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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.

When college English professor Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda) says that he's going to read aloud letters from controversial figures in his class, the school bosses threaten to have him thrown out. This happens during the buildup to a major football game which sees the return to campus of former sports great Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), who seems to be making time with Tommy's wife Ellen (Olivia De Havilland).

The script by Julius and Philip Epstein and Stephen Morehouse Avery was based on a play by James Thurber and director Elliott Nugent. There's a lot that can be said about the clash between the academic and the athletic on college campuses, and the subject of free speech and what is and what is not appropriate for students to hear is something that seems to be in the news every week. Unfortunately, the movie is more interested in tired rom-com tropes, with the Fonda-De Havilland-Carson love triangle competing with the Herbert Anderson-Joan Leslie-Don DeFore love triangle for cliched banality. The performances are all fine for what they wanted to accomplish, but Eugene Pallette was maybe a little too annoying as an alumni blowhard. And it's hard to make Eugene Pallette anything but humorous.

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

Henry Fonda is our intellectual, idealistic professor at Midwestern University. He is married to a woman much younger than him played by Olivia de Havilland. Fonda is going to read a letter as an example in his English class to give an example of great speeches written by illiterate people. The problem is, the man was condemned as an anarchist and traitor and sentenced to death. This gets the trustees of the University bent out of shape and try to stop him. His wife, an ex-cheerleader is being romanced by this ex-football QB played by Jack Carson. They once dated and he feels less of a man around him. The trouble in his professional and domestic life propel this comic satire. This film is based on the play by Elliot Nugent who also directs. Obviously, this movie is taking on current issues of the day to which I am unfamiliar but eager to research. It is so current that it can be applied to today's environment and politics; people who are fearful and criticize things they haven't heard or seen as the letter Fonda intends to read; nobody knows the contents. The pressure to conform and governments who censor political opinion that is dissenting or alternative, school bodies who train our students to focus on the material issues over the immaterial ones. For, the Chancellor is only interested in the winning football team they have and he feels that has ensured his greatness and reputation making him a man to be reckoned with. But other things make a man and Fonda who probably has delivered the best monologues in movies in such movies as The Grapes of Wrath, 12 Angry men, Ox-bow incident, Mister Roberts and Fail-safe delivers another one here that makes the movie. Study this movie for its take today on the follies of censorship.

'The Male Animal' is that beast which lives in all men and comes to the surface when he is threatened. This satire about American concepts of manliness was a hit on Broadway but it made a rather sluggish movie in this incarnation.

Henry Fonda is fine as the egghead professor and man of principle who proves that standing up for ones values and for freedom of speech is the manliest act of all. Olivia de Havilland is too matronly in appearance and manner as his wife. Far better is Jack Carson, perfectly cast as the brash ex-football 'hero' who turns out to be timid when the chips are down. As usual, this hearty character actor brought more to the part than the script required.

What strikes you while watching this in 2004 is that the film's message is as fresh and relevant as it was over 60 years ago. A world where athletes are lionized for little reason despite their many shortcomings as men, a world where athletics is given more respect than scholarship, a world where liberal, humanist, democratic values are attacked and constantly threatened with censure -- this is the world we are still living in. This revelation is sobering and suggests that the forces of conservatism have always been too strong in this country, and have been holding us back from all we should be. So while it's a pity this film isn't much, much better than it is, it's still worth a look for the little shocks of recognition it provides.