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Henry Fonda is a college professor in danger of losing his job and his wife in "The Male Animal," also starring Olivia de Havilland, Jack Carson, and Joan Leslie.

Fonda plays a happily married intellectual. On the weekend of college homecoming, his wife's former beau (Jack Carson), a jock, shows up, giving rise to the professor's insecurities.

He's having problems in his teaching life as well when an editorial states that he plans to read a letter from Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco and Vanzetti) in his English composition class. The trustees aren't happy and want him to state that the article is incorrect.

As he is up for a full professorship, his wife hopes he will back down also since three teachers have been fired for being "reds."

This is an odd film with a very timely message about censorship and its dangers that by itself would have made a good movie, especially with wonderful actors like Fonda and de Havilland.

However, the home situation was played for comedy. This film didn't seem to know which it was. If I were to guess, I would say the studio wanted a comedy and the dramatic part was downplayed. It's a shame, because there was nothing special about that part of the film, except that Jack Carson was very good.

The Henry Fonda character discovers that he has to become "the male animal," i.e., one who fiercely protects his home, and not only his home, but his role as a teacher as well.

Today, when "Brokeback Mountain" isn't being shown in all areas, and more censorship is being urged, this is a good movie to see if only to remind us that the this is a war that has been fought for years. Nowadays I wonder if we're winning.

There are some actors and actresses who can seamlessly cross film genres, and then there are some who don't. While I have not seen a lot of comedies starring Olivia de Havilland, I do know that from what I have seen, despite the occasional moments of inspiration (her turn as a young, star struck debutante in "It's Love I'm After" was particularly charming) she really does her best work in melodramas. Unfortunately, in Elliott Nugent's 1942 film "The Male Animal", de Havilland proves that her successful comedic turns are most certainly an exception and not the rule.

"The Male Animal" focuses on Tommy Turner, (Fonda) an English professor at Midwestern College in Michigan. His effervescent wife Ellen (de Havilland) is both celebrating her birthday and planning a dinner party the eve of the small college town's biggest football game of the year. Tommy, a fairly serious academic, is vexed when he finds out that one of their weekend guests will be Joe Ferguson, the former captain of the football team and all-around campus hero. Joe and Ellen have a romantic history together (she was head cheerleader to his football hero), an element that is further complicated when he finds out that Joe is recently separated from his wife. A subplot involving Ellen's younger sister Patricia and her two beaus mirror Ellen's situation; boyfriend #1, Wally, is the current football star and boyfriend #2, Michael, is a scholar. The two plots collide when Michael writes an editorial for the school paper hailing Tommy's decision to read a letter written by Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco-Vanzetti fame) in his class the following Monday. Tommy soon becomes a target for the school's trustees and his job situation becomes unstable while he decides whether he is going to succumb to the trustees and not read the letter, or exercise his academic and personal rights. Between his job situation and his fear of losing his wife, Tommy ends up having an unprecedented weekend.

Like the plot itself, "The Male Animal" is conflicted in the kind of movie it wants to be. On one hand, it is a goofy physical comedy wrought with misunderstandings worthy of Shakespeare (or Three's Company), yet it throws in a fairly compelling subplot concerning the freedom of speech element that is great on its merits, but coupled with the silliness around it, it doesn't quite fit. Fonda is a great, laid-back actor who doesn't look lost with comedy, and while my first impression is that he looked a little lost and befuddled during the high hilarity, I can safely attribute that to the character that he played. de Havilland, on the other hand, is charming for a total of 15 minutes of her screen time and spends the rest of the film being shrill and acting helpless. It is films like this that remind me of her comedic limitations; actresses such as Bette Davis or Myrna Loy are able to slide effortlessly between the comedic and dramatic genres I think, because they have a wryness about that. Davis is able to deliver a comedic line with a whip smart raise of an eyebrow and Loy has the aplomb and class to deliver a line with typical dry humor. de Havilland, at least in my experience, doesn't always possess these gifts, and therefore failed in this film. Jack Carson played the same kind of role here as he did in "Mildred Pierce" or "Arsenic and Old Lace"; he is predictable, but his predictability works.

