Mourning Becomes Electra

Eugene O'Neill's trilogy, which adapted and updated Aeschylus' Oresteia for a 19th-century New England setting, was telescoped into this lumbering 1947 film that was wrecked by a stagy production and badly miscast actors. A tale of adultery, betrayal, murder, quasi-incestuous obsession, and madness, Mourning Becomes Electra was clearly not intended as light entertainment, but the excess doom and gloom turned what could have been a harrowing psychological drama into an overblown saga of a severely dysfunctional clan riding manically over an uncommonly troubled family. The film stayed loyal to its theatrical roots by keeping nearly all of the action indoors, but Dudley Nichols' uninspired direction made the movie look like a photographed play, while his inability to reign in the highly theatrical performances left the actors spending much of their time with glaring eyes, snarling lips, clenched fists, and trembling voices. Rosalind Russell, who was never a subtle actress, shamelessly overacts as the jealous, obsessed daughter; at 40 years old, she was conspicuously over-aged for the part (Katina Paxinou, who played Russell's mother, was 47 and the women look more like sisters than parent and child). British actor Michael Redgrave, in a rare American film appearance, puts so much overstated sensitivity in his role as the war-wounded son that he comes across as sissified (his American accent never quite stays in place either). A very young Kirk Douglas turns up in a small role as Russell's happy-go-lucky suitor, but his cheery demeanor seems wildly out of place--it feels like he wandered in from a production of Our Town by mistake. Despite several charitable Oscar nominations and the insistence that this was a prestige production, Mourning Becomes Electra was a major flop in its day--viewed anew, it still feels like one. Not recommended. (P. Hall)