High, Wide and Handsome

In Brief: The AFS tried to run this last year, but the weather was against it. Maybe there'll be better luck this time. ... Rouben Mamoulian did his most important work at Paramount, but he left the studio in 1933. In 1937, he came back for one more film: the little-seen and mostly forgotten High, Wide and Handsome. The film was an obvious attempt — with its period setting, its Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II songs and star Irene Dunne — to be the next Show Boat, which had been a hit for James Whale at Universal the year before. Although it formed the bridge between Show Boat and the Broadway production of Oklahoma! (which Hammerstein wrote and Mamoulian directed), High, Wide and Handsome was only a middling box office success. Theories abound as to why it didn't click (the lack of a singing male lead or the fact that it had no songs to equal "Make Believe," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and, especially, "Ol' Man River"). My own belief is that it mostly had to do with the fact that Mamoulian was using techniques that had fallen out of favor — long, slow dissolves; optical wipes; and a blend of naturalism and intense stylization. And that seemed odd in 1937. These things are less of a problem now because we're looking at it more as an "old movie" in general terms and aren't thrown by it being out of step with 1937 movies. In any case, High, Wide and Handsome is a fine film, beautiful to look at, stylish and very entertaining. It gets better every time I see it, too.