H. M. Pulham, Esq.

Robert Young and Hedy Lamarr

King Vidor's H. M. Pulham Esq., from 1941, is a good, if not especially memorable condensation of John P. Marquand's novel. The book, much like Marquand's 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner The Late George Apley, uses the framework of one man's life to satirize WASP conformity and repression. Robert Young plays the title character, a Harvard educated New England brahmin whose upcoming college reunion jolts him into a reappraisal of his life. Using a flashback structure, the film shows how Pulham flirted with an independent life (and Hedy Lamarr) before taking over the family business and settling down with a suitable mate (Ruth Hussey) from his own tribe. Vidor's peculiar populism never quite jibes with Marquand's acerbic tone. The flick feels like curdled Capra.

Pulham...comes from an era in which the major studios were adapting best sellers into prestige productions: The Good Earth. The Grapes of Wrath, Goodbye Mr. Chips, How Green Was My Valley, etc. Indeed, both Young and Hussey had appeared the year before in Vidor's film of Kenneth Roberts' Northwest Passage. That vigorous film had lost money because of cost overruns. In response, it looks like to me, MGM skimped on the production values of Pulham... despite the best efforts of art director Cedric Gibbons to give the film a luxe feel. The film also failed to clear a profit, helping seal Robert Young's fate as an also ran in the leading man sweepstakes of the era. Young lacked the passionate intensity needed to be a great lover of the screen. Reviewers of the day, like Bosley Crowther, criticized Young for a dull performance, but he was just being true to Marquand's orthodox character. Young's genial persona ended up fitting better on the television screen where for decades he embodied kindly paternalism on Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, M.D..

Van Heflin, Robert Young and Hedy Lamarr

Ms. Lamarr gives one of her most winning and audience friendly performances of her career in the film. She often cited this as her favorite performance, not surprisingly since the character, a working girl who values her independence, closely resembled Lamarr's own nature. The supporting cast of Pulham... under Vidor's sympathetic direction, well chosen and solid pros all, help lift the film above the routine. They include the always welcome Charles Coburn, Van Heflin, Fay Holden, Bonita Granville, and Leif Erickson.