Tonight's Movie: The Human Comedy (1943) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

THE HUMAN COMEDY (1943), one of MGM's most beautiful pieces of '40s Americana, was recently released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection.

William Saroyan won the Best Original Story Oscar for this "slice of life" tale about a small California town. The movie was nominated for four other Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a well-deserved Best Oscar nomination for Mickey Rooney.

Howard Estabrook and the uncredited Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay based on Saroyan's story; Saroyan fleshed out his story into a novel which was published around the same time the movie came out.

The book was part of my 9th grade curriculum here in California, and I was sorry when schools later dropped the optimistic tale in favor of a number of darker books. Although it wasn't part of the homeschooling curriculum I used with my own children, I omitted one of the books they were scheduled to read and gave them THE HUMAN COMEDY to read instead. The copy on our bookshelf looks like this one.

In the film version Rooney plays Homer Macauley, a high schooler who takes a part-time job delivering telegrams after his brother Marcus (Van Johnson) goes to serve in the war.

Homer's father (Ray Collins) has passed away, and Homer is helping to support his mother (Fay Bainter), sister Bess (Donna Reed), and little brother Ulysses (Jackie Jenkins).

Over the course of the movie's 117 minutes we also get to know Marcus's sweetheart Mary (Dorothy Morris), who lives next door; Homer's boss Tom (James Craig) and the telegraph operator (Frank Morgan); Tom's fiancee Diana (Marsha Hunt) and her parents (Katharine Alexander and Henry O'Neill); Ulysses' neighborhood friend Lionel (Darryl Hickman); and a trio of soldiers in town on leave (Barry Nelson, Don DeFore, and Robert Mitchum).

The movie, sensitively directed by Clarence Brown, is about everything and nothing; one of my favorite sequences finds Lionel and Ulysses simply wandering a library in wonder. The closest film I can compare it to is Powell and Pressburger's wartime paean to England, A CANTERBURY TALE (1944), which came out in the UK a year after THE HUMAN COMEDY debuted in the United States.

There are those -- probably the same types who struggle to enjoy RANDOM HARVEST (1942) -- who find THE HUMAN COMEDY too sentimental or too positive about our country, but don't count me among them. It's a moving story about a highly functional family, despite having difficulties to bear, and in depicting this family and their town the film also shows what was -- is -- fine about our country and why our nation was fighting. And no one did this type of film better than MGM.

It particularly must be said that this was Rooney's finest hour, in an understated, perfect performance as young Homer. Delivering telegrams forces Homer to grow up quickly, given that they often contained bad news during the war years.  Rooney plays the role in a quiet way which never hits mawkishness despite the situations in which Homer finds himself.

The entire cast is excellent. In addition to those mentioned above, the supporting cast includes John Craven, Mary Nash, Ann Ayars, Adeline De Walt Reynolds, Morris Ankrum, Alan Baxter, Frank Jenks, Clem Bevans, and Rita Quigley.

The movie was filmed in black and white by Harry Stradling (Sr.).

The Blu-ray print is from a 1080p HD master from a 4K scan of the "best preservation elements" available. Both the Blu-ray print and sound quality are excellent.

Disc extras consist of the trailer; an 11-minute Passing Parade short, DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT (1943); the cartoon BLITZ WOLF (1942); and two radio productions, a 1943 Screen Guild Theater broadcast with Rooney and MOrgan and a 1949 Screen Director's Playhouse broadcast with Rooney, Francis X. Bushman, and director Clarence Brown.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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