So Big *** (1932, Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Dickie Moore, Bette Davis, Hardie Albright) – Classic Movie Review 2748

Director William A Wellman’s 1932 movie has the distinction of starring two great movie queens – Barbara Stanwyck, very much the star here, and Bette Davis, who catches the eye though she is cast in a relatively small role.

Life is hard for Stanwyck’s character Selina Peake De Jong. Her gambler father Simeon (Robert Warwick) dies, she becomes a teacher in Illinois and meets an upcoming sculptor Roelf Pool (George Brent). She falls in love with and marries Pervus De Jong (Earle Foxe), a Dutch farmer  who dies and she has to look after their son Dirk (Dickie Moore) and farm alone.

The boy grows up to be a ne’er-do-well young man (now played by Hardie Albright) who gives up architecture for stock brokerage and romances an artist Dallas O’Mara (Davis). And the Brent’s Roelf comes back into Stanwyck’s life.

Wellman directs smoothly and delivers a brisk and cursory remake of a 1924 Colleen Moore-starring silent movie, with a screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander and Robert Lord based on Edna Ferber’s 1924 Pulitzer prize-winning epic novel. Stanwyck is just right as the battler against life’s adversities and the support cast deliver loyal turns.

It was remade again by director Robert Wise in 1953 with Jane Wyman, Sterling Hayden and Richard Beymer. The story was also made as a short in 1930, with Helen Jerome Eddy.

It was Davis’s second film for Warner Bros and the first in which she appeared with George Brent, who co-starred with her in 11 more films. Davis said: ‘It was a source of tremendous satisfaction, and encouraged me to unheard-of dreams of glory.’

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2748

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