THE MALE ANIMAL (1942)

It's homecoming weekend at Midwestern University and English professor Henry Fonda is unsettled for two reasons. First, a student of his who is a campus newspaper columnist (Herbert Anderson) has just published the fact that Fonda plans to read to his class on Monday a letter by notorious anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Fonda is doing it as part of a lesson on rhetoric, and Anderson's article backs him up, but the school is not happy about it—there's a Red scare on campus and Anderson calls the administration fascists—and head trustee Eugene Pallette is threatening to fire Fonda if he goes through with the reading, even though he is about to be offered a full professorship. But Fonda is perhaps more upset by the weekend visit of former football star Jack Carson, an old flame of his wife's (Olivia de Havilland). He's coming because Midwestern is playing their chief rival Michigan, and he arrives in town bearing flowers for de Havilland for her birthday, a fact which Fonda has forgotten. Carson then announces that he is leaving his wife, a fact that makes Fonda certain that Carson is going to work on snagging de Havilland for himself. In a mirroring situation that combines the two concerns, Joan Leslie, de Havilland's younger sister, is torn between Don DeFore, a beefy jock, and Anderson, a skinny glasses-wearing intellectual. Fonda is still determined to read the letter, but he is less certain about fighting for his wife, preparing instead to let her go if she wants to. That night, Fonda and Anderson get drunk and Fonda goes on a rant about how he should behave like a "male animal," like a wolf or sea lion or tiger, or even a penguin, and fight for his position. Ultimately, he doesn't have to physically fight, as it's his principled stand on reading Vanzetti (which has to be done in an auditorium because of the interest it's generated) that clears everything up.

Based on a hit play co-authored by James Thurber, this is an odd duck of a movie, a political drama about freedom of speech which gets hijacked by a screwball romantic comedy. Or maybe it's vice versa. Either way, it's a somewhat uncomfortable fit but it does remain entertaining on its way to a rushed Capraesque ending. It took me a while to like Fonda and de Havilland, both seeming a bit lightweight in academic surroundings. But this isn't Harvard, it's Midwestern, which is a lightly disguised Ohio State University (hinted at by the Michigan rivalry, the Big Red Team football nickname, and a reference to a romantic getaway at an inn in Granville—which I've actually been to). Fonda eventually grows into the part, de Havilland less so. Jack Carson is his usual jovial doofus self, and Joan Leslie, not yet 20 in real life, is quite good. I was quite charmed by Herbert Anderson who underplays the nerd role nicely; he would be best known years later as the father in the Dennis the Menace sitcom. The whole Red Scare aspect would have made it impossible for this to get made a few years later, and the issues of academic freedom brought up are once again, unfortunately, relevant. Near the end, Fonda says, "You can't suppress ideas in this country because you don't like them; nobody can—yet." The Trump administration is proving that "yet" may be right now. Watch this movie while you can. Pictured are Fonda, de Havilland, and Carson [TCM]