"The Male Animal" is billed as a comedy/romance, and there is indeed some comedy and some romance. Unfortunately, by throwing in a heavy subplot involving something as important (and, admittedly, refreshing) as freedom of speech, particularly when it involves a convicted anarchist, it both waters down the romantic comedy aspects and lessens the effectiveness of the statement it is trying to make about personal and academic freedoms. If the film had either handled these conflicting themes better, or gave up on one or the other entirely, the film may have been more enjoyable, but as it was presented, and despite the fact that it featured a couple of actors I really enjoy, I can only give "The Male Animal" a 5/10.

--Shelly

On the outside, "The Male Animal" works most of the time as a lightweight comedy starring two heavyweight actors, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland. However, from the inside, 'The Male Animal' is more than just a 'brain vs. brawn' type of film, it is a convoluted mess of love triangles, rival jealousies, and a liberal viewing of the moral ideals that separate liberal America from conservative America. And if that's not enough to chew on, there's also a superfluous sub plot that features a love triangle mirroring the lead love triangle.

This sub plot is one of the weakest parts of the film, perhaps because the supporting parts in it end up being largely inconsequential to the main plot and therefore just become lighter and younger copies of the main characters. Does it really matter that Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie) finds herself caught between two college crushes, the first being the current football star Wally Meyers (Don DeFore) and the second being a nerdy journalism major named Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson)? Not really, but I have the feeling it was supposed to.

The strongest attribute from this film comes by the way of the comedic interplay through the leading love triangle between the ex-football player Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), his old cheerleader flame Ellen Turner (Olivia de Havilland) and her husband Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda). Much of the film centers on the homecoming of Ferguson and the subsequent home wrecking of the Turners. Ferguson's arrival brings out the young romantic dreamer in Ellen and the insecure jealousy in Tommy. Ellen and Tommy keep a smiling facade for Ferguson and school boosters who traipse in and out of the house, but behind closed doors lurk a lot of pent up questions that quickly turn to accusations. This love triangle works well through a good part of the film; however the impending, or rather, the implied and impending divorce arrangement that is understood, or better yet, misunderstood by the lead characters quickly becomes monotonous. One wonders how better this film would have been had it been directed by Preston Sturgess instead of Elliott Nugent. The funniest line in the film centers on the response Tommy gives Ellen when discussing Tommy's irritability at having to entertain house guests. Ellen suggests that Tommy have a soda to calm his nerves, to which Tommy calmly replies, "let's not bring this down to the level of bicarbonate of soda".

If the dizzy love triangles account for the comedy in this film, then it is the threat of a letter being read by Turner to his English Literature class, penned from the hand of a convicted criminal and communist, that makes up the drama of the film. Ed Keller (Eugene Palette), the chairman of the board of trustees at the college mentions to Turner that their college isn't a place for "too many ideas". Keller, although never having read the letter, thinks this type of letter goes against all that he sees as good in America; namely 'Abraham Lincoln', 'right guys, stand up guys', 'pep rallies with bonfires' and of course, 'The big game'.

Turner could always watch from the safety of his porch the yearly mob mentality of a pep rally during homecoming, when all that was at stake was a football game. However, this mob has assembled to burn him at the stake. His job, his marriage, and his safety all hinge upon whether he can make the whipped up mob not only listen, but try to understand the beauty and composition of the letter. Before Turner starts to read from the letter, his wife, in the audience with Joe Ferguson, looks on with pitying eyes. By the time that Turner has finished his letter and calmly walked off stage, she feels she's made a terrible mistake by not standing by her man.

What happens next is a very clean and tidy ending. Everyone in the film is in smiles and Turner finally gets to enjoy a rally away from his porch and his bicarbonate of soda.

Everyone in the cast has their moment to shine. Fonda and Carson get the bulk of what is good. Fonda seems at his best when he's in a film where he is standing up for what is right, whether it be as a juror in '12 Angry Men' or the voice of reason in 'The Ox-Bow Incident'. 'The Male Animal' is no different; his reading of the letter is brilliant. I didn't care too much for his drunken buffoonery that lead up to the end, but the letter reading at the end more than makes up for it. Carson is always a solid second banana. He is outstanding as the ex-footballer and ex-boyfriend to Olivia de Havilland. I always like to see Olivia de Havilland, she's always good, but she seemed just a tad wasted by the end of this film. She was great whenever she would become emotional at the realization of how difficult Fonda was making her decision to run away. She's a terrific actress who is easy on the eyes, but mixing comedy and drama in this film was not her highest moment.

