MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA (1948)

In New England at the end of the Civil War, Lavinia Mannon (Rosalind Russell) looks forward to the arrival of her father Ezra (Raymond Massey) and brother Orin (Michael Redgrave) from the war. She's been living with her mother Christine (Katina Paxinou) in the family mansion, and both women have a secret: Christine is in love with seaman Adam Brant; so is Lavinia. And the topper is that Adam is the illegitimate son of Ezra's brother. But incest seems to run in the family: when Ezra returns, we discover that Lavinia has an unhealthy obsession with him. (And as we'll soon discover, Orin seems almost equally obsessed with his mother.)  Erza wants to start over with the unhappy Christine, but when he has a heart attack, she gives him poison—which Adam helped her obtain—instead of medicine and he dies, and Lavinia figures out what happened. When the wounded and passive Orin returns home, Lavinia tells him of her suspicions and Orin kills Adam which leads Christine to kill herself. Brother and sister go off on a South Seas vacation and return to try and resume normal lives, but this proves impossible, in part because Orin is ashamed that Lavinia had a torrid affair with an islander, or so he thinks. When young Peter (Kirk Douglas) comes to court Lavinia, his sister Hazel sets her cap for Orin. Absolutely nothing good will come of these passions.

This almost three-hour film is an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill's play which is itself a modern version of the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. Little attempt is made to open the play up cinematically, and although this movie is generally disparaged by critics, it actually manages to sustain interest in the fashion of a soap opera. Russell (pictured with Redgrave) is too old for the Electra part, but once you get used to her, she holds with screen well opposite the commanding Massey (in the Agamemnon role) and Redgrave (Orestes). Paxinou looks the part but her strong Greek accent and her over-the-top histrionics work against her. However, it can be said—and has been—that all the actors go over-the-top in different ways, as that's what the material calls for. Redgrave comes off the best, though his character is not especially likable. Of course, it seems silly to talk about any O'Neill characters as likable; perhaps they can only be judged as more or less sympathetic. The young Kirk Douglas is not memorable, but that may partly be the weakness of his character. I'd avoided watching this for years, but I'm glad I overcame my prejudices based on critical perception and gave it a shot. [TCM]