's own enterprising efforts and pluck, but with the essential assistance of colorful friends made along the way and of an equally colorful, but also deeply experienced and very cagey lawyer or other "man of affairs".
It is also quite Dickensian in its recognition of the importance of money in achieving this justice ( or indeed achieving any satisfaction and comfort whatsoever). Dickens' own particular life as a child and youth had made him acutely aware of what money could and couldn't do for people, and those experiences show through in all of his works.
Where 'Son of Fury' fails to resemble Dickens is in its depiction of foreign lands - Dickens never set his stories outside of England, excepting once each for France and the USA, and then only for parts of those stories in which that occurs. Dickens was an 19th Century Englishman through and through - and so I have difficulty believing that he would ever have had any of his characters ultimately leave England to find their happiness, as Power's character does in this film. Judging by his written works, happiness for Dickens and his created characters was to be found in England, and not elsewhere.
Dan Mercer remembers SON OF FURY and other Fox titles on our college-town UHF channel:
The WHKY broadcast tower was on a hill to the southeast of Hickory and very prominent. You could see it from almost anywhere in town. Even fraternity pledges driven blindfolded at night to a point unknown could take their bearings from it and find their way back to the college campus. Strangely, though, the radio signal broadcast from it could be picked up thirty miles out, but the signal of its UHF companion, channel 14, scarcely reached the town limits.
I didn’t watch much of channel 14 while I was going to Lenoir-Rhyne. Like most students, I didn’t have a television set—it was just another of the ways in which the college experience there was more like that of the forties and fifties than the seventies, bell bottom trousers aside--and my influence on what was shown on the big Magnavox in the dormitory lounge declined markedly after “Funny Face” proved to be decidedly unappreciated. Someone did turn on its showing of “The Lodger” one evening, but this was abandoned after Doris Lloyd’s murder. Evidently, the crowd decided that if it wasn’t going to get nastier than that, it wasn’t worth watching.
During the year I lived in town before going on to law school, however, I got to see a lot more of the channel. I had an attic room on the third floor of an apartment building and a television set, my first, a 9-inch black and white GE portable. With a properly situated UHF antenna, I was able to bring in a nice clear picture, and so became well acquainted with the residue of that Twentieth Century-Fox package. “The Lodger” remained, also “Hangover Square” and “Hudson’s Bay,” so I could have had a Laird Cregar film festival of my very own, apparently for the asking. Other titles were “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” “The Purple Heart,” Luis Brunel’s “Robinson Crusoe,” the “Cavalcade” episode from the “Twentieth Century-Fox Hour,” with Merle Oberon, a couple of Mr. Motos, and a real oddity, “Timbuctoo,” a British film from the early thirties with some disturbing location footage of two little boys apparently being tossed in the air and impaled on spears.
There was also “Mark of Zorro” and “Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake.” Both became favorites, though I never suspected why they turned up so often. Their appeal for me was not so much in being allowed to escape from the drearier aspects of my life then, as for a romanticism suggesting the sort of adventures which might also become a part of that life. Not that I was likely to be leading caballeros in a desperate struggle or finding myself torn between love in an idyllic paradise and restoring the honor of my name, but to do something good in a good way now seemed much more of a possibility than it had before I transferred to that little school. Watching “Mark of Zorro” some evening, the attic room dark but for the glow of that little television set, suggested what dash and verve I might bring to my day-to-day existence, as though stocking shelves at a Walgreen’s could be set to an Alfred Newman score, or dinner with a certain young woman at Fang’s Chinese Restaurant a setting for the blandishments to her beauty cribbed from Don Diego’s dialog in the chapel.
What this means, of course, is that a youthful naivete might be a garden bed for many things, of which the seeds strewn from old Hollywood swashbucklers are hardly the worst.
Kevin K. has a point about Dickens' weakness as a novelist.
There is a reason for this. As GPS mentions, Dickens published much of his stuff chapter-by-chapter in the then-popular monthly literary periodicals. The result was that he was writing much like those do who today write scripts for continuing dramatic series like soap operas, or for movie sequels conjured up due to an unexpected box-office success - he was simply making a lot of his stuff up as he went along. Although no doubt he was working from some rough idea or outline, the commercial form he was using meant that he would do the bulk of his writing on the fly, with a set deadline looming every month for a new chapter.
So when Dickens' work was later collected into novel form, that is to say, published complete between a single set of covers instead of chapter-by-chapter, the loose ends and ideas and characters taken up by Dickens only to be dropped later in the narrative - which would not be apparent to those reading the story chapter by chapter over a period of months or years - become more apparent and result in a kind of lack of focus in Dickens' novels compared to the works of other novelists published complete and whole in the first instance.
Dickens was a great writer, but he wasn't a great novelist. Kind of like Edgar Allen Poe, whom I was surprised to find had actually met Charles Dickens. But that's another story.
Thinking over Filmfanman's very good point about Dickens novels having been weakened for being serialized, something I had not considered, and books I've read on Dickens do not mention it, but yes, that would surely impact a story to have it broken up over a long period of time and written piecemeal, often in a rush, and I have read that Dickens was often pushed to meet his periodical deadlines. Thanks for this insight, Filmfanman.
Last night I watched SON OF FURY on the big screen on my first floor. Would not have looked at it without having read this post. Wonderful experience. Thank you.
Post a Comment
<< Home