Just like the trick 'Statue of Liberty' play employed by the school to win the big game, you might not appear to have had a ball watching this movie, but it still features a few extra kicks in it, and after all, that could be the small difference in the big game.

8/10. Clark Richards

James Thurber is best recalled for his wonderful cartoons (mostly printed in The New Yorker magazine in the 1920s through 1950s) and his remarkably fine short stories and essays. He recently got an ultimate accolade (posthumously) by having a volume of his prose and cartoons published in "The Library of America" series. The two longest pieces of writing that he created that people remember are his short story, turned into a film, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", and his other short story turned into a television dramatization, "The Greatest Man in the World". Also his writings were the basis of a wonderful television series (in 1969 - 1970) "My World And Welcome To It" starring William Windom. Quite a bit of mileage for Thurber's work.

He only (as far as I know) wrote one play. He collaborated with Elliott Nugent on THE MALE ANIMAL, a comedy set on a college campus, that dealt with the limits of free speech and academic freedom on a college campus. Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda), and English professor in a mid-western college, is happily married to Ellen (Olivia de Havilland) when two disasters hit him in one weekend. One of his students, Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson), is the editor of the college newspaper, and he writes an article praising Turner's outspokenness and encouragement of democracy, and mentioning that Turner is going to conclude a course on great epistolary (letter) writing with the final letter of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the convicted anarchist murderer(?) / martyr. This turns out to be unwelcome publicity to Tommy. Secondly it is timed for the alumni weekend, when the arrivals include the bullying head of the Board of Trustees Ed Keller (Eugene Palette) and Tommy's former rival for Ellen, Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson).

Sex and the battles of the sexes play as much a role in the play as does political correctness and censorship. First off, Michael/Anderson apparently wrote the article because of his disappointment concerning his floundering romance with Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie), who has been showing interest in the football hero of the campus Wally Myers (Don De Fore). This younger triangle mirrors the older one of Fonda, de Havilland, and Carson. Fonda is a fine teacher, but he was giving a pep talk to the disheartened Anderson. That was why he wanted to show his appreciation in writing his piece in the paper.

Everyone on campus is upset by Fonda's choice of literary example. Carson (now a successful car salesman, whose marriage is rocky and he can't understand why), feels it's wrong. So does de Havilland, who can't understand why Fonda would jeopardize his job by reading that anarchistic trash. And Palette is livid - a prime example of super capitalism triumphant, he has no use for those trouble-making lefties like Vanzetti. And since Palette is the head of the Board of Trustees, his anger can't be simply brushed aside.

The play has many nice moments in it - Carson and Palette reliving football glories of the past, with the winning "Statue of Liberty" play, that Fonda manages to simply reduce to absurdity that Carson is left wondering what happened when he is literally ball-less. The pep talk that Palette gives regarding messages from various people who can't come in that weekend - and how banal the messages from all of them are. The attempts by Fonda to protect De Havilland with an unsuspecting (and surprisingly honorable) Carson in case Fonda's future is over. And the climax, when the letter is read to the entire school body.

It is still quite an effective movie, though not thought of among Fonda's or de Havilland's leading performances. Interestingly enough, the letter (while still a masterpiece of English prose) is now known to have been ghost written between Vanzetti and a news reporter who befriended him. But that does not take away from it's effectiveness. As a study in the pros and cons of free speech and academic freedom, you could not do wrong starting out with this film.

The lyrics of Jerome Kern's "Who" resonate throughout this movie as the lead characters battle one another, both rhetorically and physically, for answers to the big question "Who?" Who does Ellen Turner (Olivia de Havilland) really love? Who does Ed Keller (Eugene Palette) like? Who invited Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), erstwhile beau to Ellen and football hero/legend at Midwestern U.? Who will save Ellen and Tommy from themselves? Who can save Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson) from "Hot Garters" Gardner (Jean Ames)? Who is Wally Myers (Don DeFoe), the current football hero, really courting? Joe or Patricia (Joan Leslie)? And who is Bartolomeo Vanzetti? and what does he have in common with people like these? Tune in to the song: i.e. "Who stole my heart away?/Who makes me dream all day,/Dreams I know will never come true,/Seems like I'll always be blue./Who makes my happiness?/Who would I answer yes to?/Well, you oughta guess, Who? No one but you." Don't guess.

See the movie. You not only gotta see the movie, but you gotta hear it, too.