MovieChat Forums > Alice Adams (1935) Discussion > a tragedy

a tragedy

posted 15 years ago by NewtonFigg
8 replies | jump to latest

This movie is a Place in the Sun turned around with a female instead of a male hoping for happiness by means of marrying up. It has always been nicer to be rich than poor, but even more so 80 years ago when being poor meant leading a life of unrelenting drudgery. Poor people did not have washing machines or vaccum cleaners and could not afford maids; birth control was largely ineffective; divorce was frowned upon; and employment opportunities for the average woman were limited to dull, low paying jobs. The popular songs of the day give some idea of what a poor woman had to put up with in order to survive. Think of "Can't Help Loving that Man of Mine", "She's Funny that Way", "Ten Cents a Dance". Most women would have accepted marrying a $30 a week clerk (think of "Bill"), living in a shabby rented apartment and cooking and cleaning and raising five children and living hand to mouth. If your husband got drunk and slapped you around, that was just too bad. If you wanted to escape your small town and make it big in the city, you'd more likely have to settle for being a waitress or seamstress, unless you had looks good enough to sell as a taxi dancer or night club chorus girl. However, if you were a respectable poor girl of spirit but unremarkable talents, your best hope was to mingle with the rich folk and be accepted by them. Enter Alice Adams. The rich folk were snobbish about people of Alice's class; so Alice was snobbish to her own family. The rich did not associate with servants and sneered at those who did. Ditto Alice. Alice's mother wanted to spare her daughter the squalid life she had had to endure. Alice had to be pretentious. Unfortunately, pretentious people are not attractive to those in the class they are trying to rise above, or to those in the class they are trying to reach. The window of opportunity is very short. A woman not married by age 26 was an old maid who had to settle for less than she could have gotten six years earlier. The somewhat frantic tone of Alice reflects her awareness that if she's to succeed, it had better be soon. Before judging her character, imagine yourself in her position.

[–] pmitsi-1 11 years ago

No-one "has to be" pretentious. Alice HAD the choice to accept the economic condition of her family (anyone knew it, anyway) and face what her prospects were, good or bad. That would surely earn her more respect from the "rich people" than her contemptuous antics.

Another thing I don;t like in this film is the feeling that "poor people should be ashamed fro what they are" and I believe the only reason was successful (except the fine acting) was the fact that the poor girl got the man in the end - something that pleased the Depression-striked Americans...

[–] teaandoranges 11 years ago

Alice and her mother are annoying. The father is a creep but the mother and Alice's social climbing is intolerable!

[–] xdayton 11 years ago

Loathsome movie in so many ways. Racist, classist, sexist and immensely annoying.

And yes I know it was made in 1935. Don't care.

[–] northsouth1 8 years ago

Not to mention homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, politically incorrect and just generally offensive to the finer sensibilities of our enlightened era. Thank whoever that the people of the 2090s will have no cause to look down their noses at us.

[–] hka-3 11 years ago

Yeah, I didn't see Alice as being pretentious, I just saw her making an arse out of herself.

[–] miss_anne 11 years ago

Did the OP actually watch the film?

1. Alice and her family didn't live in a "shabby rented apartment", they lived in a house. Implied in the movie and explicit in the book was that they were homeowners, not renters. It was a small house and not well built, but big enough to have four bedrooms, one for every member of the family (including each parent).

2. Mrs. Adams was not struggling to raise five children; they had two children. In the book they employ a cook full-time and hire a private nurse when Mr. Adams is ill. Neither Mrs. Adams nor Alice has to work to support the family. Mr. Adams was close with his money but he was able to save and invest a little every month, and did not live "hand to mouth". He had enough collateral to secure loans to start his glue works.

3. There is no evidence that Mr. Adams ever drinks or that he slaps his wife around. He is just tired of his wife constantly belittling his work, and worn out trying to make her understand that the glue formula is the intellectual property of his employer.

Alice Adams is not a story of a woman desperately trying to escape poverty; it is story of a lower middle class girl trying to climb the social ladder.

That being said, the story is a tragedy, in that things fall apart due to the faults inherent in the mother and daughter. Mrs. Adams wants her husband to earn enough to pull them into the upper middle class. Her goading her husband to open a glue factory causes the financial ruin of the family, relieved by a last-minute bail-out by Mr. Lamb. Alice's pretensions, lies, and constant pleadings to Arthur to not believe what anyone says about her destroys her relationship with him more than her social class, at least in the book. The movie decided that Alice should have Arthur rather than learn a hard truth about herself, which makes that ending inferior.

[–] NewtonFigg 11 years ago

Yes, I have watched the movie several times and read the book. I'll stand by what I said. I didn't say that Alice and her family suffered all the deprivations I enumerated, but those conditions were commonly the lot of the lower middle class and escaping those conditions was the rationale for a person, male or female, with some spirit to try to escape. It was considered unacceptable for women of that class to hold a job after marriage. For Mrs. Adams to have taken a job would have been a disgrace and marked the family as low class. Working class families commonly scrimped and saved to put sons through college but a daughter's only way out was to marry advantageously. I think that those who criticise Alice for being merely a social climber have no appreciation of the facts of life in the early 20th century.

[–] LarrupinLou 11 years ago

The movie decided that Alice should have Arthur rather than learn a hard truth about herself, which makes that ending inferior.

Both versions of Alice learned a hard truth about themselves, but the film version wasn't punished for it nearly as much. Which one do I prefer? Having seen the film numerous times over the years and just finishing the book yesterday, I have to admit the book's ending left me a little "depressed" at first. I wasn't expecting it all. However, rereading those last few pages again, I get what Tarkington was driving at. Not a happy ending still, but more bitter sweet. There's a light at the end of the tunnel for Alice.

So, which one do I like better? Let's just say I'm glad we have both of them to enjoy. :-)

No blah, blah, blah!