In honor of the sudden John Ford deluge at the DVD-o-teque nearest you, I'd like to suggest that Edna May Oliver, the stoically ornery widow of Ford's DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939), be consulted as a figure which could conceivably re-unite the red and blue states. Kindly but fiercely independent and "kooky" - Oliver could conceivably get along in anything from a Disney comedy to a bloody Civil War treatise. A true daughter of the revolution, descended from John Quincy Adams (according to our beloved Wikipedia), Oliver is lampooned in a Miles Standish-meets-Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw ad nauseum back in the TV day, but to see her in the flesh in the newly restored and released on DVD for the first time MOHAWK is to feel like a knight errant from our sickly kingdom, sent back into the past on some umbilical worm-hole pipeline to find the Holy Grail. Too strong a metaphor for the plucky stoicisms of Oliver, you say? Not a whit of it! Her character even believably bosses around the very Native Americans who are burning down her cabin in one very drunken scene.
In an age when images of images pile up like dogma-do so fast we have to keep shovels in both hands just to avoid Britney Lynn Spears, we need more than ever to go back to these lost icons, these un-tarnished original images, and see what's to be seen. We need to be like children rummaging through the basement of Big Daddy in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF or CITIZEN KANE, looking for the one "rosebud" that hasn't been photoshopped into complete sterility. Ladies of the jury, I propose Edna May Oliver is that very rosebud!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Edna May Oliver, Heal this Nation!
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5 comments:
Thank you, Erich! If, like me, you just can't get enough EMO in your diet, check out A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield. She also shows up in Fred & Ginger's RKO swan song, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, but a criminally underwritten part gives her no chance to spread her wings.
I couldn't agree more. Just thinking about Edna May Oliver brings a feeling of delight. We need her pluck and style and shotgun! She would rule this tragic world wisely, no doubt. Very few stars give the particular frisson she offers effortlessly. Well, two come to mind: Una O'Connor and Martita Hunt.
Edna May's presence instantly makes any film a potential classic, or at least watch-worthy. Her most immortal role of her many immortal ones is as Aunt Betsy Trotwood in Cukor's David Copperfield. Hilarious and heartbreaking almost at the same time!
...And her Aunt March in Little Women... and Lady Catherine de Burgh in Pride and Prejudice....! Ah, Edna May, come back, all is forgiven.
And if one has never seen her as Hildegarde Withers, find one of her three entries in that series, posthaste. Even the likes of Helen Broderick, ZaSu Pitts, and Eve Arden (!) couldn't replace her.
Cool, thanks for the leads. I used to avoid "classic" adaptations like the plague, as they reminded me too much of high school and the dusty, wholesome status quo. Funny and ironic how times have changed and raising the old standards now in the reality TV age seems suddenly subversive!
My goodness what do you think of that kiss she had with guy named "Adam" in ''Drumms along the mohalk''? Thats passion if i have ever seen it, wow, it lasted for like a minute, the guy was pretty hot too!
you go edna!
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