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PILGRIMAGE & BORN RECKLESS - DVD Movie
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You were lost, and now you are found,
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This review is from: Pilgrimage / Born Reckless (Double Feature) (DVD)
Considered lost, and certainly forgotten, John Ford's 1933 "Pilgrimage" has been digitally restored, and DVD-intact, it has returned; on a two-feature transfer with Ford's 1930 Army-gangster film, "Born Reckless(starring Edmund Lowe)". We have found an early John Ford classic, thanks to Berkeley film archivist David Shepard. "Pilgrimage" is the story of Hannah Jessop and her son, Jimmy, alone and together, on an Arkansas farm. Jimmy falls in love, and wants to marry. Hannah will have none of it. Hannah Jessop is a hard-hearted old woman, proud of her descent from pioneers. When her son falls in love and declares his independence, Hannah is confronted with the dilemma of losing her son. Hannah's solution is chilling: she enlists him in the army. As she puts pen to paper, she is signing what is clearly her son's death warrant, as World War I rages in Europe. To Mary, the girl he loves, she says: "I'd rather see him dead than married to you". In a short scene, on a French battlefield, Jimmy is killed, buried alive in a collapsing trench. Hannah is notified of his death by the town major. Her grief is real, but her stoical nature will allow no verbal expression. John Ford instead conveys her deepest inner fealings in one of the most heartrending moments of visual poetry; her hands are seen reassembling the pieces of a ripped-up photograph of her smiling son. Romantic pessimism unveils the dark side of John Ford. 10 years later, Hannah is coaxed into joining a boatload of other Gold Star Mothers who make a pilgrimage to their sons' graves in France. Ford's comic spirit is seen in the raucous Carolina hillbilly Tilly Hatfield, who befriends Hannah on the boat to France. The earthy, pipe-smoking Tilly has already lost three sons in war. On the boat, in front of the other mothers, Hannah confesses that she doesn't deserve to be in their company, because they truly loved their sons, and she sent hers to his death. As Tilly says to herself: "She sure musta loved that boy a heap". Finally, Hannah is rescued from despair by coming to the aid of a young man about to commit suicide. It is someone else's son who leads her down the road to redemption and happiness. Ford employed an unusual method of shooting close-ups for "Pilgrimage". He filmed actors looking directly into the camera, thus breaking down the "third wall" between the audience and the characters most affected by Hannah's cruelty. Part of Ford's great success was the use of great actors. He formed a "stock" company of favorite actors and friends, who returned again-and-again to supporting roles in John Ford movies. "Pilgrimage" is no exception. As the selfish Hannah Jessop, Henrietta Crosman is sometimes melodramatic, but never sentimental. The actor who plays her son, Norman Foster, had a brief run as a leading man in the 1930's, but would go on to a long career as a director, even filming "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier", for ABC television and Walt Disney in the 1950's. Veteran Robert Warwick plays Major Albertson. His career would stretch another 20 years. Charley Grapewin plays Dad Saunders. Grapewin became famous six years later as Dorothy's Uncle Henry in 1939's "The Wizard of Oz". Hedda Hopper plays Mrs. Worth. In 1936, Hopper began a 28-year stint as a famous newspaper gossip columnist. Her son was actor William Hopper; Paul Drake on TV's "Perry Mason". Major Briggs is played by Francis(Frank) Ford, John Ford's older brother. Francis Ford entered movies before John. Francis was head of Universal's shorts and serials department when he gave John Ford his first movie job, as a studio prop boy. John Ford moved up in movie-land, from actor to director, while his rambunctious brother's career declined. A two-fisted drinker, Francis Ford was eventually reduced to small acting jobs in later years. He worked for John Ford in "The Quiet Man" in 1952, and died the next year. Tilly Hatfield is played by Lucille La Verne, who was a legendary stage actress and character player in many films. Little is known about her family. La Verne made her Broadway debut in 1888, and entered silent films in 1914. Dont miss her riveting performance as a old hack in the 1935 MGM classic "A Tale of Two Cities". In 1937, La Verne provided the voice of the vain, wicked stepmother and her alter-ego, the black-hooded, apple proferring hag, in Walt Disney's first feature film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". After working on "Snow White", La Verne retired from acting, and beacme co--owner of a successful nightclub. She died of cancer in Culver City in 1945. "Pilgrimage" is an old-fashioned tear-jerker, but it stands the test of time. It has what movies don't have today. It has beauty and vision. When Kenneth Tynan asked Orson Welles in 1967 which directors he most admired, Welles gave an oft-quoted resonse: "The old masters. By which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford".
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