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~"I was extremely uncomfortable with a British accent."
~Joan Crawford on "Today We Live."~
"Today We Live" 1933
Cast: Joan Crawford~Gary Cooper~Robert Young~Franchot Tone~Roscoe Karns~Louise Closser Hale~Rollo Llyod~Hilda Vaughn.
Director: Howard Hawks
Box Office Figures for "Today We Live"
Cost: $663K ~ Domestic Studio Gross: $590K ~ Foreign Studio Gross: $445K
Total: $1,035m. / LOSS: $23,000
If you have seen this movie, please write a review below. Once your review is submitted, I will post the review below. Thank
you for your review on this film.
Reviews
Reviewer: writerdonna7
Stars: Four
"Today We Live" is one of my favorite Joan Crawford films, both romance and thrilling action picture replete
with air battle sequences. As Diana "Ann" Boyce Smith, a young Englishwoman caught in a love triangle in World
War I, never before or after would she look so stunningly beautiful; I actually gasped in several scenes at how sublime her
beauty was -- it's almost painful. In the early and mid-30's, she was indeed at her apex in this regard and here in particular,
she looks more beautiful in the trench coats than in her Adrian dresses, the starkness of the suits and peaked hats accentuating
her exquisite face like a jewel against a black background. To compliment this loveliness, her performance is delicate, understated
and fine. Although criminally underrated, Crawford was actually an extraordinarily talented actress and gifted at conveying
emotional nuances and sincerity. She often manages to seem contemporary and natural when nothing around her is.
This Howard Hawks film is based on William Faulkner's short story "Turnabout" and concerns an American aviator
Richard Bogard (Gary Cooper) who falls in love with Ann after coming to England in 1916 and renting her country home. She
has just learned her father was killed in the war and he decides to go to war because of his love for her. While volunteering
as a nurse, Ann locates her brother Ronnie (Franchot Tone) and fiancé Claude Hope (Robert Young), both lieutenants. Then she
reads that Richard has been killed in the war and she marries Claude. But Richard is alive and returns to England and locates
her in France. The war turns the fate of all three. The performances are strong in spite of dodgy British accents, Franchot
Tone's accent particularly horrid and Crawford's the best. And, yes, there is an odd lack of pronouns -- oh, they surface
occasionally, but for the most part, the actors are forced to talk in clipped shorthand. "Sister. Mine." (Tone
indicating Ann). "See better now. See lots of things." (Young) "He was here. Left this. Will come again."
(Crawford) For me, it achieved a kind of poetry and wasn't overly distracting, becoming part of the rhythm and peculiar beauty
of the film. (But it is a little humorous, too.)
The bomber plane action sequences are surprisingly effective and exciting. The one squeamish part is the fact that Crawford
handles a cockroach in one scene as Tone and Young look on eagerly, treating it as a plaything, and in later scenes, soldiers
use cockroaches to duel the way some use chickens. It was most likely something that Faulkner himself experienced in the war,
but did Crawford really handle a bug or was it a fake? Since Crawford and Tone were falling in love at the time, their scenes
as brother and sister also have more heat than her scenes with the other two men and the "familial" kisses are quite
amusing in their emotional intensity.
In all, one of Crawford's finest performances of the 30's and her peak of considerable beauty.
If you have seen this movie, please write a review below. Once your review is submitted, I will post the review below. Thank
you for your review on this film.
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