"The Male Animal" is an enjoyable film about a Midwest college town and the faculty and alumni. It's a comedy-romance that's built around a theme of freedom of speech. Henry Fonda plays Professor Tommy Turner who creates a brouhaha by selecting a letter by Bartolomeo Vanzetti to read in his English class. Vanzetti was one of two convicted criminal anarchists who was executed in 1927 for the murder of a guard during a robbery. The case would have been remembered yet by people in the 1940s, but by few today. I had to look it up to see if it was fiction or real. I read a great deal more about it, because it was very interesting. Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco were associated with a gang that planted bombs and disrupted industry in the U.S. in the 1910s. But, because they were Italian immigrants, there was a lot of sentiment that they were unjustly tried. It became such an international incident that large throngs of people held protest riots around the globe. Huge damage was done in Paris, London and other cities. So, in these years well after that time, James Thurber and Elliott Nugent included a letter written by Vanzetti while in prison, that protested his innocence, as part of a play they wrote, "The Male Animal." It became a major Broadway hit in 1939, and that led to Warner Brothers getting the movie rights. Anyone watching this movie without the background knowledge would rightly think Tommy's choice was lame of this letter to read as an example in his English course. But, because of the civil unrest associated with the Vanzetti case, Thurber and Elliott might have thought that would register in the minds of the audience as a reason for the subsequent student protest in the play and movie. Well, that was just the premise that the rest of the story is built around. The freedom of speech aspect itself was pretty lame. I suspect that the comedy went over much more on stage than it does in this film. The script is not overly witty or funny. A few of the situations are funny, but the humor is provided most often by other characters in the film. Olivia de Havilland is quite good as the doting wife of the professor, Helen Turner, who's bent on his moving up in the college leadership. And, this is another film when Jack Carson shines in his supporting role, here as Joe Ferguson. As the former star of the Midwestern University's football team, Carson is very funny. To the writer's credit, he isn't made out to be an oaf. He's an alum and dedicated sports fan around whom the college benefactors can be expected to rally to continue their support for the school. The film becomes consumed with Tommy's fear that Helen may still love Joe.Other supporting members of the cast do credible jobs in their roles. But, overall this film is just so-so. And that may be more because of Hank Fonda than anyone else. Fonda was a very good actor, who didn't do comedy very well. He couldn't hold a candle in comedy to Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Fred MacMuray, William Powell or half a dozen other top actors. Fond had few comedies to his credit, but for every one that was a success, there were two that weren't. And, the successes were due more to his co-stars than to Fonda. He was best in dramatic roles. He made some nice mysteries as well, and also did very well in Westerns. But comedy was not his forte. "The Male Animal" is a film that many would enjoy on a weekend afternoon. But it's not a movie to add to a film library.

