Joan Crawford Is Torn Between Two Brothers: ‘The Shining Hour’ Reviewed
by Rachel Bellwoar
Warner Archive provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this article. The opinions I share are my own.
“Love and marriage, love and marriage.” According to the theme song for Married… With Children, “you can’t have one without the other,” but that’s not the case for Olivia (Joan Crawford) in Frank Borzage‘s The Shining Hour. Despite being very fond of Henry (Melvyn Douglas), Olivia isn’t ready to say the l-word when she accepts his marriage proposal, which is ok… until Henry’s brother, David (Robert Young), shows up. Then the writing’s on the wall and what starts out as a happy union quickly becomes a complicated one.
The Shining Hour could easily be second tier Joan Crawford and it’s certainly not a title that comes up too often, but there’s a lot the film does successfully and one character the film gets wrong. So to get the negative out of the way first…Young’s David doesn’t work at all. Whether Young is to blame or Jane Murfin and Ogden Nash‘s screenplay – both arguments could be made, and David is a character who’s hard to stomach anyway yet not unrecognizable from other films of the 40’s. You know the type – forceful dude who won’t take “no” for an answer. Adding to David’s despicableness is the fact that he’s trying to steal his brother’s bride while married to the lovely Judy (Margaret Sullavan).
When David is first introduced, however, it’s as an antagonist who doesn’t think Olivia is good enough to join the family. At least he knows their older sister, Hannah (Fay Bainter), won’t approve so is prepared to save Henry from making a mistake. Cut to David suddenly being in love with Olivia himself and it doesn’t make sense. The film doesn’t show that transition to make it believable and instead goes from one extreme to the other without doing the work to make it honest.
While Douglas fares better as Henry, by providing moments where Henry is revealed to not be as unaware of what’s going on as he appears, The Shining Hour could do well to get rid of its male characters and focus on the three women who make this movie tick and take it from a B-picture to an A+, Southern Gothic treasure (even if the film is technically set in Wisconsin). I’m talking about Crawford, Sullavan, and Bainter, who each add depth and intelligence to characters who could’ve just been pawns or victims, easily turned against each other. Instead if Hannah hates Olivia it’s for her own reasons and she’s not about to be convinced to change them, the same way Judy won’t blame Olivia for her husband’s roving eye. Hattie McDonald and Harry Barris also make an impression in small but memorable roles.
Bonus Features:
For as long as I stuck with it the MGM radio program is just audio clips of scenes from The Shining Hour, but there are three cartoons included as well. “Porky’s Five and Dime” is the most entertaining. Instead of a stagecoach robbery of the kind you’d see in a Western, Porky’s boat is robbed by the fish under the sea.
“The Sneezing Weasel” is a riff on The Three Little Pigs with chicks and a weasel instead of pigs and a wolf.
“Love and Curses” is about an older couple going through a photo album together and reminiscing about the scallywag evil magician-looking guy who tried to break them up (and is the most on-theme with the The Shining Hour).
The Shining Hour is available on Blu-ray now from Warner Archive and to purchase from Movie Zyng.
