Kings Row (DVD)

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"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow'd."
--"Invictus," William Earnest Henley (1849-1903)

Wait. Listen. What's that noise? No, it's not Henley's poem. I'd swear it's the sound of dripping suds. Yes, it's 1942's "Kings Row," one of the best soapy melodramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Moreover, it does its sudsy job with such remarkable effectiveness, you'll hardly notice; and without it we might not have gotten "Peyton Place." And without "Peyton Place," we might not have gotten "Valley of the Dolls." Come to think of it, I may never forgive "Kings Row." Then again, without "Kings Row," we might not have gotten David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," either, so maybe all is forgiven. As I say, the movie is remarkably effective.

"Kings Row" takes us beneath the placid, idyllic setting of a small, fictional American town around the turn of the twentieth century and shows us the sordid underbelly of "respectable" society. The movie was extremely dark for its day, pointing out that things are not always as they appear. Even the most seemingly benign environment may be filled with corruption, decay, lies, cruelty, deceit, and murder. I suppose wherever we find humans, we find human nature, and human nature is subject to the ravages of evil. Always has been; always will be.

The movie does not delve as deeply into lurid sensationalism as "Blue Velvet," to be sure; this was made in the early 1940s after all. But, as I say, it does explore themes Tinseltown did not usually touch back then. John Eastman writes in his book "Retakes" (Ballantine Books, New York, 1989), "Hollywood censor Joseph J. Breen, whose office gutted the screenplay based on Henry Bellamann's best-selling novel, called the entire sanitized effort a 'definite disservice' to the motion picture industry, one likely to bring down 'the condemnation of decent people everywhere.' Instead it won three Academy Award nominations."

The movie covers close to twenty years in the lives of a group of people growing up in Kings Row. We see them first as children in 1890, and then as young adults from about 1900 to around 1907 or thereabout. The principals are Parris Mitchell (Robert Cummings), a serious, studious fellow struggling to become a doctor; Parris's best friend, Drake McHugh (Ronald Reagan), a happy-go-lucky ladies' man; Cassie Tower (Betty Field), the secluded daughter of a local doctor; Randy Monaghan (Ann Sheridan), a girl from the poorer part of town, across the railroad tracks; and Louise Gordon (Nancy Coleman), a daughter of another local doctor. Their lives intertwine throughout the story, and they each experience unexpected loss, betrayal, and tragedy.

It appears that the Warner Bros. studios were trying to make their film into another "Gone With the Wind," judging by the sheer size of the opening titles and the grand sweep of composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's musical score. They got Sam Wood to direct the movie, a man who had a proven track record ("A Night at the Opera," "Our Town," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," and later "The Pride of the Yankees" and "For Whom the Bells Tolls"). They had Hal B. Wallis and David Lewis as producers. And they hired production designer William Cameron Menzies and cinematographer James Wong Howe to stage and film it. Although the moviemakers shot the film almost entirely on Warners' sound stages and back lots, it looks superb. Howe's camera work is never extravagant, nothing like a "Citizen Kane," but in its simplicity, its composition, its deep focus, and its beautiful contrasts, it's about as good as it gets.

Parris is the evident leading player in the drama, although, to be honest, it is Reagan as the playboy Drake who steals the show. Reagan always said it was the best role of his movie career, and one can see why. He even used a line from the film as the title of his autobiography, "Where's the Rest of Me?" Oddly enough, none of the starring players were WB's first choices, with Reagan a lowly seventh pick. But it's really only Cummings who lets down the production with a comparatively lightweight performance.

Anyway, everything we see in the movie's first twenty minutes or so would lead us to believe that Kings Row was the most heavenly spot on Earth, but childhood can be that way, can't it? To a child, everything is bright and innocent and new. It's when we meet up with the main characters in their young adulthood that we begin to see the rot beneath the surface. Not, by the way, to imply that everyone in Kings Row or everyone in the world is rotten by any means; the story only suggests that some people are rotten, but that they can infect the rest of their surroundings.