There are some actors and actresses who can seamlessly cross film genres, and then there are some who don't. While I have not seen a lot of comedies starring Olivia de Havilland, I do know that from what I have seen, despite the occasional moments of inspiration (her turn as a young, star struck debutante in "It's Love I'm After" was particularly charming) she really does her best work in melodramas. Unfortunately, in Elliott Nugent's 1942 film "The Male Animal", de Havilland proves that her successful comedic turns are most certainly an exception and not the rule."The Male Animal" focuses on Tommy Turner, (Fonda) an English professor at Midwestern College in Michigan. His effervescent wife Ellen (de Havilland) is both celebrating her birthday and planning a dinner party the eve of the small college town's biggest football game of the year. Tommy, a fairly serious academic, is vexed when he finds out that one of their weekend guests will be Joe Ferguson, the former captain of the football team and all-around campus hero. Joe and Ellen have a romantic history together (she was head cheerleader to his football hero), an element that is further complicated when he finds out that Joe is recently separated from his wife. A subplot involving Ellen's younger sister Patricia and her two beaus mirror Ellen's situation; boyfriend #1, Wally, is the current football star and boyfriend #2, Michael, is a scholar. The two plots collide when Michael writes an editorial for the school paper hailing Tommy's decision to read a letter written by Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco-Vanzetti fame) in his class the following Monday. Tommy soon becomes a target for the school's trustees and his job situation becomes unstable while he decides whether he is going to succumb to the trustees and not read the letter, or exercise his academic and personal rights. Between his job situation and his fear of losing his wife, Tommy ends up having an unprecedented weekend.Like the plot itself, "The Male Animal" is conflicted in the kind of movie it wants to be. On one hand, it is a goofy physical comedy wrought with misunderstandings worthy of Shakespeare (or Three's Company), yet it throws in a fairly compelling subplot concerning the freedom of speech element that is great on its merits, but coupled with the silliness around it, it doesn't quite fit. Fonda is a great, laid-back actor who doesn't look lost with comedy, and while my first impression is that he looked a little lost and befuddled during the high hilarity, I can safely attribute that to the character that he played. de Havilland, on the other hand, is charming for a total of 15 minutes of her screen time and spends the rest of the film being shrill and acting helpless. It is films like this that remind me of her comedic limitations; actresses such as Bette Davis or Myrna Loy are able to slide effortlessly between the comedic and dramatic genres I think, because they have a wryness about that. Davis is able to deliver a comedic line with a whip smart raise of an eyebrow and Loy has the aplomb and class to deliver a line with typical dry humor. de Havilland, at least in my experience, doesn't always possess these gifts, and therefore failed in this film. Jack Carson played the same kind of role here as he did in "Mildred Pierce" or "Arsenic and Old Lace"; he is predictable, but his predictability works."The Male Animal" is billed as a comedy/romance, and there is indeed some comedy and some romance. Unfortunately, by throwing in a heavy subplot involving something as important (and, admittedly, refreshing) as freedom of speech, particularly when it involves a convicted anarchist, it both waters down the romantic comedy aspects and lessens the effectiveness of the statement it is trying to make about personal and academic freedoms. If the film had either handled these conflicting themes better, or gave up on one or the other entirely, the film may have been more enjoyable, but as it was presented, and despite the fact that it featured a couple of actors I really enjoy, I can only give "The Male Animal" a 5/10.--Shelly

Henry Fonda is our intellectual, idealistic professor at Midwestern University. He is married to a woman much younger than him played by Olivia de Havilland. Fonda is going to read a letter as an example in his English class to give an example of great speeches written by illiterate people. The problem is, the man was condemned as an anarchist and traitor and sentenced to death. This gets the trustees of the University bent out of shape and try to stop him. His wife, an ex-cheerleader is being romanced by this ex-football QB played by Jack Carson. They once dated and he feels less of a man around him. The trouble in his professional and domestic life propel this comic satire. This film is based on the play by Elliot Nugent who also directs. Obviously, this movie is taking on current issues of the day to which I am unfamiliar but eager to research. It is so current that it can be applied to today's environment and politics; people who are fearful and criticize things they haven't heard or seen as the letter Fonda intends to read; nobody knows the contents. The pressure to conform and governments who censor political opinion that is dissenting or alternative, school bodies who train our students to focus on the material issues over the immaterial ones. For, the Chancellor is only interested in the winning football team they have and he feels that has ensured his greatness and reputation making him a man to be reckoned with. But other things make a man and Fonda who probably has delivered the best monologues in movies in such movies as The Grapes of Wrath, 12 Angry men, Ox-bow incident, Mister Roberts and Fail-safe delivers another one here that makes the movie. Study this movie for its take today on the follies of censorship.

The parallels of the Fonda-DeHavilland-Carson triangle with the younger Anderson-Leslie-DeFore triangle are played against each other to good advantage in this well-scripted and well-acted farce. DeHavilland is at her best, never losing her poise, and De Fore's scenes are hilarious. This is a movie to be enjoyed, not analyzed.