Today We Live ** (1933, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young, Franchot Tone) – Classic Movie Review 9,757

Director Howard Hawks and co-director Richard Rosson’s 1933 wartime romantic drama Today We Live is a surprisingly low-powered, and now very much dated, movie from MGM studios, considering the high-voltage talent involved.

As Ann Boyce-Smith, Joan Crawford is the cornerstone of a love quartet (Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone and Robert Young are the brave young lieutenants in love with her) played out in World War One England (in 1916), though acting-wise she is struggling with being miscast as an English upper-class gal and with some virtually unspeakable dialogue. It hardly helps the realism of the drama that her hairstyles and clothes, including some striking Adrian gowns, are all Hollywood, 1933.

Cooper and Crawford don’t pair as well together as, say, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, though she gets on better in her scenes with Tone, whom she married in real life. In fact Crawford met Tone on this film, married two years later and divorced in 1939. It is the only film pairing of Crawford and Cooper, borrowed from Paramount apparently at Crawford’s wish.

William Faulkner develops his original story Turnabout, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on 5 March 1932, for the screen, and had a hand in the iffy dialogue for the film, making it the only film version of his work that he co-wrote, in the screenplay written by Edith Fitzgerald and Dwight Taylor. MGM production head Irving Thalberg insisted on using Crawford, and the inclusion of a love interest in the film started a series of re-writes for Faulkner. The preview running time was 135 minutes, so it was much cut to its 113 minutes release.

Director Hawks seems at his most comfy with the battle scenes, and the careful mix of model work and live-action photography makes for convincing aerial sequences for its day, though the film also includes scenes from Hell’s Angels (1930) including the bomber expedition sequence, the main dogfight, and the two planes in head-on collision.

Basically, it was a cynical attempt to use Crawford any which way as she was on contract for $500,000 a year, working or not, suitable or not. But it backfired, and MGM suffered a loss of $23,000 on the film. The budget was $663,000 and the box office $1,035,000.

Also in the cast are Roscoe Karns, Louise Closser Hale, Rollo Lloyd, Hilda Vaughn, Glen Cavender, C Montague Shaw, Ronald R Rondell, David Newell, Bert Moorhouse, Carlyle Moore Jr, Frank Marlowe, Eily Malyon, Murray Kinnell, Edward Cooper, and Ernie Alexander.

Today We Live is directed by Howard Hawks, runs 113 minutes, is made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is distributed by Loew’s Inc, is written by William Faulkner (dialogue), Edith Fitzgerald (screenplay) and Dwight Taylor (screenplay), based on the 1932 Saturday Evening Post story Turnabout by William Faulkner, is shot by Oliver T Marsh and Elmer Dyer (aerial photography), and is produced by Howard Hawks.

Release date: April 14, 1933 (US).

The cast are Joan Crawford as Diana ‘Ann’ Boyce, Gary Cooper as Lieutenant Richard Bogard, Robert Young as Lieutenant Claude Hope, Franchot Tone as Lieutenant Ronnie Boyce-Smith, Roscoe Karns as ‘Mac’ McGinnis, Louise Closser Hale as Applegate, Hilda Vaughn as Eleanor, Eily Malyon as the Maid, Rollo Lloyd, Hilda Vaughn, Glen Cavender, C Montague Shaw, Ronald R Rondell, David Newell, Bert Moorhouse, Carlyle Moore Jr, Frank Marlowe, Murray Kinnell, Edward Cooper, and Ernie Alexander.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,757

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