King’s Row is our feature film this month and what a cast it boasts. The beautiful and talented Ann Sheridan (whom I fell in love with at the age of ten), Claude Rains of Casablanca fame, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Betty Field, and last but not least… President Ronald Reagan…before he was President! It is perfect casting for this best-selling novel that everyone said could never be made into a film. The novel covered teenage sex, adultery, implied homosexuality, sadism, incest and insanity. Yet Warner Brothers decided they could develop a script that would pass the censors. They put their best writer, Casey Robinson, on it and, though much of it was sanitized, it turned-out to be a major box-office success. Robinson managed to keep the 1900-turn-of-the-century “feel” while creating a marvelous film adaptation showing two young boys growing into men in small town America. It is definitely regarded as Reagan’s finest film… and in it he has a scene that film clip audiences will see as long as they have film.
Today… Kings Row is highly regarded, so much so that the writer Anne Rice recently wrote, “The movie so condenses and sanitizes the book that ultimately it completely betrays the book. Yet somehow, in spite of that the movie captures the beauty and feel of the story. It is true to what the novel says about evil. I like the movie. I admire it for what it accomplishes.” That is quite a tribute for a movie made in the days of the Hays office. The book is out of print with original copies priced far beyond most pocketbooks… but you can see what Jack Warner created.
Kings Row screens at Old City Hall on Friday, April 17th, 2015 at 7:00pm. Doors open at 6:30pm.