MovieChat Forums > Of Mice and Men (1940) Discussion > Sorry, but I thought the film was pretty...

Sorry, but I thought the film was pretty bad

posted 15 years ago by bbmtwy
27 replies | jump to latest

I saw it for the first time last night on TCM. The story is strong, but depressing. We should execute our misfits? Adolf Hitler must have loved this yarn. The screenplay, direction, blocking, camerawork would have been rejected in the 1920s, so old-fashioned, so corny. This type of wooden acting might have been effective in the stage version, but it was embarrassing here. Lewis Milestone is said to have thrown the thing together in a race against John Ford's production of the other Steinbeck novel, The Grapes of Wrath. No one has to be told which film became a classic, which film we remember today.

[–] dannieboy20906 11 years ago

Authors and the stories that they write are an individual taste. If you don't like Steinbeck's style, you don't like it.

The other great writer of his time, Ernest Hemingway, has great skill as a write, but he has a style I seriously deplore and that is more like what you ascribe to John Steinbeck.

Whereas Steinbeck's novels and short stories often contain many tragic events, they always end on a positive note. Steinbeck depicts life as brutally harsh, but always allows for a ray of hope. Hemingway, on the other hand, is downright depressing. He liked to write adventure stories in which the hero is killed or otherwise severely damaged and everything he attempts fails. It is not surprising to me that Hemingway committed suicide.

[–] nammage 11 years ago

He (Hemmingway) was an alcoholic, and a great failure to himself, in my opinion. Why make the "heroes" in his books have a better life than himself? Egoism probably did him more damage in his life than anything.

-Nam

I'm on the road less traveled...

[–] coldnaps 9 years ago

The book was written by Steinbeck, idiot

[–] coldnaps 9 years ago

And you spelled Hemingway wrong.

[–] srklondie 10 years ago

Probably didn't have enough digital effects for you.

[–] albawhall 10 years ago

Hitler's film preferences included "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" (1935). [Adolf Hitler's favorite film, at least at one point. He watched this 3 times.] Goebbels supplied him with Mickey Mouse clips. Adolf loved "King Kong". I doubt Adolf Hilter could have savored any films made of Steinbeck's works, with his Nazi antagonism re: Marxism. "Of Mice and Men" seems to espouse a kind of populism. Plus, Lenny Small would have been a prime candidate for the regime's eugenic euthanasia program for mentally unworthy categories aimed at reducing the surplus population.

[–] hamiam3 10 years ago

You're right, bbmtwy. You're sorry. About as sorry as they come.

[–] busterboo 9 years ago

there was no wooden acting in this....did you actually watch the film? you couldn't have...

[–] darryl-tahirali 9 years ago

We should execute our misfits? Adolf Hitler must have loved this yarn. - bbmtwy

Godwin right off the bat! Pre-emptive strike!

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"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." - Noam Chomsky